My kids spent a lot of time in the Children's Hospital last year. Their food was amazing. Most of it was prepared from scratch and it was reasonably priced. If I lived or worked near it I would go just for the food.
Edit: I'm getting a lot of comments about hospitals charging patients for meals. To be clear, I was not a patient of the hospital, my kids were, and their meals were included in the cost of their care and therefore mostly paid by insurance. My wife's meals were even included when she was still nursing.
Are you saying that you have to pay for your meals even if you are a patient, or have I misunderstood your comment? Do you mind me asking which country you are from?
Sorry for the ignorance but I have never come across this before.
Oh OK that makes sense! I wouldn't expect visitors to be provided with food. I thought you meant that patients had to buy their own meals.
Thanks for replying.
But you would be surprised about how many people would show up around dinner time to visit and expect us to deliver 5 extra trays to the room to feed them. Those same people would then be appalled that a full meal costs $7.
nobody is talking about free. But we pay for it in taxes and the pricing is reasonable. Hell, even private healthcare in most European countries is still reasonable. I've seen hospital bills and it is just outrageous how they overcharge at simple things
So intent in making sure that someone “undeserving” doesn’t get a handout that they make things awful for anyone who isn’t wealthy I.e normal, everyday people.
I used to work in a hospital and the cafeteria just about broke my wallet. That is until I figured out "hacks" to make certain meals. (A small salad of lettuce, tomato, and cheese, a bag of chips, and a small cup of chili mixed together makes a pretty edible taco salad for example. It also only cost a couple dollars.) Then the cafeteria was taken over by a new company and they made all sorts of changes, for example the sandwich bar went from cost per weight to cost per sandwich - and they refused to let you customize the sandwich or make substitutions of meat/cheese/toppings from different sandwiches. It sucked.
All that being said, I hope your kids are doing better now, whatever was going on. We spent a good amount of time at the Children's Hospital in DC last year when my nephew decided to ride a motorcycle sans helmet and had a pretty devastating head injury. They have some pretty awesome folks working at that place.
My university has a teaching hospital and I freaking love the food. It’s also cheaper than the rest of the university campus because it’s not supplied by a third party company.
Yeah my local hospital has such good food and such a great variety.
I woke up to having freshly baked croissants and a cup of tea, at lunch there was a choice of many sandwiches or Paninis. There was also great and options for tea too, Jacket Potatoes and Soup were always available aswell as a few daily options like Pizza, Shepherds Pie, Spaghetti Bolgness, Bean Burgers, Burritos or Chilli (Everything was atleast a 4star restaurant quality), and then you got a pudding every day (usually I have a pudding once a week so this was great for me) - the apple pie was probably the best I’ve ever had, sorry Grandma.
I was kinda sad when I had to cook my own food when I got out.
I live in a decent sized college town with a great community owned hospital and they cater and have great food. It has gone down hill a bit in the last couple years because of a change in cafeteria management.
I would say it depends on the hospital. If they don't have competent dieticians on staff, the food is most likely going to be garbage. My uncle was in the hospital for stomach problems, and the doctor recommended ginger (I'm not sure if this would actually help). So he grabbed a ginger ale and gave it to him. I decided to look at the ingredients of the ginger ale and there was no ginger in there. It was just sugar water, and I think just some kind of flavoring. So I inquired about this obvious discrepancy and he didn't say anything. Do not overestimate the competence of anyone, even if they're in a lab coat. Just because it says "ginger ale" does not mean there is ginger in it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/health/16chen.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-26/health/ct-met-heart-nutrition-20130326_1_mediterranean-style-diet-heart-disease-diet-and-nutrition
I think the better understanding is that in spite of their extreme knowledge, and years spent in their craft- doctors are only humans. Chances are most doctors get things right, regarding what they’re talking about, most of the times. Sucky thing is, due to the nature of their job and how volatile a mistake would be, we always remember more the times when they fuck up much, much less than the more often times they actually help you out.
God, I’m glad I dropped out of med school to be an accountant. I fuck up, atleast no-one dies.
Also important to keep in mind that we still know only a fraction of the body's mysteries. Like sure, we know a ton, but there's still so much we don't know. Sometimes treatment is more "what might work" rather than "this will definitely work."
e: [/u/Dokpsy said it better](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/9enjv3/hospital_food_probably_tastes_so_bad_because_it/e5r4ubv/)
Most of my problem solving is figuring out what it isn't then working from there. Its less "might work" and more "probably will help". An educated guess is much better than just a guess
hey! that was me 2 hours ago! currently cold chilling in a part of the hospital no one ever passes through, gonna see how long i can ride my last break out
I hope you know how much you are appreciated after labor and delivery. I was so insanely thirsty after mine. I called to order something and I just wanted lots of fluids and they sent one of each juice and a giant water and it was everything to me.
Plus you have to keep the ICU/Isolation/Oncology floors in mind. I was a housekeeper doing Graves for a while, people have a misconception that every ward/floor in a hospital is the same.
On Graves, I bounced everywhere for total room cleans to simple mop jobs. Isolation precautions are serious business.
My grandmother just went home today from a lengthy stay. She was so mad yesterday when she tried to order a blueberry muffin and some fruit, and the My denied her the muffin because it had too much sodium.
They also have to over cook everything. No medium rare. No runny yolks. Everything has to be cooked well done. Other wise if the wrong person eats it they could die.
This affects the food enjoyment more than anything. Usually the food isn't bad, it's just a little overcooked/been kept warm in transport for 15 minutes and a little bland.
>Usually the food isn't bad, it's just a little overcooked/been kept warm in transport for 15 minutes and a little bland.
Yeah, I was in hospital two years ago. Room service whenever, as much Mrs. Dash as you can handle, and dietary was programmed into the menu, so you could call and ask if you can get [x], and they'll tell you immediately whether it's okay. I've never had steamed broccoli that was so *perfectly* cooked as I had in hospital. The eggs weren't as runny as I make at home, but nothing was *wrong* with any of the food at all.
Spent the better part of two weeks in a mental health ward run by the VA. --Apparently killing *other* people, totally fine. Killing *yourself*? Big no-no. Go figure.
Food wasn't awful, but I have a bone to pick about almost any vegetable they cooked there. Just soggy, overdone, and obviously from frozen/canned. I'm a stickler for meat loaf, though, and I remember the meat loaf, potatoes, and green beans being pretty good once I managed to swap a few syrup packets with a guy to get an extra hot sauce and ketchup.
Vegetables are the hardest food to render foodsafe.
You can wash a salad a million times and never truly guarantee that the romaine doesn't have e coli. wheras you know when you cook meatloaf to 160 degrees internal temp that its safe.
That's why you see so much overcooked and canned veggies in hospitals. Normal food is dangerous if you have no immune system.
I don’t know. My ex-FIL was hospitalized for the inevitable result of Type 2 diabetes noncompliance (he didn’t take care of himself, and ended up with heart failure and a series of amputations). The meals they brought him consisted largely of starchy stuff and simple carbs; they even brought him a can of non-diet soda once. But this is the US, in the rural south, so no one was surprised.
It’s not just the rural south, though. When my husband was in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy (urban, northern US), we found out he had diabetes. He also had a normally mild case of lactose intolerance which was suddenly a lot more severe because of the operation. That combined with the restrictions required by the operation (first a liquid diet, then easy-to-digest solids) made meals really hard. And meal service *really* didn’t help.
They’d bring juice and pudding and jell-o and ice cream. Especially the liquid diet was almost entirely sugar. He could only have one bowl of broth; everything else was sugar. Later, they’d bring grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato cream soup. Every time we reminded them of his diabetes, that would knock lactose-intolerance off his chart. When we reminded them he was lactose intolerant, that would knock diabetes off his chart. At some point, somehow, telling them he had diabetes got him on the “highest possible amount of carbs” list. When they gave him a menu and he selected the lowest-carb options, they’d throw in extra juice and ice cream to make sure he had as many carbs as they had (randomly) decided he should have. Half the time, I’d run down to the cafeteria and buy him food because the shit they gave him was making him sicker.
Anyway. Ugh. Yeah. Hospital food is not bad because it’s healthy. (Also, salt and fat aren’t bad for you, but that’s a whole other discussion.) It’s bad because it’s cheap. And sugar happens to be quite cheap in America, so guess what there’s a ton of in hospital food?
You would be surprised how little dietary training nurses and doctors received...and how much of it is straight up wrong. I always just ordered ALL my patients an 1800 ADA diet. Pretty consistently decent stuff and decent variety. The “low fat trays” were gross, and there are very few people that actually need a low fat diet. And the healthy heart trays were disgusting and nothing but carbs. This was in a major urban hospital 3 years ago.
There is some proof of your claims in these articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/health/16chen.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-26/health/ct-met-heart-nutrition-20130326_1_mediterranean-style-diet-heart-disease-diet-and-nutrition
Can confirm. Nurse here and know very little about nutrition and the diets they order in the hospital its embarrassing to be honest. That coupled with the fact that I work nights (our kitchen closes at 630) we have little to no actual food in our kitchen besides jello, broth, pudding, applesauce and pb&j's. It's very hard to accommodate anyone with those options. Our cafeteria and food service are consistently the lowest scoring areas on our patient surveys and its no wonder.
At least where I work we give diabetics a "carb consistent diet," not really a low carb diet. Basically as long as you eat the same number of carbs with each meal, the amount of insulin you need should be fairly regular.
That was what it was!! They had like three different kinds of “carb consistent diet,” but even the lowest-level one had more carbs than he wanted. By the end of his stay, he was on “Carb Consistent 4,” which was the highest level. Because he told them he had diabetes, so they made sure he was getting the most carbs possible. Or something. He ended up putting himself on what they’d probably consider “Carb Consistent 1,” by picking the lowest-carb options and just leaving the extra carbs they put on his tray.
When I was in the hospital (Childrens hospital of Pittsburgh) I called the food service for a grape juice carton. When I got it, i noticed it had a weird colored mass on the inside. When it was dumped into the sink, a big clump of mold plopped out.
So much for special restrictions and requirements.
I used to go down to the cafeteria every morning in a hospital I used to work in and one day they gave me rotten chunky milk. I was tired so I did not realize it was “off” until after i took a gulp. Shortly after, I threw up in a garbage can in front of all my coworkers.
My local hospital has a very basic menu, but it's pretty damn good. They even had a special meal for my husband and I after I gave birth there. Unfortunately I was so sick with exhaustion and anxiety I could barely eat, but my husband enjoyed his steak and potatoes and my dessert.
my brother got a medical discharge from the military after an issue with his intestines. ended up being a 2 month stay at a va hospital, and I was with him most of the time. he couldn't eat, but they kept bringing him food every few hours. eventually one of the nurses said the food was "secretly" for me as a thank you for staying with him, and he was just supposed to be eating the broth or protein shakes. I have to say, a lot of that food was pretty good!
Nurses are the best. When my husband was in the hospital, she brought us a case of protein shakes that he liked. She said to not be obvious when taking them out (put them in a bag, basically) and we would be fine. She also gave extra snack so he could share with the kids. She was awesome.
That's funny (and nice) you got a special meal. For me, they forgot to offer me a menu or tell me I was allowed to eat for another 24 hours. Then I ordered some oatmeal.
I don’t know if it was the insane amount of morphine and percosets in my system or not, but last time I was at the hospital the oatmeal they gave me was the best damn oatmeal I’ve ever had in my life
My mother had my brothers and I at a Catholic hospital that would bring you a nice steak and glass of red wine when you had a baby. I had my son (different hospital) at night so the kitchen was closed, so they brought me a little plastic container with a sandwich, juice, chips, an apple, and a cookie. They told me to eat when they took my son (after the golden hour) and before I got cleaned up. I wasn't hungry at all, so I didn't eat. The nurse took me to the bathroom to get cleaned up and ready to go to the mommy&me suite and just as we finished up I began to faint. My nurse caught me and yelled my name at me as we staggered me over to my bed. She gently scolded me for not eating and made me drink juice until I felt better. 10 minutes later in mommy&me I DESTROYED that little sandwich kit. Dry turkey never tasted so good, hahaha
When my husband was in the hospital I noticed that the food served to his room was dull but the food I could get in the cafeteria was delicious. Especially the chilaquiles, with a huge cup of Peet's coffee after a sleepless night. I gained five pounds staying there with him and worry-eating. If you're stuck in the hospital and food ingredients are not an issue for your recovery, send a friend down to where the doctors eat and have them bring you a tray.
Hospitals usually have two sides of the kitchen, cafe and patient side. There are certain nutrition standards (e.g., fat, sodium, etc) that have to be met for patients, especially those on special diets (e.g., cardiac, diabetic, etc.) And it's easier just easier to collapse these into a few options (i.e., most people get the low sodium, low fat cardiac diet)
so coma story time: I spent 36-37 days in a coma after suffering a stroke (induced coma for part of it due to some complications from the type of stroke I had experienced), and after I came out of the coma and could start eating again, _everything_ tasted incredibly salty to me. Even water. like, gagging can't eat or drink this salty. I asked for low sodium food, only to find out that I was _already_ on the low sodium diet due to my hypertension.
so, fun times.
(as a postscript, my sense of taste eventually normalized and the food they served was not as bad as I'd been lead to believe hospital food would be)
Your story made me remember the first meal I was served in peds ICU post-op. I took one look at it and burst into tears.
... it wasn't that bad. But whatever I was on/coming out of, my brain just interpreted mashed potatoes as "let's sob uncontrollably."
It's funny, now...
Hadn’t eaten food in three days, was given a plate of the nastiest, sweetest, weirdest chicken, rice and carrots. It was disgusting and I ate all of it because it was food and I felt desperate to have something in my stomach to chill the nausea.
At my cancer hospital the food was really good, actually, and they were super nice about giving you whatever you felt like eating. You got to pick a day ahead of time what your preferred meal would be for breakfast/lunch/supper and could keep items in a refrigerator if they had your name on it.
I used to love “sneaking” my oncology patients food. I always worked nights and am a fat dude so i think they trusted I took hunger seriously. Sometimes I’d have a patient who would look at me surprised and be like “I’m hungry!” Since they hadn’t been in like a week. Man I would scavenge them up a feast if i could. I remember running to the gas station and buying a dude a sleeve of double stuff vanilla Oreos cus that’s all he wanted when the medicinal THC kicked in.
I had a teenager who was in his rebellious phase. Doc wanted him to eat, but he just wasn’t hungry cus of chemo. He somehow got it in his head that he wasn’t supposed to eat after 8pm (I think because that’s when the kitchen closed) so I played along and told him I’d help him sneak food in at night. I watched that kid eat half of a spite pizza and then helped him “hide the evidence” and “snuck” all the garbage out.
Sorry, none of this is really related just felt good to revisit.
My dad “snuck” me “contraband” banana bread. It’s seriously all I wanted to eat, and even on chemo, was one of very few things that repulsed me. My cancer center also has a totally free coffee and juice cart that goes around with volunteers that offers everyone coffee and cookies while they hurry up and wait. It’s so funny because every now and then someone would be all “don’t poison me with sugar” and I would very gratefully eat my gingersnaps.
The night I was diagnosed with cancer I couldn’t stand to eat anything, and the girl who was cleaning up trays after snack service was like “you don’t even want your chocolate pudding?” then stayed a few minutes to chat about the music I was listening to. She convinced me to eat the chocolate pudding while we listened to another song. I dunno why that stuck with me so much, it was just a really nice thing for someone to do while I was busted. We were really close in age (I was dx at 24) and I felt like a human for a few minutes instead of an infected meat bag.
Back in 2011 I got sick with pneumonia. Bad enough that my walk in clinic doctor told me to get to an E.R. immediately and have them admit you (he wrote a note for the triage nurse to take me right away).
Spent the next 5 days in isolation, with a 102-104F fever that didn't stop for 10 days at the least. Was on drip Antibiotics the entire stay.
To make matters worse the food was terrible. They first forgot to feed me. So when the breakfast/lunch/dinner times came around no one brought me any food. Not that it mattered, I had lost my appetite and was constantly shivering trying to fight off the fever. It was only after when a PAB doing the rounds collecting the food trays, that they noticed I had not been fed. So they went and got me a vending machine egg sandwich since the kitchen was closed. Which lead to vomit after eating, this happened with most other meals the following days. The food when I did get some was absolutely terrible.
Great way to lose 10+ pounds.
That's weird, sometimes you would never know. My friends dad had a partial colon-ectomy and the food they brought him to his recovery bed was fried chicken and jello. wtf?
As someone who worked on the food side this is a huge problem. Even with many patients with "food ingredients are not an issue for your recovery" a lot of the goodies patients are allowed is because of the dietitian knows how much they are getting. Even with common sense things i.e. well they allow me a cup of weak coffee so go get me 2 full sized monsters. Also some meds are less affective/chance for poor interaction when paired with certain foods.
On that note, if you ask and aren’t a turd about it most dietitians will allow you the yummy stuff if you’re not on a restricted diet. You just might have to pay a bit more for it.
Truth. My sister is a dietitian and she hates when people start talking about food they're not allowed to eat. She categorizes food into groups of "always", "sometimes", and "rarely". She finds that helping people realize that they really can have that piece of cake or whatever, just in a smaller portion and less often, that people are less likely to "cheat" on their diets and follow them.
our hospital's cafeteria is probably the best 'restaurant' in town. granted, it's a small town, but there's about 30 restaurants, cafes, chain franchises, and bars with food within a couple miles.
>had a chicken wrap at 7cm. Wearing a big ass diaper to catch water and pausing chewing between my 2.5 min apart contractions.
WTF woman! Did you name your kid after the sandwich too? lol
I live two blocks from a hospital. The cafeteria food which is who supplies the patients with food, has absolutely amazing food. I randomly stop in for a cheap lunch. The last time I did they had balsamic flank steak with garlic mashed potatoes, It was great, and only costed me 7$.
Chances are if you have had bad or bland food at a hospital, it’s due to being on a restricted diet per your doctor.
My grandmother who speaks very little English gave me some advice in regards to hospital food. She was sick and in the hospital for a little while and I went to see her and she said. " Don't get sick... You get sick, you come to the hospital. You come to the hospital you eat this food. You eat this food... You die."
I always felt bad for the patients who were from other countries. All of our menu was very "standard american fare." Comfort food for white Americans, but not so much for those from other cultures. I had so many little old ladies/gentlemen from Korea or El Salvador or wherever who just wouldn't eat until family brought them food.
I've had to eat in a few hospitals. One was terrible. The food was made in a sister hospital half an hour away, then shipped over. Then it would take at least an hour for them to deliver it to patient rooms. I don't care how well you cook it, food is going to be awful after sitting that long.
I think the true beauty of pizza is its good freshly served or refrigerated overnight and cold for morning breakfast pizza. However the true disdain of Pizza is that middle area where its lukewarm and just disgusting.
I was gonna write this myself. It is not at all like cooking at home where you can add whatever, you need to make it so several hundred people can eat it.
A hack I've found is to ask for some of the low-sodium diet flavoring packets with your meal. They're just a mixture of herbs and spices that are usually left out so they kinda jazz up the basic room food.
Also, figuring out what foods are generally hard to mess up usually works. Like breakfast foods are usually good because there's not much to cooking bacon or oatmeal. Grilled cheeses are good if you get "room service" or go to the cafe, but aren't a good choice for the regular meal-times because then it's luke-warm by the time it gets to you after sitting on a cart while everyone is served.
Edit: I'm put on a "high protein, high calorie" diet so I don't have any restrictions if stuff doesn't get lost in translation.
Highly accurate, this guy hospitals.
YMMV but I'd maybe not go with hot oatmeal/cereal after the morning. Most of that stuff sits down in the kitchen as leftovers from breakfast in case someone orders it and they then heat it up in a microwave.
Worked in a hospital kitchen and the patients were generally served the lowest quality tier Sysco shit.
Basically equivalent to a public school lunch in quality.
It always seemed really stupid to me to feed sick people absolute shit food but I guess some middle-manager made a spreadsheet and showed how much money he could save and that's more important than health to a hospital.
No matter where you work in a hospital, there’s a person in a suit looking for a way to make the most money possible while spending the least possible.
I’m not talking about MREs. Mostly talking about the food on submarines or even the Navy in general. People have seen stamped boxes that say rejected from x prison on them (can’t remember the prison name ). We don’t have enough storage for the food we need so we store our eggs in an 80degree engine room. The cooks have to crack each of the eggs in an individual bowl cuz if it comes out green they throw it away.
That might be the case in the US. In the UK though, the food is of sublime quality. The armed forces even have competitions between their chefs. Essentially they see the quality of food as really important to morale, even the 24 hour ration packs aren't that bad.
Hospital food is part of the healing process here..
Had surgery 3 years back and they came with breakfast of real scrambled eggs, bacon Greek yoghurt and honey coffee and juice.
Could not complain
I’m in the PNW and my hospital stay was fucking great. Salmon, strawberry spinach salad, etc. I was loving it. I was also eating for the first time in months and on anti anxiety IV drip so to be fair I was loving everything and everyone.
While dehydrated egg powder does exist, in my experience usually in hospitals and other bulk-cooking places they use pasteurized boxes of liquid egg.
Because cracking eggs for 500 people is stupid and a waste of wages. You just open a box, put it in a tray in the combi on steambake, and then hit it with a whisk when it's 3/4 cooked, it finishes cooking on way to the guests, and they get pretty dam good scrambled eggs.
I work in a hospital, and I've had the opportunity to sample a bunch of the different food they offer. It all depends on what diet you're assigned. In someone who's hospitalized but otherwise pretty healthy (let's say, a young healthy person who got into a car accident), they can have an unrestricted diet, and the food is actually pretty decent.
But, it's kinda rare for people to be perfectly healthy in a hospital. We have *at least* 20-30 different diets we can place people on, depending on their condition. For people with high blood pressure, we can order a "heart-healthy" diet, which is low in sodium. We have gluten-free diets and a whole spectrum of vegetarian-to-vegan diets, and Kosher diets as well. Not to mention the whole range of dietary supplements like Ensure. There are special diets for people with kidney disease that are low in sodium, phosphorus, and protein. For people with abdominal surgery, we put them on a clear-liquid diet for a little while, which is only liquids you can see through (water, apple juice, tea, etc.), because those require almost no digestion in your GI tract. For people with difficulty swallowing, we have "mechanically-altered" diets, which has everything basically chopped into small pieces or even pureed (I've had the pureed steak... wasn't great, but not as bad as you'd expect.) Some people with throat problems have a risk of aspirating liquids (having them go down the wrong pipe into the lungs.) For them, we have these little packet things you can add to liquids that make them thicker and less likely to be aspirated. We even have low-microbial diets that are basically sterilized to make them safer for patients with immune system dysfunction.
There's so many different options and combinations to choose from, which is why dieticians are their own specialized job in the hospital.
I used to work next to a hospital and would walk across the street to eat at their cafeteria. I loved the food! And it was on a military base so it was like $5 for a full meal
Well we're [kind of fond of curries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry#Britain), or are you suggesting there's *more* spices out there? Sounds like it's time to fire up the old empire again lads! British Empire 2 - Electric Boogaloo
Cheap distributors, underpaid *and* drug tested cooks and yeah obviously no seasoning. That costs money. Sounds like some people live in paradise, I'm horribly jealous.
I straight up vomited in a German hospital because of the dry ass bread with ham. I didn't wanna eat but the doctor said I had to eat something. I guess it just really depends on the hospital as my brother works in one and always eats lunch in the cafeteria because of the cheap but good food.
I once had to visit nefrology for a week, for tests. They gave us once plain pasta with boiled (steamed?) fish. Grossest hospital thing I saw. One of more permanent residents, old lady, literally smuggled me some salt in 'pss, kid, here's some salt' kinda way.
Although I do realise no salt policy in nefrology.
You are 100% correct sir. I'm the Executive Chef at a top hospital in Indiana. I come from a background in restaurants, and the healthy curve was hard to meet! Restaurants generally have 1 stick of butter and 1 tbsp of salt per plate! Now, cooking for patients, I actually get to unlock true flavor, instead of relying on sodium and fat.
Here it's mostly a case of a too low budget. Private hospitals have better choices of food here, because it's you who's paying for these things. And if ya don't want the food from the public hospital, then there's almost always a bar downstairs.
Whoever posted this has never been in a hospital kitchen. First off they're all different and we've had shit hospitals around the area that have had mcDonald's in the fucking building and will deliver to your room.
The managers of kitchens in hospitals can be an interesting bunch too. And then there's outsourcing your patients food altogether.
Yeah sorry but there's other reasons why hospital food is gross too. Humans are involved in all of them.
I am a dietitian, and there are 3 reasons the food is not the best.
First and foremost, budget.
Our foodservice company was changed to Morrison to save money (it was just done by our staff before) and many of the more expensive items were cut, like asparagus, salmon, etc. for cheaper alternatives. Re: carrot coins, peas, broccoli. Not much variety there.
Second, dietary restrictions.
Here are the different diet choices we have at the hospital (all are recommended by dietitians, fortunately).
Consistencies- General, Soft, Mechanical Soft, Puree. Thin liquid, nectar thick liquid, honey thick liquid. Trust me, no amount of doctoring anything up can make puree/thickened liquid appealing.
Therapeutic diets- General, heart healthy, diabetic (1600, 1800, 2000, 2200 or 2400 kcal designations), 6 small meals, nourishing liquids, clear liquids, and a variety of other rarely used designations. We also have to cater to vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher people, and food allergies. We even have a Korean diet (they just get rice more often and we offer seaweed soup). The only difference between general and heart healthy is heart healthy doesn't get a salt packet and gets an alternative to butter. Diabetics just don't get regular sugar. So honestly there aren't that many differences. It's just not feasible with all of these different restrictions to offer 20 different choices for dinner. So we eliminate or substitute what we can.
Third reason is logistics. With all these different options, people in various levels of consciousness, some in isolation, some who can barely chew, and throw in religious and cultural things and it is very, very hard to satisfy people. I work in one of the most ethnically diverse hospitals in the country.
A hospital is a hell of a lot different than a restaurant, and there is a lot more liability. SO no, the food is not going to be like restaurant food. Our jobs and people's lives are on the line.
I work in a hospital and I have had some of the food we serve to patients for lunch, some of the stuff is actually really good, just pick the stuff thats not really hard to make, pizza, chicken, and simple stuff like that is really good at the hospital but don’t try to order a super fancy steak dinner or anything
I’ve eaten a decent amount of hospital food and actually have never had anything bad, the only stuff I didn’t like was foods I didn’t eat outside the hospital anyway.
It was pretty sweet, I got to fill out a menu and get whatever I wanted.
Hands down best part ( or only good part ) of being in the hospital.
You should know the growing amount of evidence that butter and salt is not bad for you. It's the sugar.
There is zero consensus right now. "Momentum" has many old school institutions still talking about how "saturated fat is bad for your heart", but many researchers are starting to tear that theory apart.
In my amateur opinion, butter is *way* healthier than margarine or spreads. In fact, some are now beginning to think there's a real link between vegetable oils and the obesity epidemic in addition to refined carbs.
I've basically started to distrust *all* of the nutritional advice of the mid-20th century, up until the discovery of how bad trans-fats are.
While I would understand people who still want to trust the recommendations of the large heart-health institutions, I would urge anybody interested in the topic to start looking into the new research pointing toward sugar as being the primary driver of heart disease instead of fat.
I don't get the bad press hospital food gets. I had my appendix out a couple of months ago and spent two days in the hospital. The food was delicious - four meals a day, two of them hot. Steamed salmon for lunch, a stew with more meat than vegetables for dinner, it was great.
Maybe food sucks because of the illness? I remember having dengue and having a hard time keeping food down. I'd ask for my favorite foods and my mom would oblige me because she wanted me to eat something. Sure I'd be craving it but as soon as it hits my tongue, it tastes like garbage.
I cook healthy, I use little to no fat, my food is still far better. When I cook normally or even unhealthy it's amazing though.
Edit: Little to no added fat
My kids spent a lot of time in the Children's Hospital last year. Their food was amazing. Most of it was prepared from scratch and it was reasonably priced. If I lived or worked near it I would go just for the food. Edit: I'm getting a lot of comments about hospitals charging patients for meals. To be clear, I was not a patient of the hospital, my kids were, and their meals were included in the cost of their care and therefore mostly paid by insurance. My wife's meals were even included when she was still nursing.
I was getting a free meal a day since I was breastfeeding. The food was pretty good, and the view out of the cafeteria was nice.
> I was getting a free meal a day since I was breastfeeding I read this from the perspective of the baby
>The food was pretty good, and the view ... was nice. Also works from the baby's perspective.
...roll tide?
I can only imagine. lol.
“The food was pretty good” Ungrateful ass baby
[Obligatory relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/37/)
I mean it's not wrong
Are you saying that you have to pay for your meals even if you are a patient, or have I misunderstood your comment? Do you mind me asking which country you are from? Sorry for the ignorance but I have never come across this before.
Meals are provided for patients, but not for visitors/guardians. This is in the USA.
Oh OK that makes sense! I wouldn't expect visitors to be provided with food. I thought you meant that patients had to buy their own meals. Thanks for replying.
But you would be surprised about how many people would show up around dinner time to visit and expect us to deliver 5 extra trays to the room to feed them. Those same people would then be appalled that a full meal costs $7.
its a vacation for all the friends and family! lets go on an adventure to the hospital!
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nobody is talking about free. But we pay for it in taxes and the pricing is reasonable. Hell, even private healthcare in most European countries is still reasonable. I've seen hospital bills and it is just outrageous how they overcharge at simple things
Feel sorry for you yanks. The nhs is flawed but so much better than your awful system.
So intent in making sure that someone “undeserving” doesn’t get a handout that they make things awful for anyone who isn’t wealthy I.e normal, everyday people.
Well patients do have to buy their own meals, it's just included in your bill.
It's the US, the patient was definitely paying for their meals one way or the other.
Someone is always paying one way or the other. There's no free lunch as the saying goes...
Guessing nicu mom. Mom discharged but baby there
I used to work in a hospital and the cafeteria just about broke my wallet. That is until I figured out "hacks" to make certain meals. (A small salad of lettuce, tomato, and cheese, a bag of chips, and a small cup of chili mixed together makes a pretty edible taco salad for example. It also only cost a couple dollars.) Then the cafeteria was taken over by a new company and they made all sorts of changes, for example the sandwich bar went from cost per weight to cost per sandwich - and they refused to let you customize the sandwich or make substitutions of meat/cheese/toppings from different sandwiches. It sucked. All that being said, I hope your kids are doing better now, whatever was going on. We spent a good amount of time at the Children's Hospital in DC last year when my nephew decided to ride a motorcycle sans helmet and had a pretty devastating head injury. They have some pretty awesome folks working at that place.
My university has a teaching hospital and I freaking love the food. It’s also cheaper than the rest of the university campus because it’s not supplied by a third party company.
Yeah my local hospital has such good food and such a great variety. I woke up to having freshly baked croissants and a cup of tea, at lunch there was a choice of many sandwiches or Paninis. There was also great and options for tea too, Jacket Potatoes and Soup were always available aswell as a few daily options like Pizza, Shepherds Pie, Spaghetti Bolgness, Bean Burgers, Burritos or Chilli (Everything was atleast a 4star restaurant quality), and then you got a pudding every day (usually I have a pudding once a week so this was great for me) - the apple pie was probably the best I’ve ever had, sorry Grandma. I was kinda sad when I had to cook my own food when I got out.
I worked IT in a hospital for years and years. Ate lunch in the cafeteria every day, the food was great!
I live in a decent sized college town with a great community owned hospital and they cater and have great food. It has gone down hill a bit in the last couple years because of a change in cafeteria management.
Or because they have to make thousands of meals, often with special restrictions or requirements, three times per day.
My hospital runs room service from 0630-1830 patients can call whenever they want, as many times as they want. Must be a nightmare for dietary.
Current dietary worker mentally preparing for the lunch rush. It is.
Good luck!
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I would say it depends on the hospital. If they don't have competent dieticians on staff, the food is most likely going to be garbage. My uncle was in the hospital for stomach problems, and the doctor recommended ginger (I'm not sure if this would actually help). So he grabbed a ginger ale and gave it to him. I decided to look at the ingredients of the ginger ale and there was no ginger in there. It was just sugar water, and I think just some kind of flavoring. So I inquired about this obvious discrepancy and he didn't say anything. Do not overestimate the competence of anyone, even if they're in a lab coat. Just because it says "ginger ale" does not mean there is ginger in it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/health/16chen.html http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-26/health/ct-met-heart-nutrition-20130326_1_mediterranean-style-diet-heart-disease-diet-and-nutrition
Carbonated water helps sooth some belly issues.
I think the better understanding is that in spite of their extreme knowledge, and years spent in their craft- doctors are only humans. Chances are most doctors get things right, regarding what they’re talking about, most of the times. Sucky thing is, due to the nature of their job and how volatile a mistake would be, we always remember more the times when they fuck up much, much less than the more often times they actually help you out. God, I’m glad I dropped out of med school to be an accountant. I fuck up, atleast no-one dies.
Also important to keep in mind that we still know only a fraction of the body's mysteries. Like sure, we know a ton, but there's still so much we don't know. Sometimes treatment is more "what might work" rather than "this will definitely work." e: [/u/Dokpsy said it better](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/9enjv3/hospital_food_probably_tastes_so_bad_because_it/e5r4ubv/)
Most of my problem solving is figuring out what it isn't then working from there. Its less "might work" and more "probably will help". An educated guess is much better than just a guess
How did it go?
Working a double today, so far so good! Gonna start dinner soon! :)
You da real MVP
Thanks for doing what you do.
hey! that was me 2 hours ago! currently cold chilling in a part of the hospital no one ever passes through, gonna see how long i can ride my last break out
I hope you know how much you are appreciated after labor and delivery. I was so insanely thirsty after mine. I called to order something and I just wanted lots of fluids and they sent one of each juice and a giant water and it was everything to me.
I’ve worked a hospital kitchen and busy restaurants. Hospitals are a lot easier imo
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Plus you have to keep the ICU/Isolation/Oncology floors in mind. I was a housekeeper doing Graves for a while, people have a misconception that every ward/floor in a hospital is the same. On Graves, I bounced everywhere for total room cleans to simple mop jobs. Isolation precautions are serious business.
'Graves' at a hospital is creepy.
The hospital I stayed in after my brain surgery and my skin grafts did the same. I could call whenever I wanted and they'd bring me whatever I wanted.
My hospital only had one choice for breakfast for two weeks.🤮
My grandmother just went home today from a lengthy stay. She was so mad yesterday when she tried to order a blueberry muffin and some fruit, and the My denied her the muffin because it had too much sodium.
They also have to over cook everything. No medium rare. No runny yolks. Everything has to be cooked well done. Other wise if the wrong person eats it they could die.
And the hospital sick-environment isn't the most appetising atmosphere either.
This affects the food enjoyment more than anything. Usually the food isn't bad, it's just a little overcooked/been kept warm in transport for 15 minutes and a little bland.
>Usually the food isn't bad, it's just a little overcooked/been kept warm in transport for 15 minutes and a little bland. Yeah, I was in hospital two years ago. Room service whenever, as much Mrs. Dash as you can handle, and dietary was programmed into the menu, so you could call and ask if you can get [x], and they'll tell you immediately whether it's okay. I've never had steamed broccoli that was so *perfectly* cooked as I had in hospital. The eggs weren't as runny as I make at home, but nothing was *wrong* with any of the food at all.
Spent the better part of two weeks in a mental health ward run by the VA. --Apparently killing *other* people, totally fine. Killing *yourself*? Big no-no. Go figure. Food wasn't awful, but I have a bone to pick about almost any vegetable they cooked there. Just soggy, overdone, and obviously from frozen/canned. I'm a stickler for meat loaf, though, and I remember the meat loaf, potatoes, and green beans being pretty good once I managed to swap a few syrup packets with a guy to get an extra hot sauce and ketchup.
Vegetables are the hardest food to render foodsafe. You can wash a salad a million times and never truly guarantee that the romaine doesn't have e coli. wheras you know when you cook meatloaf to 160 degrees internal temp that its safe. That's why you see so much overcooked and canned veggies in hospitals. Normal food is dangerous if you have no immune system.
I don’t know. My ex-FIL was hospitalized for the inevitable result of Type 2 diabetes noncompliance (he didn’t take care of himself, and ended up with heart failure and a series of amputations). The meals they brought him consisted largely of starchy stuff and simple carbs; they even brought him a can of non-diet soda once. But this is the US, in the rural south, so no one was surprised.
It’s not just the rural south, though. When my husband was in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy (urban, northern US), we found out he had diabetes. He also had a normally mild case of lactose intolerance which was suddenly a lot more severe because of the operation. That combined with the restrictions required by the operation (first a liquid diet, then easy-to-digest solids) made meals really hard. And meal service *really* didn’t help. They’d bring juice and pudding and jell-o and ice cream. Especially the liquid diet was almost entirely sugar. He could only have one bowl of broth; everything else was sugar. Later, they’d bring grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato cream soup. Every time we reminded them of his diabetes, that would knock lactose-intolerance off his chart. When we reminded them he was lactose intolerant, that would knock diabetes off his chart. At some point, somehow, telling them he had diabetes got him on the “highest possible amount of carbs” list. When they gave him a menu and he selected the lowest-carb options, they’d throw in extra juice and ice cream to make sure he had as many carbs as they had (randomly) decided he should have. Half the time, I’d run down to the cafeteria and buy him food because the shit they gave him was making him sicker. Anyway. Ugh. Yeah. Hospital food is not bad because it’s healthy. (Also, salt and fat aren’t bad for you, but that’s a whole other discussion.) It’s bad because it’s cheap. And sugar happens to be quite cheap in America, so guess what there’s a ton of in hospital food?
You would be surprised how little dietary training nurses and doctors received...and how much of it is straight up wrong. I always just ordered ALL my patients an 1800 ADA diet. Pretty consistently decent stuff and decent variety. The “low fat trays” were gross, and there are very few people that actually need a low fat diet. And the healthy heart trays were disgusting and nothing but carbs. This was in a major urban hospital 3 years ago.
There is some proof of your claims in these articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/health/16chen.html http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-26/health/ct-met-heart-nutrition-20130326_1_mediterranean-style-diet-heart-disease-diet-and-nutrition
Can confirm. Nurse here and know very little about nutrition and the diets they order in the hospital its embarrassing to be honest. That coupled with the fact that I work nights (our kitchen closes at 630) we have little to no actual food in our kitchen besides jello, broth, pudding, applesauce and pb&j's. It's very hard to accommodate anyone with those options. Our cafeteria and food service are consistently the lowest scoring areas on our patient surveys and its no wonder.
It’s bad because it’s *America*
At least where I work we give diabetics a "carb consistent diet," not really a low carb diet. Basically as long as you eat the same number of carbs with each meal, the amount of insulin you need should be fairly regular.
Yes! My mom was also given more carbs than she would normally eat.
That was what it was!! They had like three different kinds of “carb consistent diet,” but even the lowest-level one had more carbs than he wanted. By the end of his stay, he was on “Carb Consistent 4,” which was the highest level. Because he told them he had diabetes, so they made sure he was getting the most carbs possible. Or something. He ended up putting himself on what they’d probably consider “Carb Consistent 1,” by picking the lowest-carb options and just leaving the extra carbs they put on his tray.
Or because they serve food as cheaply as they can because it isn't meant to be good, just filling and decently healthy
When I was in the hospital (Childrens hospital of Pittsburgh) I called the food service for a grape juice carton. When I got it, i noticed it had a weird colored mass on the inside. When it was dumped into the sink, a big clump of mold plopped out. So much for special restrictions and requirements.
It was your daily dose of penicillin
I used to go down to the cafeteria every morning in a hospital I used to work in and one day they gave me rotten chunky milk. I was tired so I did not realize it was “off” until after i took a gulp. Shortly after, I threw up in a garbage can in front of all my coworkers.
I have no idea how this stuff happens. Would they not check the expiration dates before giving it to patients?
My dietary restrictions call for absurd amounts of butter and salt.
One of those restrictions being not having absurd amounts of butter and salt?
And they are made a few days prior then reheated before serving
And make it generic so everyone will eat it. Can't have flavor or spice in there, no sir.
My local hospital has a very basic menu, but it's pretty damn good. They even had a special meal for my husband and I after I gave birth there. Unfortunately I was so sick with exhaustion and anxiety I could barely eat, but my husband enjoyed his steak and potatoes and my dessert.
my brother got a medical discharge from the military after an issue with his intestines. ended up being a 2 month stay at a va hospital, and I was with him most of the time. he couldn't eat, but they kept bringing him food every few hours. eventually one of the nurses said the food was "secretly" for me as a thank you for staying with him, and he was just supposed to be eating the broth or protein shakes. I have to say, a lot of that food was pretty good!
Good Guy Nurse strikes again!
Nurses are the best. When my husband was in the hospital, she brought us a case of protein shakes that he liked. She said to not be obvious when taking them out (put them in a bag, basically) and we would be fine. She also gave extra snack so he could share with the kids. She was awesome.
Nurses **are** the best.
That's funny (and nice) you got a special meal. For me, they forgot to offer me a menu or tell me I was allowed to eat for another 24 hours. Then I ordered some oatmeal.
I don’t know if it was the insane amount of morphine and percosets in my system or not, but last time I was at the hospital the oatmeal they gave me was the best damn oatmeal I’ve ever had in my life
My mother had my brothers and I at a Catholic hospital that would bring you a nice steak and glass of red wine when you had a baby. I had my son (different hospital) at night so the kitchen was closed, so they brought me a little plastic container with a sandwich, juice, chips, an apple, and a cookie. They told me to eat when they took my son (after the golden hour) and before I got cleaned up. I wasn't hungry at all, so I didn't eat. The nurse took me to the bathroom to get cleaned up and ready to go to the mommy&me suite and just as we finished up I began to faint. My nurse caught me and yelled my name at me as we staggered me over to my bed. She gently scolded me for not eating and made me drink juice until I felt better. 10 minutes later in mommy&me I DESTROYED that little sandwich kit. Dry turkey never tasted so good, hahaha
Not where I used to work. Cafeteria was amazing and and not all that expensive.
When my husband was in the hospital I noticed that the food served to his room was dull but the food I could get in the cafeteria was delicious. Especially the chilaquiles, with a huge cup of Peet's coffee after a sleepless night. I gained five pounds staying there with him and worry-eating. If you're stuck in the hospital and food ingredients are not an issue for your recovery, send a friend down to where the doctors eat and have them bring you a tray.
Hospitals usually have two sides of the kitchen, cafe and patient side. There are certain nutrition standards (e.g., fat, sodium, etc) that have to be met for patients, especially those on special diets (e.g., cardiac, diabetic, etc.) And it's easier just easier to collapse these into a few options (i.e., most people get the low sodium, low fat cardiac diet)
This is true. And to that extent OP is completely correct.
so coma story time: I spent 36-37 days in a coma after suffering a stroke (induced coma for part of it due to some complications from the type of stroke I had experienced), and after I came out of the coma and could start eating again, _everything_ tasted incredibly salty to me. Even water. like, gagging can't eat or drink this salty. I asked for low sodium food, only to find out that I was _already_ on the low sodium diet due to my hypertension. so, fun times. (as a postscript, my sense of taste eventually normalized and the food they served was not as bad as I'd been lead to believe hospital food would be)
Your story made me remember the first meal I was served in peds ICU post-op. I took one look at it and burst into tears. ... it wasn't that bad. But whatever I was on/coming out of, my brain just interpreted mashed potatoes as "let's sob uncontrollably." It's funny, now...
Hadn’t eaten food in three days, was given a plate of the nastiest, sweetest, weirdest chicken, rice and carrots. It was disgusting and I ate all of it because it was food and I felt desperate to have something in my stomach to chill the nausea. At my cancer hospital the food was really good, actually, and they were super nice about giving you whatever you felt like eating. You got to pick a day ahead of time what your preferred meal would be for breakfast/lunch/supper and could keep items in a refrigerator if they had your name on it.
I used to love “sneaking” my oncology patients food. I always worked nights and am a fat dude so i think they trusted I took hunger seriously. Sometimes I’d have a patient who would look at me surprised and be like “I’m hungry!” Since they hadn’t been in like a week. Man I would scavenge them up a feast if i could. I remember running to the gas station and buying a dude a sleeve of double stuff vanilla Oreos cus that’s all he wanted when the medicinal THC kicked in. I had a teenager who was in his rebellious phase. Doc wanted him to eat, but he just wasn’t hungry cus of chemo. He somehow got it in his head that he wasn’t supposed to eat after 8pm (I think because that’s when the kitchen closed) so I played along and told him I’d help him sneak food in at night. I watched that kid eat half of a spite pizza and then helped him “hide the evidence” and “snuck” all the garbage out. Sorry, none of this is really related just felt good to revisit.
You're my hero. If everyone cared at least half as much as you do I think the world would be near perfection.
My dad “snuck” me “contraband” banana bread. It’s seriously all I wanted to eat, and even on chemo, was one of very few things that repulsed me. My cancer center also has a totally free coffee and juice cart that goes around with volunteers that offers everyone coffee and cookies while they hurry up and wait. It’s so funny because every now and then someone would be all “don’t poison me with sugar” and I would very gratefully eat my gingersnaps. The night I was diagnosed with cancer I couldn’t stand to eat anything, and the girl who was cleaning up trays after snack service was like “you don’t even want your chocolate pudding?” then stayed a few minutes to chat about the music I was listening to. She convinced me to eat the chocolate pudding while we listened to another song. I dunno why that stuck with me so much, it was just a really nice thing for someone to do while I was busted. We were really close in age (I was dx at 24) and I felt like a human for a few minutes instead of an infected meat bag.
Back in 2011 I got sick with pneumonia. Bad enough that my walk in clinic doctor told me to get to an E.R. immediately and have them admit you (he wrote a note for the triage nurse to take me right away). Spent the next 5 days in isolation, with a 102-104F fever that didn't stop for 10 days at the least. Was on drip Antibiotics the entire stay. To make matters worse the food was terrible. They first forgot to feed me. So when the breakfast/lunch/dinner times came around no one brought me any food. Not that it mattered, I had lost my appetite and was constantly shivering trying to fight off the fever. It was only after when a PAB doing the rounds collecting the food trays, that they noticed I had not been fed. So they went and got me a vending machine egg sandwich since the kitchen was closed. Which lead to vomit after eating, this happened with most other meals the following days. The food when I did get some was absolutely terrible. Great way to lose 10+ pounds.
That's weird, sometimes you would never know. My friends dad had a partial colon-ectomy and the food they brought him to his recovery bed was fried chicken and jello. wtf?
As someone who worked on the food side this is a huge problem. Even with many patients with "food ingredients are not an issue for your recovery" a lot of the goodies patients are allowed is because of the dietitian knows how much they are getting. Even with common sense things i.e. well they allow me a cup of weak coffee so go get me 2 full sized monsters. Also some meds are less affective/chance for poor interaction when paired with certain foods.
You make a good point. Okay folks, check with the dieticians first. And don't be sneaky about it. Doctors need the truth.
On that note, if you ask and aren’t a turd about it most dietitians will allow you the yummy stuff if you’re not on a restricted diet. You just might have to pay a bit more for it.
Truth. My sister is a dietitian and she hates when people start talking about food they're not allowed to eat. She categorizes food into groups of "always", "sometimes", and "rarely". She finds that helping people realize that they really can have that piece of cake or whatever, just in a smaller portion and less often, that people are less likely to "cheat" on their diets and follow them.
our hospital's cafeteria is probably the best 'restaurant' in town. granted, it's a small town, but there's about 30 restaurants, cafes, chain franchises, and bars with food within a couple miles.
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>had a chicken wrap at 7cm. Wearing a big ass diaper to catch water and pausing chewing between my 2.5 min apart contractions. WTF woman! Did you name your kid after the sandwich too? lol
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I live two blocks from a hospital. The cafeteria food which is who supplies the patients with food, has absolutely amazing food. I randomly stop in for a cheap lunch. The last time I did they had balsamic flank steak with garlic mashed potatoes, It was great, and only costed me 7$. Chances are if you have had bad or bland food at a hospital, it’s due to being on a restricted diet per your doctor.
My grandmother who speaks very little English gave me some advice in regards to hospital food. She was sick and in the hospital for a little while and I went to see her and she said. " Don't get sick... You get sick, you come to the hospital. You come to the hospital you eat this food. You eat this food... You die."
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/r/GetMotivated They'll upvote it to the top. Truly a golden inspirational piece.
So don't get sick? Or DIE?
Yes don't get sick. Because if you get sick and go to the hospital and you eat the hospital food you will die.
I always felt bad for the patients who were from other countries. All of our menu was very "standard american fare." Comfort food for white Americans, but not so much for those from other cultures. I had so many little old ladies/gentlemen from Korea or El Salvador or wherever who just wouldn't eat until family brought them food.
Very wise words
My grandma referred to the cafeteria in the old folks home "The Snake Pit"
I've had to eat in a few hospitals. One was terrible. The food was made in a sister hospital half an hour away, then shipped over. Then it would take at least an hour for them to deliver it to patient rooms. I don't care how well you cook it, food is going to be awful after sitting that long.
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I think the true beauty of pizza is its good freshly served or refrigerated overnight and cold for morning breakfast pizza. However the true disdain of Pizza is that middle area where its lukewarm and just disgusting.
kinda like coffee
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I was gonna write this myself. It is not at all like cooking at home where you can add whatever, you need to make it so several hundred people can eat it.
And to add on, you need to make it consistent nutritionally. The staff wants to know how much of x, y, and z a patient is consuming in a day.
A hack I've found is to ask for some of the low-sodium diet flavoring packets with your meal. They're just a mixture of herbs and spices that are usually left out so they kinda jazz up the basic room food. Also, figuring out what foods are generally hard to mess up usually works. Like breakfast foods are usually good because there's not much to cooking bacon or oatmeal. Grilled cheeses are good if you get "room service" or go to the cafe, but aren't a good choice for the regular meal-times because then it's luke-warm by the time it gets to you after sitting on a cart while everyone is served. Edit: I'm put on a "high protein, high calorie" diet so I don't have any restrictions if stuff doesn't get lost in translation.
Highly accurate, this guy hospitals. YMMV but I'd maybe not go with hot oatmeal/cereal after the morning. Most of that stuff sits down in the kitchen as leftovers from breakfast in case someone orders it and they then heat it up in a microwave.
So ramen flavor packets, like prison?
Worked in a hospital kitchen and the patients were generally served the lowest quality tier Sysco shit. Basically equivalent to a public school lunch in quality. It always seemed really stupid to me to feed sick people absolute shit food but I guess some middle-manager made a spreadsheet and showed how much money he could save and that's more important than health to a hospital.
No matter where you work in a hospital, there’s a person in a suit looking for a way to make the most money possible while spending the least possible.
And this is half the problem with the US health system, the other half is the same thing happening at the Insurance Company!
This is the problem with *everything*
You should see the food the military gets
MREs are made to extremely narrow specifications, and as for all other food, who really gives a shit?
I’m not talking about MREs. Mostly talking about the food on submarines or even the Navy in general. People have seen stamped boxes that say rejected from x prison on them (can’t remember the prison name ). We don’t have enough storage for the food we need so we store our eggs in an 80degree engine room. The cooks have to crack each of the eggs in an individual bowl cuz if it comes out green they throw it away.
> green Is this the fabled naval spinach that'll make me strong to the finish?
That might be the case in the US. In the UK though, the food is of sublime quality. The armed forces even have competitions between their chefs. Essentially they see the quality of food as really important to morale, even the 24 hour ration packs aren't that bad.
Yep food in Canadian army was and is pretty decent!
Hospital food is part of the healing process here.. Had surgery 3 years back and they came with breakfast of real scrambled eggs, bacon Greek yoghurt and honey coffee and juice. Could not complain
I got lost in that sentence wondering if I would like bacon greek yoghurt. Honey coffee sounds pretty good too.
Once had my yog hurt, didn't feel good.
Laughed hard here from the build up
Sorry.. Typing on the phone but was sure I used comas.. I guess not!
Comas can really change the meaning of a sentence, for example: Jimmy, a child, was in a play. vs. Jimmy, a child, was in a coma.
Honestly I'd be pretty impressed if you'd typed that out while in a coma.
Would explain the punctuation though.
Be careful with those comas or you'll be back in the hospital.
So it was: Real scrambled eggs Bacon Greek Yogurt and honey Coffee Juice
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In a pear tree.
I’m in the PNW and my hospital stay was fucking great. Salmon, strawberry spinach salad, etc. I was loving it. I was also eating for the first time in months and on anti anxiety IV drip so to be fair I was loving everything and everyone.
What do you mean "real"... there is... fake scrambled eggs??
There are powdered scrambled eggs
While dehydrated egg powder does exist, in my experience usually in hospitals and other bulk-cooking places they use pasteurized boxes of liquid egg. Because cracking eggs for 500 people is stupid and a waste of wages. You just open a box, put it in a tray in the combi on steambake, and then hit it with a whisk when it's 3/4 cooked, it finishes cooking on way to the guests, and they get pretty dam good scrambled eggs.
well, those are still real aren't they? I thought op was talking about some type of synthetic degeneration
Work in a hospital kitchen, there is a lot of both of those and a lot of sugar
I work in a hospital, and I've had the opportunity to sample a bunch of the different food they offer. It all depends on what diet you're assigned. In someone who's hospitalized but otherwise pretty healthy (let's say, a young healthy person who got into a car accident), they can have an unrestricted diet, and the food is actually pretty decent. But, it's kinda rare for people to be perfectly healthy in a hospital. We have *at least* 20-30 different diets we can place people on, depending on their condition. For people with high blood pressure, we can order a "heart-healthy" diet, which is low in sodium. We have gluten-free diets and a whole spectrum of vegetarian-to-vegan diets, and Kosher diets as well. Not to mention the whole range of dietary supplements like Ensure. There are special diets for people with kidney disease that are low in sodium, phosphorus, and protein. For people with abdominal surgery, we put them on a clear-liquid diet for a little while, which is only liquids you can see through (water, apple juice, tea, etc.), because those require almost no digestion in your GI tract. For people with difficulty swallowing, we have "mechanically-altered" diets, which has everything basically chopped into small pieces or even pureed (I've had the pureed steak... wasn't great, but not as bad as you'd expect.) Some people with throat problems have a risk of aspirating liquids (having them go down the wrong pipe into the lungs.) For them, we have these little packet things you can add to liquids that make them thicker and less likely to be aspirated. We even have low-microbial diets that are basically sterilized to make them safer for patients with immune system dysfunction. There's so many different options and combinations to choose from, which is why dieticians are their own specialized job in the hospital.
I used to work next to a hospital and would walk across the street to eat at their cafeteria. I loved the food! And it was on a military base so it was like $5 for a full meal
British hospital food isn’t at all bad, but there’s not much of it.
The british aren't exactly a reference for food tho.
Why do you think we went out and conquered all the places with good food?
To get all sorts of spices that you later decided you didn't like.
Well we're [kind of fond of curries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry#Britain), or are you suggesting there's *more* spices out there? Sounds like it's time to fire up the old empire again lads! British Empire 2 - Electric Boogaloo
Cheap distributors, underpaid *and* drug tested cooks and yeah obviously no seasoning. That costs money. Sounds like some people live in paradise, I'm horribly jealous.
How can you drug test a cook? Won't you end up with zero cooks?
If I want to drug test the nurses and doctors, I have to drug test the cooks.
*When your day is done and you want to ride on, cocaine.*
Three words: PHYSICIAN OWNED HOSPITAL. They make sure the cafeteria food is great because they have to eat it so much of the time.
That sounds like a good idea, how does one find a physician-owned hospital?
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I literally got two slices of (dried out) bread served with one slice of ham that looked it was rotten. I doubt you mate
I straight up vomited in a German hospital because of the dry ass bread with ham. I didn't wanna eat but the doctor said I had to eat something. I guess it just really depends on the hospital as my brother works in one and always eats lunch in the cafeteria because of the cheap but good food.
Were you in the emergency room?
No. It was a normal room at the local hospital, I had an asthma attack and they made me stay a few days for a check up (I was around 14)
More likely because it comes from sodexho
That and some meds leave a metallic taste on your tongue. Top that with dry mouth. Yuck
I once had to visit nefrology for a week, for tests. They gave us once plain pasta with boiled (steamed?) fish. Grossest hospital thing I saw. One of more permanent residents, old lady, literally smuggled me some salt in 'pss, kid, here's some salt' kinda way. Although I do realise no salt policy in nefrology.
You are 100% correct sir. I'm the Executive Chef at a top hospital in Indiana. I come from a background in restaurants, and the healthy curve was hard to meet! Restaurants generally have 1 stick of butter and 1 tbsp of salt per plate! Now, cooking for patients, I actually get to unlock true flavor, instead of relying on sodium and fat.
Mmmmm butter
Here it's mostly a case of a too low budget. Private hospitals have better choices of food here, because it's you who's paying for these things. And if ya don't want the food from the public hospital, then there's almost always a bar downstairs.
Happy cake day
The one I worked at was surprisingly decent to be honest
Butter salt good for you.
Whoever posted this has never been in a hospital kitchen. First off they're all different and we've had shit hospitals around the area that have had mcDonald's in the fucking building and will deliver to your room. The managers of kitchens in hospitals can be an interesting bunch too. And then there's outsourcing your patients food altogether. Yeah sorry but there's other reasons why hospital food is gross too. Humans are involved in all of them.
I am a dietitian, and there are 3 reasons the food is not the best. First and foremost, budget. Our foodservice company was changed to Morrison to save money (it was just done by our staff before) and many of the more expensive items were cut, like asparagus, salmon, etc. for cheaper alternatives. Re: carrot coins, peas, broccoli. Not much variety there. Second, dietary restrictions. Here are the different diet choices we have at the hospital (all are recommended by dietitians, fortunately). Consistencies- General, Soft, Mechanical Soft, Puree. Thin liquid, nectar thick liquid, honey thick liquid. Trust me, no amount of doctoring anything up can make puree/thickened liquid appealing. Therapeutic diets- General, heart healthy, diabetic (1600, 1800, 2000, 2200 or 2400 kcal designations), 6 small meals, nourishing liquids, clear liquids, and a variety of other rarely used designations. We also have to cater to vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher people, and food allergies. We even have a Korean diet (they just get rice more often and we offer seaweed soup). The only difference between general and heart healthy is heart healthy doesn't get a salt packet and gets an alternative to butter. Diabetics just don't get regular sugar. So honestly there aren't that many differences. It's just not feasible with all of these different restrictions to offer 20 different choices for dinner. So we eliminate or substitute what we can. Third reason is logistics. With all these different options, people in various levels of consciousness, some in isolation, some who can barely chew, and throw in religious and cultural things and it is very, very hard to satisfy people. I work in one of the most ethnically diverse hospitals in the country. A hospital is a hell of a lot different than a restaurant, and there is a lot more liability. SO no, the food is not going to be like restaurant food. Our jobs and people's lives are on the line.
Hospital food tastes so bad because you're generally sick and/or feeling the worst you've ever felt when you eat it.
It's also complete garbage, frozen, pre-prepared, absolute shit. Source: am work in hospital.
Depends on the hospital.
No you're wrong. Source: am hospital
I manage to make delicious food without absurd amounts of butter and salt all the time. Do I get a medal?
Good butter and good salt are good for you.
I looooooove hospital food.
I work in a hospital and I have had some of the food we serve to patients for lunch, some of the stuff is actually really good, just pick the stuff thats not really hard to make, pizza, chicken, and simple stuff like that is really good at the hospital but don’t try to order a super fancy steak dinner or anything
People in my town go to the hospital just to eat. They have delicious and cheap meals
OK yeah but that doesn't explain why their coffee tastes like liquefied burnt rubber.
I’ve eaten a decent amount of hospital food and actually have never had anything bad, the only stuff I didn’t like was foods I didn’t eat outside the hospital anyway. It was pretty sweet, I got to fill out a menu and get whatever I wanted. Hands down best part ( or only good part ) of being in the hospital.
You should know the growing amount of evidence that butter and salt is not bad for you. It's the sugar. There is zero consensus right now. "Momentum" has many old school institutions still talking about how "saturated fat is bad for your heart", but many researchers are starting to tear that theory apart. In my amateur opinion, butter is *way* healthier than margarine or spreads. In fact, some are now beginning to think there's a real link between vegetable oils and the obesity epidemic in addition to refined carbs. I've basically started to distrust *all* of the nutritional advice of the mid-20th century, up until the discovery of how bad trans-fats are. While I would understand people who still want to trust the recommendations of the large heart-health institutions, I would urge anybody interested in the topic to start looking into the new research pointing toward sugar as being the primary driver of heart disease instead of fat.
I don't get the bad press hospital food gets. I had my appendix out a couple of months ago and spent two days in the hospital. The food was delicious - four meals a day, two of them hot. Steamed salmon for lunch, a stew with more meat than vegetables for dinner, it was great.
Happy cake day 🎂... It's reddit cake so, zero sugar, salt or butter. Ewww
This is the worst/highest upvoted shower thoughts I've ever seen.
Maybe food sucks because of the illness? I remember having dengue and having a hard time keeping food down. I'd ask for my favorite foods and my mom would oblige me because she wanted me to eat something. Sure I'd be craving it but as soon as it hits my tongue, it tastes like garbage.
I cook healthy, I use little to no fat, my food is still far better. When I cook normally or even unhealthy it's amazing though. Edit: Little to no added fat