Unpopular hospital food

What should hospitals say for themselves about providing meals that appear to be designed to inspire repeat businesses?

“Church food needs a revolution.” I was surprised to learn that most hospitalized patients’ meals offered in hospitals “doesn’t have to meet national nutritional standards for a healthy diet.” Analysis of the nutritional value of food provided to patients at teaching hospitals showed that many people did not meet dietary recommendations. Read the headline “Warning: Hospital Foods That Are Not Healthy.”

The registered dietitian wrote to protect hospitals, pointing out how strict the guidelines are, saying, “Are more than half of the hospitals meeting or exceeding the guidelines… No more than choosing eggs for breakfast, or 2% of milk in a diet that exceeds the recommended intake of cholesterol and fat. The relationship between nutrition and disease prevention.”

Well, if a white coat fits…

“We spend a lot of money on training doctors, but don’t follow the simplest things like food.” “A good diet is something that is necessary to restore health as a good nursing, surgery, or medicine. It’s stupid to pretend that changing this blame is beyond the power of our profession.” It was written 75 years ago, but there is still a pushback. “We must question whether the ‘healthy diet’ given to helpless patients during a 2-10-day hospital stay benefits anyone other than the nutritionist’s sense of ‘doing good’,” replied one doctor. He said, “I’m always plagued when a healthy 75-year-old is being robbed of the morning eggs of hope because of the orders of “healthy” low-cholesterol diet. “So what are the days of a slightly heartless meal in the scheme of things…

But that is the message being sent. “The presence of food in (hospital) trays sends a message to patients about healthy and acceptable things,” replied the researcher who conducted a food analysis at the hospital. “We still can’t think of a better place or opportunity to set a better example of nutrition than when patients are in hospital.”

After all, California public schools, for example, have banned the sale of soda for over a decade. Why aren’t the kids in hospital? A study of California healthcare facilities serving children did not allow 75% of drinks and 81% of food sold in vending machines to be sold at schools. We’re talking about soda and candy. “When you have unhealthy items in your healthcare facility and see staff consume these products it contradicts the nutrition and health messages that children often receive from healthcare providers.”

On adult menus, almost every diet contains excess salt, with 100% of daily menus exceeding the American Heart Association’s recommendations for maintaining less than 1,500 mg of sodium per day. This means that the meal provided to the patient may actually “contribute to a worsening or slow resolution of the very conditions that could have led to hospitalization.”

However, if the hospital adhered to the recommended salt limits, the food did not taste that good and responded to the salt lab executives. “Even though hospital foods are likely to already contain high levels of sodium, they are often criticized for being bad taste.” No matter how much salt there is, they taste bad.

At the very least, “all meals with low sodium content should be prepared and optional table salts available to patients without additional restrictions.” Then, if individuals want to add salt, it is their choice. If they want someone to run them into parking and smoke, it’s their business, but we shouldn’t let cigarette smoke into patients’ rooms three times a day, whether they want or not. Interestingly, studies suggest that if people are allowed to taste food on a salty diet, they rarely add as much sodium as they are in packaged foods.

As shown below and at 3:55 in my video, when the researchers switched the study participants to a low-sodium diet, they used more salt shakers, but overall they were soaked up with salt intake. And they said the food tasted the same as salty. This is because when salt is added to the surface of the food, it tastes salty. However, if hospital meals are pre-chlorinated, “most hospitalized patients may not actually have the option of consuming healthy levels of sodium during hospitalization.”

To protect unhealthy foods, a hospital’s food service provider explained that they are just giving people what they want. “People are in the hospital, they’re stressed and they need something to think about comfortable food, so if that feels good, I don’t want to deny that to people.” That’s why a clinical director sends ice cream and candy bars to cancer patients. “We focus on familiar, comfortable foods, an approach that has increased patient satisfaction and improved intake.” Do you know what else can help? A lovely long drug on cigarettes. The hospital sold cigarettes, but “mainly… for the convenience of the patient” and “I don’t think I can deny patients the right to smoke,” said the medical center administrator. “As a service to patients, I have to assert that there is a cigarette machine in the hospital.” However, others have suggested that tobacco products should not be sold in hospitals. This was not the 1950s, but the 1980s. But at the time, “The irony of hospitals that allow for the sale of tobacco, the leading cause of preventable diseases and death in the country, is rarely discussed in the literature.

But to their credit, US hospitals received “first ban on smoking at work” by the mid-1990s. Now, “Hospitals have the opportunity to take the lead again and create a food environment that is consistent with their mission to cure illness and promote health. Through the simple act of providing foods that meet national nutritional standards, our hospitals act to help the best health of our patients and staff.

“Strict repulsion restrictions are frequently criticized, as if the illnesses and premature deaths brought about by smoking are easy to accept and control.” Do you think the parallelism of my smoking style is an exaggeration? So, what do you guess? Today, cigarettes are no longer the main cause of preventable diseases and deaths in this country. In my video, the main cause of death in America is the American diet, as shown below. Hospitals in the US “providing millions of patients daily and are best positioned to model healthy diets through their patients’ food.”