Hospital Food

[htmb]

Kerouac's mention of "hospital slop" and Bjd's illumination in the "what's for breakfast" thread got me thinking about hospital food here in the USA. Typically, it's the worst kind of institutional food you ever want to see. I suppose there are good reasons to serve patients food with no flavor, mystery-type meats, and over-processed, over-cooked "delicacies," but in my family, if a patient has permission from their doctor, we always bring food and fresh fruit from home, and sometimes goodies from local restaurants. When one family member was recently ill, we took turns each day packing a bag with favorites to tempt an appetite and help keep spirits up.

The last time I was in the hospital was 1992, and, during my week-long Christmastime stay, I bet I didn't eat anything from my three-times-per-day-food tray. What a waste! I'd rather go hungry than eat pudding that tastes like melted plastic, stale cornflakes, or flavorless turkey pressed into shapes, floating in pale, canned gravy.

Surely there are hospitals that serve more tempting fare. If not France or the USA, then where? If I needed to spend time in a hospital and I wanted to make sure I didn't starve to death because the food was so lousy, where should I go? Mexico? Australia? Germany?

[Deleted]

The only decent hospital food I can recall was at the psychiatric hospital where I worked for umpteen years.
It was home cooked and the ladies in the kitchen were delightful.

[whatagain]

When we were at the hospital we had a room that had been turned into a kitchen outside the ward.
It has been refitted thanks to charity organizations (you realize some are really useful in scuh circumstances).
So we would cook for our son, who would discard all meals given to him.
He had an utter disregard for hospital food but said it very gently so nobody cared. I would cook for him a paella, choucroute (sauerkraut) quite often, pizzas, etc. He had very strange tastes due to the chemio altering his sensations.

I would eat what was given to him, which was usually correct and sometimes quite good I must say - maybe it was because it was food given to children who would spend long stays at the hospital, so maybe they paid more attention.
When I've been myself for short stays, the food was always crap.

Last time we went to a hospital it was for something much nicer - a delivery (hate this word for delivering a baby), so we ordered food from a nearby restaurant (greek) for my wife and the staff (we are nice people but we knew everybody from the staff, especially my wife who works in the hospital where she had our 4 babies, so it was half a gathering of friends).

But the process was so quick that we had to postpone the food... it was still good but cold.

[bjd]

I don't remember the hospital food being bad and tasteless at the maternity hospital, but of course, when you have children you are not sick, so they could serve normal food.

[htmb]

It sounds like the cooks in the psychiatric hospital provided some extra special care through their meals, Casimira.

Pariswat, my baby sister was diagnosed with leukemia at age 11 1/2 and died at 13. I remember trying to tempt her to eat with lots of different foods. It would have been very nice to have a kitchen nearby. Her hospital care was more geared to that of an adult. It seems more and more places are now catering to the needs of sick children. Thank goodness!

Probably the only decent food I ever had was the steak and baked potato dinner served after my first child was born. It was memorable food, considering where I was at the time. All the rest, in three other hospitals stays, has been avoidable, at best.

[whatagain]

We had incredible laughs with the food at the hospital. We had incredible laughs at the hospital actually. Actually we had incredible laughs.

htmb, our Robin was diagnosed at 11 1/2 and died at 13 too - my daughter is missing him as much as we do.
And the real injustice is that people relate to us - and ignore or cannot cope with our children's distress / pain. Was it / is it the same with you ?

Good night all.

[htmb]

Pariswat, it's been a long time since my sister died. It took me thirty years to stop being angry at the world. It also destroyed the health of my parents, who later died of various diseases in their sixties.

Everyone copes in their own way and, as you know, people have their own problems in life. Most folks care, but they might not know what to say. Sometimes people are afraid to make mention of a lost loved one because they don't wish to cause you more pain.

But life for the living goes on. You have good memories and a wonderful family with which to delight. But still, a piece of you is missing. I do understand. What is most important, I believe, is to honor your lost loved one by taking good care of yourself, your family, and your good friends.

[mich64]

When our new Hospital was built (about 6-7 years ago) one of the most anticipated aspects was the kitchen and how fresh cooked meals would be served to in-patients and available in the cafeteria. Well I think that lasted about a year. Staff was laid off and now the meals are prepared, packaged and trucked to our Hospital from another Hospital 4 hours away. As you can imagine, the food is terrible. Especially the soups, tea and coffee as they come in these thick plastic bowls/cups that are reheated and they give off this horrible chemical smell. People who are fortunate to have family around usually bring in food. The nurses actually advise family to do so.

Our dear nephew past away in his early 20's from brain cancer. He was diagnosed at 16 with melanoma (skin cancer behind his ear), he had surgery to remove it and radiation treatments. They did not recommend chemotherapy, stating they believed they got it all, less than 5 years later after many emergency room visits, they did a CT scan and found 7 brain tumors. Pariswat, we loved him dearly and miss him so much, he was not our son, but we loved and adored him as if he was our own. I echo htmb with thoughts of honoring him with taking care of ourselves, family and friends. He had two darling little boys who are now 9 and 7, they make me smile with happy memories of our nephew at their ages now.

[onlyMark]

In the last days of my father's life in the hospital I was told off for bringing him profiteroles and other goodies as it was the one thing he always really enjoyed eating and as the hospital food was quite dire. I told them when they objected that, "the old lad is on his last legs and he can eat what the bloody hell he wants, ok?"

[bjd]

Good for you, Mark. That's what you have to do. When my father-in-law was at the end, the only thing that gave him pleasure was smoking his pipe. Since he was in his own room in a retirement home, his visiting children would light it and let him puff on his pipe. They would remove the oxygen mask if he had it. They opened the windows to let the smell out.

I see on this thread that we are talking about hospitals in wealthy countries and it reminds me of stories of very poor countries where family has to bring food to the patients. There is something wrong with this -- in both cases, of course.

[Deleted]

I remember the food being good when I was in the hospital in 1989. Not so now.

I must admit that 2 or 3 dishes are proposed the day before.

[whatagain]

We should add hospitals on TripAdvisor and review them.
LOL.

[htmb]

Only the American Hospital would be of any interest.