Hospital food!

This is very much a work in progress and will be added to as I have time.

This year, I've had the misfortune to be in hospitals for many weeks. Out of Albany, Charles Gardner and Fiona Stanley, the quality and freshness of the food was considerably superior at Charles Gardner.

Just as an example, scrambled eggs. The eggs were uniform in colour, obviously out of a packet and varied in consistency(watery one day, very firm the next for the other two but Charles Gardner eggs you could see pieces of white and pieces of yolk, perfectly cooked and the taste was inviting. The salads were so much fresher and had a wider range of items in them. The taste of the cherry tomatoes was explosive. I realise this depends on the grower but sourcing good quality foods seems to be higher on the list of importance at Charles Gardner. I don't know if the Charles Gardner Hospital has it's own staff supplying the food or if it is contracted but whatever you do, don't change.

Unfortunately, Albany Regional and Fiona Stanley have both contracted the supply of food to Serco and Serco makes food to a price not to a standard that benefits the patient's health. While contracting the supply of food might sound like a good "idea", it is not. Food is medicine, the food supplied during my stays was sub standard. It was laden with sugar, both obvious and hidden.

Sugar laden drinks in the form of tea, coffee, milo and juices are doled out to morbidly obese patients, to diabetic patents, to really sick patients with no real thought.

The food was highly processed and the vegetables were poor. I tackled many Drs, Dietitians and Nurses, some I pushed really hard to get a response beyond "we can't do anything about it". It is actually disgusting. Our hospitals are feeding the same crap foods that made these patients sick in the first place. Not only that, by doing so, are confirming to these patients that their diet is OK. It is not!!!

You know how when you buy frozen beans, you can buy brand name beans and pay top dollar or you can buy Coles or Woolies brands and still get a reasonable product. Then there is the plain label sort, in white bags that you cannot see the product and these are cheap but also tough, old and chewey. This is what Serco uses.

When you buy fresh carrots, you can get young fresh carrots, you can buy larger carrots that are still ok, you can buy juicing carrots that do not quite have the best flavour or you can get carrots that were in the ground too long and have become bitter. These last carrots are cheap and often used for horses. This is what Serco uses and in order to disguise the bitter taste, they add sugar.