I’m bored so I’ve decided to do a hospital food/ catering critique of the 5 hospitals I’ve stayed in to date. I subsidize my hospital food with, fruit and nuts/ nutbutters, advocados,pukka clean Greens powder and food brought in by friends and family. I don’t believe there is very much healing in hospital food it’s usually overcooked and overprocessed! Breakfast is rubbish and the same in all hospitals Cereal or porridge with about 5 sachets of white sugar, white toast or McCambridge bread( whats with McCambridge bread?? It’s hard and too sweet in my oppinion?) Never anything fresh.
1. CUH – for variety. You are given a menu in the morning with all options and can mix and match, they list the sides too which is great if you want more veg .And soup, there is always fresh soup on the menu. There seems to be less processed and more fresh produce in the vegetarian options which actually include vegetables! Lovely chickpea curry, portion size, not too big or too small. Staff I’ve had have been lovely.
2.Waterford Regional hospital. You can ask for a menu but they have a seperate vegetarian and they don’t like you mixing them which is a pain as the veggie options are limited and often very stodgy, they seem to only do soup seasonally. Staff seemed nice but stressed.
3. St Lukes hospital Kilkenny. Again only do soup seasonally, but had the best fresh soups here. Vegetarian options here included macaroni cheese, spring rolls, croquetes,stodgy veggie burger, quiche , not a fresh veg in sight. They had the most processed menu, the least fresh produce the least choice. I generally went for salads here and subsidized, typicall Irish salads (with coleslaw, iceberg, tomato, egg,onion).
On a couple of occassions in all hospitals I went for the steamed fish option, It never resembled or tasted like fish as it was so over cooked.
I spent a couple of nights in St James Dublin, but was fasting mainly, I do remember the staff were lovely.
In January 2015 I had a mastectomy in Beaumount, I was expected to have a long recovery as I had previously had radiothearpy. I brought in most of my own stuff and my friends and family brought in wonderfull nourshing homemade food,I refused to eat theirs which really annoyed them. The catering staff were very unsympathetic. I was home in 2 days.Walking the dog on the third. FOOD MATTERS.
Years ago when I was in Waterford Regional Hospital I was told to ask for the veggie option that was on the staff menu. (THere wasn’t a veggie menu back then) This worked great until the weekend when there wasn’t that option.
Shauna