Hospital Food Observations

[Polarprincess]

i just had to make one more comment about the greasy fatty foods etc being served instead of healthy ones which of course doesnt seem to make sense in a hospital setting, but i do know the likely reason for this which i learned from the dietitians when i was doing my internship. the fact is for most of the population that is what they like to eat thus the reason for todays obesity. not for bowel surgeries of course, but the average hospital stay in the united states is 2-3 days, and the average hospital patient has no appetite. in that time the nutiritonist has to come up with a problem, goal, and approach for the patient, and when the stay is 3 days the approach has to be what you will do for them right here and now in this 3 days to get enough protein, calories, and other nutrition into their bodies for healing, and usually for a patient that has little appetite, that is in the form of whatever they will eat whether it be a fatty hamburger or grilled cheese sandwich etc..because fatty food is better than no food. foods with fiber like a banana are not that friendly to a gut after a surgery, or as easy to digest as a pudding would be. the pudding also has more calories in it than the banana. now if a person is going to go to swingbed and will be there for weeks, then we will plan our goals into choosing more healthy foods and transitioning to things like salads etc once the body can handle it.

one thing that does happen often though is misconception- like i mentioned in my earlier post is that people think gravy is full of fat. packages gravies have little to none, and even when we make our own at work, we cool the broth and scrape the fat off the top so even that is fat free. we serve an awesome low sodium spaghetti, and the cardiac patients will call asking how we can serve them this entree so full of sodium, and they are shocked when we tell them it actually only has 25 mg. same with our apple pie, it has 3 gm of fat and our whipped topping is fat free, so we serve it to the low fats and they thing we are doing them wrong. we have to serve 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but we always fit one dessert into each day that is not a fruit or fruit sauce. we get in a fantastic low sodium low fat cheese as well so the special diets can have pizza and mac and cheese etc, and that is another thing we get questioned on but only by a small percentage of patients and nurses... sometimes yu just have to trust that they are doing the right thing, or call and ask to speak with the dietitian/cook/ or manager and you may be surprised at what you find out.

[Polarprincess]

[hannahw]

Packaged gravy may have little fat, but other than calories, what does it offer in the way of nutrition? Gravy can definitely help someone with a swallowing difficulty be safe with their swallowing by adding moisture so that the food isn't dry and chocking prone, but wouldn't it be better to simply not serve nasty, dry meat? If gravy provides a mechanical advantage to a hospital patient with a specific need, totally understandable. But if it's just to cover inedible meat, gross. Banana pudding may be easier to swallow than a regular banana, but what if you want, and can digest, a regular banana or some other fruit? I don't think there's anything wrong with having comfort foods around the hospital, and of course they need to offer options for people with swallowing difficulties or who need low residual options, but when all of this comes at the exclusion of food options that are healthy and tasty, I think that's a problem.

To me, using "most people eat junk" as an excuse to serve junk sounds a lot like the excuses public schools use to justify the food they feed children. Obesity and it's complications now effect school age children in record numbers. On the rare occasion a school tries to provide healthy option, and particularly if all they provide is healthy options, kids actually flock to those healthy options and enjoy them. It's my impression that most of the reason junk is offered is because it's cheaper, easier and requires less planning. Basically, junk is in schools due to simple laziness and lack of problem solving. There are ways to make food more healthy and more tasty without losing your audience, whether it's school kids or hospital patients.

If you're in the hospital and you want the junk, it's likely going to be there. But if you're in the hospital and want something healthy, why is it not even an option at many hospitals?

Personally, I don't really believe the justification that junk is what people want because hospital food isn't even good, tasty junk. It's just blech. There's a Fat Burger down the road from our hospital. If my Dad really wanted junk, if it was the only thing he'd consume, I wouldn't want him eating a nasty hospital hamburger, I'd go get him the Fat Burger. It's not just that it's junk food, it's that it's tasteless and disgusting. Who needs that when you already feel like crap?

And, since our hospital switched to a more organic menu that features far more healthy options, the satisfaction scores for dietary services have gone way up. The main key, aside from providing healthy, tasty choices, is providing options. If you want ice cream for breakfast, go for it. But if you don't want ice cream and you don't want the plate that could bring you back to the cardiac care unit and you do have the ability to swallow and digest, shouldn't you be able to get something that offers some form of nutrition and taste?

[helen098]

when you don't eat for a week or so even the hospital soup wll taste good.
who ever decided to give you for your first meal post colon resection meat loaf.
if it was the best meatloaf in the world prepared by the best i would hate it
but hospital meatloaf super yuck
during my hospitalization for dehydration the second day they gave me sloppy joes and corn..
why would you do that to someone who oculd not stop pooping
seems like a violation of some kind of internation law about cruel and unusually punishment

[Polarprincess]

well i dont know what you want me to say. obviously the food standards at all the hospitals by where i live are different than the ones you go to, because none around here serve dry tasteless food, and is unheard of to not be able to get fruit if you want fruit, at our facility we will even run to the grocery store to get it if we dont have it, as long as it is allowed on your diet. the facility i was talking about 25 miles away is 100% room service based, and as i mentioned all food prepared by a specially trained chef. i have tasted the food there both as a patient and a student and if anyone has any complaints about that food, i just dont get it because it is well seasoned, moist, and always hot, and served attractively. with trayline service instead of room service it definitely can affect quality as well because it often will sit for quite a while before it gets to the patient. say you start trayline at 11:30 and there are 28 slots in a typical cart, and you figure approx 15 minutes to fill that cart, then another 5 minutes or so for delivery, and then each tray has to come out of that cart and delivered to the patients, so if you are number 28, you can imagine how long that food has now sat. that is one of the biggest challenges for hospitals that still have that kind of food service delivery. that is why most have gone to room service. why a hospital wouldnt have a selection of healthy foods is beyond me. as far as fresh fruit they should at least be able to offer apples and oranges. we struggle with bananas turning brown very quickly before the next truck comes, and fruit out of season is very expensive so we dont offer alot in the fall and winter but we always have something available. i really think you should go ahead and ask to talk to the diet tech or dietitian or dietary manager, and see what they can do for you. most of them will go out of their way to make you happy from my experiences. the nurses however typically wont when it comes to food service.

[cptmac]

I do want to state, since I started the junk food issue, was that my blood work was good, except I wasn't eating enough fat. Initially the doctors wanted to inject the fat into me, but the nurses chimed in. "Don't inject her with fat, let her have some fun. Give her some butter, get her a cake". The nurses ordered my up chocolate cake, my favorite, ASAP.

But I don't normally eat a lot of junk food, so my case was different from others. Other people got fruit, and I desperately wanted fruit, veggies and salad.

The oncology nutritionist even stated that we normally don't recommend this diet, but I'm obviously getting plenty of the healthy food. I needed the nutrients in the unhealthy food. Saying something to the effect that when you eat more protein or meat that you need to eat more fat to help digest it or something like that.

I asked my docs if they were worried about my cholesterol, they told me they would worry about that once that got to be a problem. They said that I should first get rid of my cancer.

And, so far I'm still NED, so I think I ate the right diet for me.

[Bev G]

I've been hospitalized either 13 or 14 times since last December so all of the food issues are blurred together. However, some of the highlights of the atrocious food service at the hospital I go to:

When I went in for my first hospitalization (colon resection) about 3 days post-op, I asked for my own dietitian consult. I was asking her stuff about what best to change in my diet now that I had cancer, and had high cholesterol, and type 1 diabetes (trying to be proactive ) This woman actually said "why are you worrying about you cholesterol when you have stage IV cancer?" I didn't even know for sure at that point I was stage IV, and her answer just shocked the sh*t out of me. I felt like I was on the "gravy train" to my own funeral.

During one of my stays all I wanted was a banana. I called the "desk" about 4 times asking if there was anyway I could get a banana, pleeeease? This was at a time where I couldn't eat anything, so nauseated, and NOTHING sounded good. They finally said no, there weren't any in this 800 bed hospital. My nurse's aid had heard several of these requested and brought me her banana from her lunch bag, little angel that she was. I felt terrible taking it, but wanted one so bad I got over it---BEST banana I've ever had.

I finally realized the only thing I could count on not making me totally sick just looking at it on the try was grilled cheese--so during several of the stays, that's all I asked for, grilled cheese. Healthy? Not so much...better than NO calories...absolutely!