Marjorie and I are effectively vegetarian, we eat fish on occasion. Marjorie hasn't had beef or pork in thirty years. She doesn't do caffein. We don't moralize about it, it just part of our religious and ethical life style.
The hospital tray I just sent back included beef broth, jello, and iced tea. It also had some reconstituted grape juice with corn syrup sweetner. I sent it back.
I feed her Miso soup, and fruit juices brought from home. I think I will smuggle in an apple.
Vegetables and fruits are easier to digest.
Yesterday, she forgot that jello had bone tarrow in it, and it made her sick.
Our diet is not about moral witnessing, it is about how we live our life.
Get well, Marjorie!
Well wishes Marjorie.
I have so many stories of the menu "choices" in hospitals. One of the issues I would like to address as a nurse is the disconnect between diet and health. I have seen numerous diabetic patients receive pancakes, french toast, eggs, applesauce and not 100% fruit juice. But the pancakes and french toast come with aspartame sweetened syrup. They eat their breakfast nad have glucose levels skyrocketing.
Marjorie - Speedy recovery to you. My mother, 86 years young has been a vegetarian for over 50 years. She has avoided doctors because of Great Health (which the doctors seem to be quite shaken about and wishing to almost punisher her because of), and she feels they can do more harm than good. That is her belief, but I am beginning to see what she means and sympathize with you. She alerted all of her religious and personal needs to be and remain a vegetarian, marked the menus to fit. Every meal has some sort of meat in it. She was put on steroids, which makes you act and think odd and was convinced by a nurse, knowing her choices, to eat chicken and lots of it, which she has done... she is not herself.
The nurses treat family horrible and I do know this is on purpose because too many have done this... like marking their territory or something, when it was totally not called for and upset the patient by their overpowering demonstrations like out of control children. They are totally out of line. They have lied to me and mislead me about my mother on more than one occasion.
It seems the medical field is actively fighting a patents religion and beliefs. I do wish there was something we could do about such things. I feel better guidelines are in order for the medical field in these instances. I am actively seeking a means of reporting and changing this disgraceful activity they seem to be involved in.
I am a vegan and certainly do not trust going to a hospital. I know I can not trust them to care for me as I see what they are doing to my mother and you.
I didn't realize that UU's didn't eat meat. I thought it was just Seventh-day Adventists.