Hospital Plate

In my quest to achieve MyPlate today I was thrown the luncheon curveball. This curveball occurred last year at the SCAN conference when I was gluten free. At the hospital I am interning at they give an educational lecture series and provide lunch to the attendees. These fortunate participants not only get continuing education credits, but a free meal as well. Since I am not at the point of earning these education credits, I'll take the free meal.

One might assume that being in a hospital you might have healthier food. If you have been in a hospital cafeteria lately you might notice some healthy options, but they are about as healthy as a fast-food restaurant gets. Considering this was a luncheon for hospital staff, catering might want to put their best nutrition foot forward. All this in mind, and the fact this made it into a blog post, it was far from it. Below is a picture that I took of what we were served for lunch.



In all that Oklahoma glory we had BBQ brisket (protein), mustard potato salad and baked beans with chiles (vegetables), jalapeno cornbread (grain), and strawberry halves (fruit*, I had to pilfer one from an RD to make it a whole one). The closest thing I got to dairy was the whipped topping that the strawberry sat on... or the german chocolate cake.

I have to draw a line somewhere, and needless to say, lunch today was fail-zies. Basically zero dairy, two not so great choices for vegetables, and one strawberry.

All that aside, lunch was delicious. Our professor did hand out cheese for a snack at class tonight, but after a meal like that I don't think cheese would have been very beneficial for my GI tract. Next time I'll run to the cafeteria and grab a milk to wash the cake down with.