United States | The best medicine

American hospital food is fast improving

More doctors are taking nutrition seriously

Mandatory Credit: Photo by David Goldman/AP/Shutterstock (11756920a)Pauline Sorrow, 71, left, is served lunch by certified nursing assistant Princess Makor while sharing the 'honeymoon suite' with her husband Peter, 62, as they both recover from COVID-19 at a field hospital set up to handle a surge of COVID-19 patients, in Cranston, R.I. "We're inspiration for each other," said Peter of being able to recover next to her in what staff calls 'the honeymoon suit'. "Just being here cheered her up." He now helps care for her: opening a stubborn lid on her lunch, cleaning a spot of food off her gown, updating their familyVirus Outbreak Field Hospital Photo Essay, Cranston, United States - 10 Feb 2021
|Chicago

Few sick people consider the quality of the food when choosing a hospital. That is perhaps just as well. Even in America, a country where private hospitals have long provided individual rooms with such comforts as personal cable television, patients are often still fed institutional food. “Mystery meat” and processed-cheese slices are common; everything gets cooked in a microwave. Many of the country’s biggest hospitals get their food from the likes of Aramark, a giant global caterer that also provides meals to schools and prisons.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The best medicine”

Can Liz Truss fix Britain?

From the September 10th 2022 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from United States

Xiaohongshu And TikTok Logos

A protest against America’s TikTok ban is mired in contradiction

Another Chinese app is not the alternative some young Americans think it is

Joe Biden drives a machine that's rolling out a carpet of the US flag for Donald Trump to walk on

How Joe Biden wound up serving Donald Trump

In some ways, his administration will look less like an interregnum than like MAGA-lite


Kids skate at the Venice Skatepark in LA, which is covered in ashes as smoke rises from the Palisades Fire

How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health?

Expect more sickness and disrupted schooling


Should you have to prove your age before watching porn?

America’s Supreme Court weighs a Texan law aimed at protecting kids

Tulsi Gabbard, Sean Penn and the hunt for an American hostage

A controversial trip to Syria in 2017 produced a possible sighting of Austin Tice, an imprisoned journalist

How flush Americans feel depends on their views of Donald Trump

Republicans expect a Trumponomics boom, Democrats dread a bust