I recently spent almost a week in the hospital and, as expected, hospital food and I really don't get along. It's not that there's anything wrong with it, especially when a dedicated, trained staff is trying to save your life, but...
I guess the nearest comparison would be airline food, although I haven't flown since I was discharged from the Navy in 1973, but I have to admit that it was better than that, and in fact, some of it wasn't too bad at all.
(Then there's military hospital food and I've had my share of that too)...
The main thing they try to do is feed you a balanced, low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium diet with enough fruits and veggies to satisfy the biggest gorilla in the zoo and I did my best as I am now recovering from a heart attack, have diabetes and do recognize the need to change, if only to prevent this from happening again.
Over the week, they fed me a fairly good chicken noodle soup with wide, flat noodles (like Mom used to make), a fair version of mac & cheese, roast beef (tough and chewy), several attempted chicken dishes, a plain (no mayo or anything else) tuna sandwich, which was delicious at the time, scrambled eggs, tiny little pancakes, tea, juices, lots of fruit (peaches, pineapple, etc), stewed tomatoes, brown rice, etc.
Condiment packs are small (for instance, a single packet of pepper) or non-existent. Salad dressing comes in a 1 ounce serving, and there's lemon juice for tea but hardly ever any sugar. I did learn to appreciate Spike, although I'm not quite sure what it is and they gave me a 3 ounce serving of ice cream once. And, shortly before I left, I discovered you could ask for hot tea anytime (I froze most of the time I was there and it would have been helpful if someone had mentioned it 5 or 6 days earlier)...
After a while, I couldn't take it any more and one of the dieticians offered to get me a hamburger but instead, I had the wife and Boy bring me a salad, some iced tea and bread sticks from home.
Now that I've been discharged and am on the mend at home, I've made a serious effort to keep it up and haven't even had a beer since then...
And I should point out the excellent care I got, from the El Cajon EMT, the boys in surgery, the Intensive Care Unit, the nurses on the fourth floor and Dr. Mike Rodriguez...
PS: Although I am qualified to go through the VA, the ambulance crew takes you to the nearest hospital when you experience a medical emergencey and as we have no insurance, I now have a bill of $111,318.90 to pay off...
