Hospital Food: Healing or Harmful?

- by Kate Nicholson

I’ve just finished an exhausting week of hospital shifts. As we, the staff, all rushed round with no time for meal breaks, I watched as people grabbed bars of chocolate from the vending machine to keep them going (and I was doing it myself – guilty as charged.).

We all know what happens when you eat a bar of chocolate. Sugar overload = rush of energy = energy crash = another bar of chocolate.

I watched as the trolley from the hospital’s League of Friends shop came round with the kind, elderly volunteers asking patients if they wanted to buy anything. Guess what the trolley is loaded with? Yep. Chocolate. Crisps. Sweets.

I watched bored patients loading up their lockers with bars of chocolate. I watched patients and staff grabbing cans of caffeine loaded fizzy drinks.

This is a hospital. We’re supposed to be focused on healing people. We’re supposed to be promoting public health.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to find juice and smoothie bars in hospitals? Full of freshly made natural fruits and vegetables? To have a smoothie option on the menu? To offer post operative patients, sick children, breast-feeding mums, the elderly, and long stay patients (who are at risk of becoming malnourished in some hospitals due to the poor quality of food) something as tasty, nutritious, health-giving and easy to swallow as a sweet green juice?

To have a trolley come round with freshly made cups of juices and delicious fruit and green smoothies? To offer a tempting display of ripe, juicy fruits? Imagine the summery aroma from a basket of strawberries wafting round the hospital from the trolley – who wouldn’t succumb!? (I had a strawberry smoothie at work yesterday morning, and someone walked in the room, sniffed the air and said ‘Ooh! What a lovely smell! Are you wearing Chanel?)!

Hospital juice bars could have a small repertoire of palatable juices and smoothies to offer, a few tried and trusted recipes. Maybe even some wheatgrass shots for the adventurous!

I’ve started making my green smoothies with a base of freshly made juice, such as pineapple or a couple of apples, and lime or half a lemon, a small bag of kale, or a bag of spinach, juiced and then added to the blender with some more spinach, cucumber (great for the skin), half an avocado, or a banana and some ice for a delicious refreshing green smoothie. That’s the wonder of smoothies – so many varieties of fruit and vegetables to play with to make great tastes! I’m loving the tartness of lemon and lime in my smoothies at the moment.

Anyway, what do you think? Should we campaign for fresh juice and smoothie bars in our hospitals? For vending machines filled with healthy snacks? It might improve the hospital waiting lists, as patients heal quicker from all the vitamin c in their new, nutritious food options, and go home earlier with a spring in their step and a resolve to buy themselves a blender at the first opportunity!