Hospital food – Breaking the myth
Blessing
I will start with a blessing that everyone may stay fit and healthy. God forbid, if anyone must visit a hospital ever.
The Myth
The word hospital, followed by food, creates a very boring visual in our minds. Boiled daal, where the daal sinks to the bottom and the water floats on top. Thick boiled almost sticky rice on a plate. Some vegetable boiled (mostly French beans) cooked with no oil, no masalas and minimum salt. A couple of pale looking phulkas or chappatis. If you have not seen this, I am sure , you have now visualised it.
I have experienced the above in plenty of visits to the hospital. My father and then mother were hospitalised for some reason and even when my daughter was born, the food remains so good that it makes one desperate to get out of the place. Most of the times we ended up cooking food from home and taking it to the hospital for the person who was being treated. This added extra pressure on the person attending to the patient and overall a very stressful environment.
Myth is broken — My Experience
Having said that, I happened to be there in a Pune based hospital for a surgery a few weeks back. That kind of gave me the thought of experiencing and writing about Hospital food in general.
I was an almost healthy patient walking into the hospital, doing my own admission and moving into the room selected by myself. This meant I would not have any diet restrictions at least for the first day in the hospital. It was early morning; after the tests were done, the dietician paid a visit. She came to check what my preferences were. When I asked her about non vegetarian meals, I was told that it was a vegetarian only hospital. Sad, but had to live with it. It was my choice after all ☹
So, I explained that I like my tea black, with a dash of lemon. I love food and eat everything that is served specifically if my tongue loves it and my stomach digests it.
The Tea
Well, my instructions were not followed to the T, but I got a nice tea in the next few mins with sachets of CCD sugar packs. The tea was bright as you can see from the photograph. Not sure what tea leaves they use (neither did I ask), the taste was something that I related with and the view from the hospital window helped to seal the cup as a relaxing one. It was boiled enough, right amount of quantity, right amount of milk and the sugar was left for me. Served with a couple of packs of Marie Vita (I call them plywood biscuits), which I kept aside as my wife loves the English marie 😊
The tea in the evening though was something that I had asked for and I thanked them for noting it down properly and giving the perfect service on the same. This tea came with a tea bag of Tetley tea.
The breakfast
Since the stay was short and one day was fasting, had two breakfasts there. They had mentioned in their briefing that the breakfast would only be South Indian food, which possibly is the best breakfast food.
Once, they served two large idlis with a very nice sambhar and coconut chutney. This was served with along with some fresh pieces of nice and juicy watermelon.
Second day, it was two bowls of a vegetable upma, with moong sprouts and coconut chutney. The photograph really says it all. If you are served breakfast like this the patient is going to jump in joy and enjoy his food and hence get better soon. 😊
The lunch & dinner
This was special. Lunch & Dinner served, was a full thali which covered all aspects of taste and nutrition.
The Basics
2 decent sized phulkas
A bowl of plain rice or jeera fried rice
A sealed small pack of well-set chitale curd
Daals
The accompaniment with rice was once a pleasant soupy thick daal, the next time was a nice dahi kadhi and once it was a good dal fry. Believe me all the dishes were spiced enough to give the tongue its taste and homely enough to not cause any harm to your stomach.
Dry Vegetables
Then there was a bowl of dry sabji which once was a bright green spinach with pieces of corn in it. The spinach was not dark green but bright leafy green, like you get in the restaurants. The second time was bottle gourd but with a good amount of jeera and tomatoes (making it just like we make it at home) and the third I remember is tondli or Ivy gourd cooked in a similar manner. Enough amount of masalas, very less oil but it impressed me no end.
Gravy Based vegetables
Further was a bowl of gravy-based vegetable. The best one I liked here was a kofta served in gram flour curry. This was by far the best; the other paneer butter masala was not really up there.
Salads
It does not end there, a bowl of salad is part of wholesome diet required by the body. I believe a couple of times it was the simple diced carrot and cucumber. Once, it was a bowl of boiled green peas and diced carrots and boiled French beans mixed with mayonnaise.
The desserts
Well, it still does not end here. The thali does not end without a sweet. This was the icing, like I have written before, you can make me a slave with a well-made dessert. This was a healthy filled with ghee sooji halwa once, the second time a similar beetroot halwa (man this was amazing) the look of this killed. There was once the rosgulla too.
I am a frugal eater. Hence, would always share the plate with my wife who was there all the time with me. She would be left a little hungry which she would go and complete at the canteen. As a patient I could not go to the canteen so cannot write a review of the food there and nobody helped me get some good photographs of the food or the location there.
Before the day ended, they served milk, but I asked them to replace it with a juice. So a couple of times it was fresh water melon juice and once it was fresh pineapple juice. No photographs here.
Some of the photographs are good and in good angle, some of them are off because I may not have been able to click them properly. Hope you can understand that.
Would like to mention that I was at Jupiter Hospital on the Pimpale-Saudagar road. I was promised by my doctor that you are with one of the best medical institutes and it did turn out the entire procedure and the experience was smooth as silk (clichéd but could not find a better word). There was no single instance where I could complain or crib. All I could do was praise and thank everyone for taking me through this process with ease and making me healthy again.
Hope more and more hospitals start considering that if they serve the right food and provide a good environment, it will help their patients to recover faster and would only bless them for the job well done. Thank you
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