4 ms·

Quality meals ... when my dad had his heart surgery his first solid meal was a low quality, high-fat hamburger on a plain white bun (no tomato or lettuce, just

Quality meals ... when my dad had his heart surgery his first solid meal was a low quality, high-fat hamburger on a plain white bun (no tomato or lettuce, just ketchup), salad with enough ranch dressing for 4 salads and a plastic container with peaches soaked in syrup (ie. HFCS). I was horrified. I mentioned it to his cardiologist who, to his credit, went on a rant about how the food seems to be especially chosen to sabotage any work he does.

robocat 7y ago
Perhaps it is more nuanced than that: getting the patient to eat after surgery is probably the most important thing - and perhaps burgers are the way to do that for the majority of patients? A quick Google of keywords (weight loss after cardiac surgery) shows papers with sentences like "Patients who lost weight faced a significantly increased risk of mortality than those who experienced no changes or gained weight after surgery", and "We conclude that obesity confers a survival advantage in the setting of the CABG surgery", "While various large-scale randomized controlled studies evaluated different post-operative nutrition strategies in rather mixed cohorts of critically ill patients, only few small clinical studies specifically investigated its effects in cardiac surgery patients. In these studies, malnutrition has been reported to increase morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery". I agree it is obvious that good food is best, but or hard to know what the actually constraints are. I think it is unlikely the NHS will put on a nice entrecôte de boeuf!
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  It would be "nuanced" if it was ground chuck on brioche, but it was terrible quality in addition to unhealthy. That's why I was clear it was low quality, crap food; not comfort food.
amatecha 7y ago
Yeah that's actually messed up, he should have received a different menu of food that won't exacerbate the very issues he just had surgery for!
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Which country are you in? The mention of HFCS suggests USA, but [USA based?] companies have pushed that in to a lot of foods in UK now it seems so ...?
- anonoholic 7y ago
  Sorry, but "citation needed"? High fructose corn syrop is just not a thing outside of North America.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Not at all, but there is I understand some subsidy system that favours using corn syrup as a sweetener - and in mass production it can be added to almost any food to make it sweeter. As USA founded/headquartered companies have taken over more of UK food production it \appears\ that this has been coincident with the increased usage of HFCS to sweeten traditional UK foods. That appearance is so strong that it is a stereotype in UK society "this tastes sickly sweet now, oh yeah, Kraft took over so they probably put corn-syrup in it". It might just be that as USA capitalism has optimised squeezing more money out of lower quality food by adding cheaper ingredients other countries have optimised for financial profit in the same way? I've never heard similar issues raised against the food industry of other countries; even so, perhaps it's an unwarranted stereotype? I'm open if you want to try and change my view? [Hmm, reading that back it's no longer clear to me what you are saying, I read your post as if the second sentence were a question; apologies if I erred.]
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  Canada. We share a lot of food supply chains with the US, including access to artificially cheap HFCS.

robocat 7y ago

Perhaps it is more nuanced than that: getting the patient to eat after surgery is probably the most important thing - and perhaps burgers are the way to do that for the majority of patients? A quick Google of keywords (weight loss after cardiac surgery) shows papers with sentences like "Patients who lost weight faced a significantly increased risk of mortality than those who experienced no changes or gained weight after surgery", and "We conclude that obesity confers a survival advantage in the setting of the CABG surgery", "While various large-scale randomized controlled studies evaluated different post-operative nutrition strategies in rather mixed cohorts of critically ill patients, only few small clinical studies specifically investigated its effects in cardiac surgery patients. In these studies, malnutrition has been reported to increase morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery". I agree it is obvious that good food is best, but or hard to know what the actually constraints are. I think it is unlikely the NHS will put on a nice entrecôte de boeuf!

Ensorceled 7y ago
It would be "nuanced" if it was ground chuck on brioche, but it was terrible quality in addition to unhealthy. That's why I was clear it was low quality, crap food; not comfort food.

amatecha 7y ago

Yeah that's actually messed up, he should have received a different menu of food that won't exacerbate the very issues he just had surgery for!

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

Which country are you in? The mention of HFCS suggests USA, but [USA based?] companies have pushed that in to a lot of foods in UK now it seems so ...?

anonoholic 7y ago
Sorry, but "citation needed"? High fructose corn syrop is just not a thing outside of North America.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Not at all, but there is I understand some subsidy system that favours using corn syrup as a sweetener - and in mass production it can be added to almost any food to make it sweeter. As USA founded/headquartered companies have taken over more of UK food production it \appears\ that this has been coincident with the increased usage of HFCS to sweeten traditional UK foods. That appearance is so strong that it is a stereotype in UK society "this tastes sickly sweet now, oh yeah, Kraft took over so they probably put corn-syrup in it". It might just be that as USA capitalism has optimised squeezing more money out of lower quality food by adding cheaper ingredients other countries have optimised for financial profit in the same way? I've never heard similar issues raised against the food industry of other countries; even so, perhaps it's an unwarranted stereotype? I'm open if you want to try and change my view? [Hmm, reading that back it's no longer clear to me what you are saying, I read your post as if the second sentence were a question; apologies if I erred.]
Ensorceled 7y ago
Canada. We share a lot of food supply chains with the US, including access to artificially cheap HFCS.