Gluten Free Hospital Food?
October 13th, 2009 | 
Author: You would think that after having Celiac Disease for 22 years I would know how to be prepared for being away from home. Yesterday was not the case.
I spent a large portion of my day yesterday, hanging out at Armstrong County Memorial Hospital. My mother-in-law had to have surgery to remove a lesion on her face. The surgery was done as an outpatient, and as it turns out the lesion was cancerous, but the surgeon feels he got it all, and things should be fine.
Since we had to be up and out the door pretty early, I was really hungry by lunch time. Usually I would take a couple gluten free snacks to eat just in case there’s no gluten free food available. I don’t know where my head was yesterday, but I walked out the door with nothing but my notebook so that I could work while we sat waiting, but no food. 
At lunch time my husband and I took a stroll down to the hospital cafeteria for lunch. With all the strides made towards accommodating gluten free diets, you would think that at a hospital, I would be able to find something gluten free to eat . Not the case.
All the food looked really good and smelled even better. There was chicken parmesan served over, what else, spaghetti. There were wraps, but, made of course, with flour tortillas. What I finally chose as the lesser of all the evils was the Lean Cuisine chicken & rice, just the rice, steamed broccoli, and french fries. I’m not sure if there had been any cross contamination, but I’m not feeling any adverse effects today.
Moral of the story, never take for granted that there will be food for you to eat where ever you are going. Think ahead and be prepared.
Tomarrow I will return to Halloween Treats.
Mary Blackburn
Living Gluten Free
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I can so relate to you in this post! I always carry snacks and drinks with me at all times – everywhere I go. I’m a vegetarian (who doesn’t really like a whole lot of different veggies – ack) and I have chronic migraines and a lot of foods give me bad indigestion and some foods can trigger migraines if I’m not careful. So my food just goes with me wherever we go.
There was a new restaurant in town that I just knew could accommodate me, like you thought of the hospital. It is an Italian restaurant. Back home (Dallas, TX) most Italian restaurants are pretty much cool with your ordering things however you want it. Like it’s ala carte – even though it’s really not, you know?
Guess what I could eat there? Mashed potatoes and salad. That was it. At an Italian restaurant! Crazy, huh?
And I was nervous of the potatoes, as mashed potatoes is another thing that has been X’d off my foods list lately – they make me extremely ill. I have since decided that it must only be the boxed kinds. Some kind of preservative or something.
I was just shocked I couldn’t go into an Italian Restaurant and order some noodles in some olive oil and seasoning and cheese and whatever… you know?
That really does seem crazy. How hard is pasta and olive oil?
Maybe your migraines are triggered by additives in the food.
Wow, you would think that a hospital of all places would have gluten free options!