Bad hospital food is a common problem. Find out why and what you can do to keep from starving when you are hospitalized.
It sounds like the punch line of a joke, everyone complains about hospital food but some is downright inedible. One hospital had such scathing patient feedback as “I wouldn’t feed it to my dog” and some patients sent letters to the health system CEO to complain about how horrible it was.
If your last hospital visit felt like you were being served the worst public school lunch options you wouldn’t be totally wrong. Due to the volume of meals a hospital has to serve and the cost of labor to make food from scratch, many hospitals are buying pre-made industrial food products. Serving everyone prefabricated food saves hospitals a bunch of money. Many hospitals have also handed their food service off to big companies like Aramark to run their kitchens, adding to the bare minimum food quality. Besides tasting awful, most typical hospital food has minimal nutritional value.
In case you think people are just picky or overreacting, check out the photo gallery of hospital food people have been served.
There are some new efforts to improve hospital food. Hospitals have added food on demand where you can order from a set menu outside of standard meal deliveries. Most now offer some options for various dietary restrictions yet still manage to make it all taste like the box it came in.
Some hospitals are trying to do better by changing their meal programs, offering more fresh food, and hiring hospitality professionals and chefs to run their programs. Some are adding extra offerings outside the generic Americanized food most commonly served in institutional settings. Most are still pretty terrible. Even the public-facing food service for visitors and staff can be pretty awful and limited in what is available.
So what do you do besides hope you never get sick? Most hospitals will allow food to be brought in, within reason. So friends or family can bring you something from home or take out from your favorite place. Many hospitals allow food delivery to patient rooms as long as they don’t have visitor or delivery restrictions. Make sure to ask the hospital what their policy is then check with your favorite food service like Grubhub or Door Dash to see if they deliver to that hospital. You will need the official street address of the hospital to check.
Most delivery services will let a family member pick up at the front of the hospital for you. If you have food delivered directly to your room make sure to tip extra. It takes the driver more time to navigate a hospital and find a room than it does to drop food on someone’s doorstep. Some food delivery services also offer delivery from grocery stores, convenience stores, and coffee or tea shops adding to your options while you are there.
If you do end up spending time in a hospital with regrettable food, make sure to include this in any patient satisfaction surveys you may receive.
