Improved Hospital-ity

Airline food and hospital food have probably spurred the creation of more jokes than any happenstance gatherings of a priest, a minister and a rabbi. You'd think that the two situations where people typically have little control over--the need for airline travel and the rarely voluntary admittance to the hospital--would serve as points of inspiration for product developers who work in those foodservice industries. After all, the ability to ease the tension of either a plane ride or a hospital stay with some truly innovative, high-quality food could prove memorable and boost the businesses' reputations.

For the most part, it looks like we have to bid adieu to airline food (see my recent bit in the March 2006 issue of CULINOLOGY® magazine on that subject if you have a copy)--except for some first class options and international flights where the food has been raised to new heights (see http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1594283&page=1).

But hospital food is another matter. When I noticed a session on hotel food meets hospital food at the Research Chefs Association annual meeting in Houston, I found myself with a bemused smile on my face. "Better food in hospitals?" I thought. "That reminds me of a joke I heard once. A priest, a minister and a rabbi were all sitting in a boat on Christmas morning eating lox and bagels…"

True, I had heard about innovative hospital-based attempts to boost the healthful, medicinal aspects of culinary herbs with hydroponics--and as a form of therapy--in the past when I was following controlled-environment agriculture (see http://www.greenroofs.com/archives/gf_nov-dec05.htm and http://www.growingedge.com/magazine/back_issues/view_article.php3?AID=140632). That, to my mind, at least follows a logical line of thought (after all, the patient is there to heal).

But adding hotel-like services to hospitals was another matter (see http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2006/05/15/story4.html). This demand is reportedly coming from consumers who now expect more from their inadvertent, largely unavoidable--and often quite expensive--hospital stays.

It will be interesting to see how widely this trend spreads. If such measures boost the consumer approval ratings of the hospitals that adopt this approach to their foodservice operations, it could prove an emerging market for product development in the coming months and years. And why not take this one step further and work with hospitals to foster research on foods that can aid--and possibly accelerate--the healing process for longer-term patients.

Such measures might nullify this category for bad jokesters everywhere. But priests, ministers and rabbis aren't going anywhere…