Well, after my post last week on hospital food, I was asked to take part in a short interview on the subject on Shelagh Rogers' show, Sounds Like Canada on CBC radio. What a thrilling opportunity to discuss real food! I was astonished at how nervous I was - after all I have NO problems standing up in front of a room full of people and giving a seminar, so why would a ten minute phone call when I am sitting in my living room make me so nervous??? Reflecting back, I was pretty nervous the first time I taught a seminar too. The interview was fast-paced and over before I knew it. Here is some of what I did not have an opportunity to say:
Healthy people replace 2 million cells a second, and those that are sick, injured or recovering from surgery probably replace substantially more than that. The raw material that those new cells are made of is our food. If the food does not have the nutrition needed, the body takes the required materials from other parts of the body, like our muscle, if we don't eat enough protein, and our bones, if we don't get enough minerals in our food. So, we frequently see patients with muscle wasting, people losing weight, and probably if we checked, we would find more osteoporosis. No matter how hard our body may try, it can't make tissue from drugs. So, I ask you. Why is the food budget in hospitals so low, when people really can't get better without quality food? There needs to be a massive shift in priorities.
So, therein lies the problem. According to the hospital-food series running all week on CBC radio, the food budget per person is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $5-$8 per day. That is completely insufficient to provide the nutrition needed for people to heal. I'm not sure exactly what would be sufficient - probably triple that amount at least - but in my mind, a hospital should be providing the bare necessities for healing, and those hospitals with such low food budgets are actually doing more harm than good to their patients, as their bodies have to eat themselves to get the nutrition they are not getting from food. Take from where it is less necessary now to fix what is broken, but ultimately the body-system is degraded.
So, what do we do??? We need a completely different model for food services. (Personally, I think the name, "food services" has to go. It says "institution" through and through.) How about changing the name to "Nourishing Services"? Maybe then those involved will remember their key function. I was suggesting more hospitals adopt the hotel room-service model that some hospitals in Oregon are using, or at least use the idea as a jumping-off point for brainstorming. Patients should not pay for their food ever, but if the food is good enough, maybe family and friends that are visiting will order food from the menu rather than going downstairs to the McDonalds Restaurant or StarBucks in the hospital foyer. In this way, food bought by those visiting the hospital can subsidize the meals the patients receive. Having a varied menu would address the special diet issue as well as the cultural and food preferences aspect. The patient could order a meal when it is convenient so it would be tasty, fresh and hot - it doesn't just arrive just as he/she is being wheeled down for XRays. Nourishing food just might shorten hospital stays too, so there may be some cost savings there.
Each hospital needs a creative chef that understands how to prepare nourishing food in the tastiest of ways - knows about the healing powers of bone broths, fermented foods, sea vegetables, organ meats, raw foods, and the necessity of soaking grains before cooking them, the absolute need for good-quality saturated fats for the body, and the increased nutrition found in free-range rather than factory-farmed beef, poultry, dairy and eggs. The food needs to be prepared on site with local ingredients as much as possible, as they would be the freshest, not to mention the least expensive.
Here are some menu ideas (please note - I am NOT a chef!):
Breakfast
a) Fresh free-range eggs cooked to order served with steamed spinach, sourdough rye toast and butter
b) Oatmeal, whole milk or plain whole yogurt, chopped fresh fruit and raw nuts, soft-boiled egg optional
c) Half grapefruit, beef patty (made with a combo of ground beef and ground beef heart - can't taste the difference) served with steamed kale and shallots, sprouted-grain toast and butter.
Lunch
a) Baked salmon, mixed salad, steamed zucchini, wild rice cooked in broth
b) Ham and split pea soup cooked with broth, dollop of fresh yogurt on top, grated raw cheese, raw veggie sticks
c) Chili con carn, wakame salad, crusty sourdough full-grain sprouted bread and butter.
Dinner
a) Liver and onions, REAL mashed potatoes, tomato boccachini salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar dressing
b) Roast chicken, steamed collard greens with butter, brown rice cooked in chicken broth, raw carrot sticks
c) Baked cod, baked yam, creamed spinach or steamed broccoli
Some healthy Drink Options
a) Kombucha - a fermented black tea
b) REAL ginger ale
c) REAL apple cidre
d) Lemon ginger honey tea
e) REAL rice milk
f) Kvass - a fermented drink made from fruit
I am teaching Diane Lee and LJ Lee's Connecting to Your Core course in Vancouver BC at the end of the month. If you have low-back pain, hip pain or pelvic pain, click here for more info and how to register.
Please feel free to comment on this tip on my blog
Related tips Hospital food - an opportunity waiting?
The Oregonian This is hospital food? March 2006
Fallon, Sally Nourishing Traditions New Trends Publishing, Washington DC. 2001.
Copyright 2007 Vreni Gurd
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