Hospital Food

JoNorvelleWalker · January 25, 2023

13 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

How is the food today, @JoNorvelleWalker? And how are you doing?

Waiting for French onion soup; grilled roasted vegetables on foccacia with sliced mozzarella and pesto. I may get to come home tomorrow.

Katie Meadow · January 25, 2023

20 hours ago, Shelby said:

Green jello UGH. Only matched by yellow jello. Come on at least do red or orange!

My husband is the only person I know who is fine with fake lime flavor. Green lifesavers, probably jello, although jello isn't something we ever buy. He would happily eat green jello on a plane or in a hospital. I think he sees these things as "free," which of course is absurd.

Katie Meadow · January 25, 2023

2 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Waiting for French onion soup; grilled roasted vegetables on foccacia with sliced mozzarella and pesto. I may get to come home tomorrow.

Thumbs up, fingers crossed!

Anna N · February 25, 2023

After almost a week in the hospital (best diet plan on the planet) I couldn't wait to share this latest innovative salad with you.

Take some iceberg lettuce and tear it up. Leave it to brown for a little while. Add in one or two carrot shreds so you can call it a salad and dress it with Heinz white vinegar and some Mrs. Dash. I am not joking. To add to the insult it is served in a tiny bowl so that once you even approach it with your fork, it ends up all over the place.

I swear the food is worse and worse. I had to spit out my first bite of a salmon salad sandwich because I swear the salmon died of old age a week ago. Why does it have to be this way? At least this time I was not served plastic containers of water imported from a couple of provinces to my west!

**Shelby** · February 25, 2023

5 minutes ago, Anna N said:

After almost a week in the hospital (best diet plan on the planet) I couldn't wait to share this latest innovative salad with you.

Take some iceberg lettuce and tear it up. Leave it to brown for a little while. Add in one or two carrot shreds so you can call it a salad and dress it with Heinz white vinegar and some Mrs. Dash. I am not joking. To add to the insult it is served in a tiny bowl so that once you even approach it with your fork, it ends up all over the place.

I swear the food is worse and worse. I had to spit out my first bite of a salmon salad sandwich because I swear the salmon died of old age a week ago. Why does it have to be this way? At least this time I was not served plastic containers of water imported from a couple of provinces to my west!

Anna! My heart sunk when I saw that you posted on this thread. I hope you're getting sprung out of there soon!!!!!!

That food sounds absolutely disgusting. Can you do any kind of delivery service or are they restricting you from that?

SusieQ · February 25, 2023

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

After almost a week in the hospital (best diet plan on the planet) I couldn't wait to share this latest innovative salad with you.

Take some iceberg lettuce and tear it up. Leave it to brown for a little while. Add in one or two carrot shreds so you can call it a salad and dress it with Heinz white vinegar and some Mrs. Dash. I am not joking. To add to the insult it is served in a tiny bowl so that once you even approach it with your fork, it ends up all over the place.

I swear the food is worse and worse. I had to spit out my first bite of a salmon salad sandwich because I swear the salmon died of old age a week ago. Why does it have to be this way? At least this time I was not served plastic containers of water imported from a couple of provinces to my west!

That sounds awful. I'm so sorry you're in the hospital again.

Anna N · February 25, 2023

17 minutes ago, SusieQ said:

That sounds awful. I'm so sorry you're in the hospital again.

I should have been more clear. I apologize. I'm home now thank God.

Anna N · February 25, 2023

20 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Anna! My heart sunk when I saw that you posted on this thread. I hope you're getting sprung out of there soon!!!!!!

That food sounds absolutely disgusting. Can you do any kind of delivery service or are they restricting you from that?

Normally I am kept to live by friends and occasionally family bringing in food but we had a bit of a issue with the weather as well as a misunderstanding and of course people do work and have families of their own to worry about. @Kerry Bealwas prepared to mount a rescue mission today had I not come home. No way would she let me starve!

**Shelby** · February 25, 2023

1 minute ago, Anna N said:

Normally I am kept to live by friends and occasionally family bringing in food but we had a bit of a issue with the weather as well as a misunderstanding and of course people do work and have families of their own to worry about. @Kerry Bealwas prepared to mount a rescue mission today had I not come home. No way would she let me starve!

Oh I'm SO glad you're home!

heidih · February 25, 2023

What Anna N experienced is so maddening and in its own way terrifying. OMG the tired iceberg with harsh vinegar and Mrs Dash. Are we in the 70's. Anna knows how to cook so she can do what needs to be done with flavor. The doctors and "regicstered dieticians" should have a required course on real cooking, Otherwise their post discharge patients just say "screw it" and go back to possibly non healthy mode. A pet peeve of mine. They did it to my dad in hospital with CHF. He eats like a saint - no processed foods added salt, lots of fiber fruits and vegetables. But because you present with a particuar condition they default to "you brought this on yourself - here is your list of restrictions". Not productive.

JoNorvelleWalker · February 25, 2023

4 hours ago, Anna N said:

After almost a week in the hospital (best diet plan on the planet) I couldn't wait to share this latest innovative salad with you.

Take some iceberg lettuce and tear it up. Leave it to brown for a little while. Add in one or two carrot shreds so you can call it a salad and dress it with Heinz white vinegar and some Mrs. Dash. I am not joking. To add to the insult it is served in a tiny bowl so that once you even approach it with your fork, it ends up all over the place.

I swear the food is worse and worse. I had to spit out my first bite of a salmon salad sandwich because I swear the salmon died of old age a week ago. Why does it have to be this way? At least this time I was not served plastic containers of water imported from a couple of provinces to my west!

While was enjoying hospital cuisine most recently, Mrs. Dash was offered as an optional condiment. What is it?

blue_dolphin · February 25, 2023

6 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

While was enjoying hospital cuisine most recently, Mrs. Dash was offered as an optional condiment. What is it?

Mrs. Dash makes a range of salt-free condiments. If not specified, I'd expect the original bland <- that was a typo but appropriate in this context.

SusieQ · February 25, 2023

38 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Mrs. Dash makes a range of salt-free condiments. If not specified, I'd expect the original bland <- that was a typo but appropriate in this context.

Thanks for the laugh just now. I needed it!

Maison Rustique · February 25, 2023

I don't know how I managed to miss this thread before, but having spent the better part of a week in the hospital recently, I can certainly appreciate it. Thankfully, I was so sick most of the time I was there, that I wasn't even tempted to try what was put before me. The Gall Bladder Gone Bad is not a diet I recommend, though it does shed the pounds.

**Shelby** · February 25, 2023

2 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

I don't know how I managed to miss this thread before, but having spent the better part of a week in the hospital recently, I can certainly appreciate it. Thankfully, I was so sick most of the time I was there, that I wasn't even tempted to try what was put before me. The Gall Bladder Gone Bad is not a diet I recommend, though it does shed the pounds.

I'm so sorry! I'm glad you're home!

Tropicalsenior · February 25, 2023

29 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

The Gall Bladder Gone Bad

Ouch! I went through that 40 years ago and it's just as well you don't remember. I was in the hospital 10 days and for most of that, the only nourishment that I got was through a tube.

kayb · February 25, 2023

Glad both of you are home!

DianaB · February 26, 2023

On 2/25/2023 at 1:08 AM, Anna N said:

Normally I am kept to live by friends and occasionally family bringing in food but we had a bit of a issue with the weather as well as a misunderstanding and of course people do work and have families of their own to worry about. @Kerry Bealwas prepared to mount a rescue mission today had I not come home. No way would she let me starve!

So glad that you are home!
It seems that Canadian hospital food is similar to that in England. In recent years I have needed 2 brief hospital stays and after the first day I resigned myself to these stays having weight loss as a secondary benefit. Room temperature water was available on demand. I would have been happy with a decent coffee to start the day but that wasn’t an option, a concoction based on a powder was the offering. The bread was probably stolen from a museum exhibit somewhere and I don’t eat cornflakes so breakfast was just the water.

For lunch we were offered options, day 1 I was down for surgery so no food for me. I was horrified to observe my fellow inmates receiving their meals one by one, served in a plastic tray and with plastic cutlery. Each dish was microwave heated in turn. Don’t recall what the meals were supposed to be but they all had the same smell. Dinner was similar. Cups of brown liquid known as tea or coffee were served mid afternoon.
My total food consumption across the two stays was a pot of yoghurt. Thankfully husband had stocked up on tasty treats for when I was released, also my neighbour baked me enough cakes to fill a patisserie counter.
Of course we are hugely fortunate in having health care free at the point of delivery. That said I am certain that a properly motivated manager could transform the catering without increasing the budget.

Margaret Pilgrim · February 27, 2023

It occurs to me that a good proportion of hospital patients might have no dietary restrictions, other than balanced nutrition. Eg, ortho, maternity, contagion. These patients should not be punished or marginalized by lowest denominator menus. Further, when i Google "dietitian" and our famous med schools, there is not the slightest nod to taste mentioned. Confounding, since the best way to instill good eating habits is by offering people good tasting food.

I have previously touted the open menu kitchen at SF CalPac hospital where you can order anything you want that is not proscribed by your diagnosis. And the cooking is good, using fresh ingredients and enhancing herbs and seasonings. Good nutrition should not be a punishment. Our institutions need to rethink their emphases to include providing palate pleasure as well as intrinsic food value.

Elkyfr · February 27, 2023

Breakfast in hospital... a little sugar.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Elkyfr (log)

**ElsieD** · February 27, 2023

4 hours ago, Elkyfr said:

Breakfast in hospital... a little sugar.

Good grief. In what country is this?

Elkyfr · February 28, 2023

50 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Good grief. In what country is this?

Spain, it is breakfast for a child.

DianaB · February 28, 2023

10 hours ago, Elkyfr said:

Spain, it is breakfast for a child.

Very sorry for the poor child! Hope parents are permitted to supplement the hospital provisions.

liuzhou · February 28, 2023

Towards the end of last year, as some of you may remember, I was hospitalised twice and documented my food here. A lot of it was OK.

One of the suggestions from the quacks was that my ailment was caused by my poor nutrition! Clearly, as a foreigner I have no idea how to eat. One particularly nasty doctor claimed I didn't eat enough protein.

Yet, at no time, not even once, never, did anyone ask me what I do eat. I mainly eat the same as they do. Except, I probably eat more protein than they do! Chinese cuisine is generally lower on protein; higher on vegetables and rice.

It is possible that they could monitor what I ordered from the hospital canteen (but I doubt they did) and that I ordered something doesn't mean I ate it. I almost always did - once or twice I looked at it and told myself not to put that in my mouth!

I did get one visit in the weeks I was there from a nutritionist who spent her entire time with me trying to sell me some expensive protein food supplement, again without asking anything about my diet. She failed.

I don't know about the situation where others are, but here, despite the Chinese being obsessed by food, medical schools apparently don't subscribe!

Edited February 28, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

Kerala · February 28, 2023

On 2/26/2023 at 3:00 PM, DianaB said:

Of course we are hugely fortunate in having health care free at the point of delivery. That said I am certain that a properly motivated manager could transform the catering without increasing the budget.

Forty years ago when I worked as an auxiliary the patient food was good enough that staff would eat any extra orders. It wasn't great, but it was at least as good as I ate at my English friends' houses.

Our poor NHS has been stripped to the bone. There is neither the money nor the interest to provide palatable food for patients.

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