Background

A couple of years ago, I developed swallowing issues, choking on small pieces of food. During a hospital admission for other reasons in 2020, I began choking on medications and throwing up. I could not eat anything anymore except pureed foods, and where the hospital had no gluten and dairy free pureed options, I rapidly lost 20 lbs from lack of food. This was the beginning of what was to be 2 years of weight loss from swallowing issues.
By the time I was admitted to hospital in 2021 to have a feeding tube put in, I was less than 90 lbs.
During both of these hospital stays, food was a major challenge. I had to devise creative ways to eat more flavorful things in hospital, which I will get into below.

Food Challenges

1. Food allergies and intolerance

The dieticians working with me were not always familiar with food allergies and products that are acceptable. The second hospital I was at was an improvement as they were at least aware of what the gluten free symbol looked like! But the limitations of the system are significant. In Nova Scotia, the hospitals I was at use suppliers and prepackaged food. So if it was made with dairy (Ex. Mashed potatoes), they can’t simply be made without. This removed a large portion of options.

My Allergies include
• Dairy
• Gluten (intolerance)
• Latex
• Kiwi
• Eggplant

2. Puree

The combination of food allergies and puree meant that there were no options for me at all because the prepackaged pureed foods come in latex molds. The pureed meats from the hospital I was at were also made with mashed potatoes to blend them and the mashed potatoes had dairy in them.

3. Options

The dietician in my most recent stay ended up getting one variety of pureed meat and two types of vegetables sent from another hospital in the city to where I was. So after the first few weeks of only fruit puree, I then had the same pureed fish, carrots and green beans every meal for 3 months. They actually did have 3 types of meats, but they weren’t pureed very well and I couldn’t eat them. These limited options were still significantly better than my previous experience. ( I was fed nothing except fruit juice for about 2 weeks, then fed gluten for a week that made me throw up constantly. Eventually, I had someone bring in baby food, so I could at least get a bit of nutrition. It was no wonder that I started drastically in losing weight at that point!)
At both hospitals, they brought in plant based supplements…eventually. The first was a Nestlé product that I actually use for tube feed now. During the earlier hospital stay, this was what I ate every meal by mouth and it did not taste good. I was able to make myself think it tasted a bit like pumpkin pie pudding by mixing in a bit of cinnamon, sugar and almond milk, but it really was not good by mouth. In my most recent hospital stay, I was given that same food, but through my new G tube. I was also given Sperri by mouth, a new chocolate and maple vanilla flavored meal nutritional drink from a company in Halifax. This one was actually tolerable and tastes decent.

 

Creative Solutions

1. Working with what you got

Where my food options were fish and beans/carrot every meal, I had someone drop off herbs and spices like garlic, dill, cayenne, some herb mixes and lemon juice. I added different combinations of these to spice things up.
I could also eat mashed bananas, peanut butter, and the almond milk. (They wouldn’t actually bring me bananas because it’s not technically pureed. But we could often find them left from other people’s trays in the kitchen area.)

2. Bring in key items to modify foods

I brought in potato flakes / Instant mashed potatoes to have some carbs in my diet. There are few dairy free options, but I found that Betty Crocker’s style mashed potatoes are dairy free. I also brought in muffins and mashed them with almond milk from the hospital to eat them. These two items added quite a bit to my diet.
The spices mentioned earlier made such a big difference to the monotonous meal “choices”. Filling out my menu was such a sad endeavor where nothing was even listed in the “carb” section and I had literally no choices for anything else.

3. Bring in food and the tools to modify it

I eventually realized that if I had a way to blend things at the hospital, I could eat a lot more variety. I had someone bring by my USB rechargeable immersion blender and then ordered in from a couple of local restaurants. With the help of my support workers, we blended up these foods and I was able to have quite the treat for a few days!