A tasty recipe for health

If you thought dietary food in hospitals is insipid then it’s time to change your view

Dry bread, limp peas, bland meat, the ubiquitous kanji are what come to mind when you think - dietary food. The meals served to patients are limiting in terms of variety and taste. The excuse is the need to follow nutritional guidelines. Nothing much to choose from!

This dull, listless dietary food seems to have gone through a complete makeover.

Castle & Cook Caterers Ltd. (CCCL), a catering company with a focus on health care is a pioneer in this field. It was awarded the ISO 22000-2005 certification for food safety standards recently.

K. V. Sudhan, a master chef with over three decades of experience in luxury hotels, took it up as a challenge in 2002. With no prototype to follow he ventured to experiment with a new menu at the Lakeshore Hospital & Research Centre Ltd that would serve healthy and tasty food. Quiet unconsciously he was setting a trend.

“Food is important. And serving tasty food is always the challenge for the chef. When it comes to hospitals and patients this becomes a huge responsibility. Hospitals cannot do without serving good, healthy, hygienic food. The patients demand this. And food has to be tasty, diet food or not. So when I took up this job I knew I had to create a menu based on the dietary requirements of patients and also had to make it tasty,” says Sudhan who has cooked for luminaries like Queen Elizabeth, Yassar Arafat and King Fahd among the many during his long career in the hospitality industry. He is now General Manager of CCCL.

Sudhan created an elaborate menu of 80-90 patient-specific dishes that includes the calories of each ingredient that goes into it. This includes the ICU’s tube-feed diet. Then there is the regular hospital canteen for which his company caters. So in the hospitals where Sudhan runs the kitchen there are a variety of options for the patients ranging from “Indian, Continental, Chinese and Arabic, to eggs and toast, idili, dosa for a typical breakfast, fried rice, chilli chicken, grilled fish with sautéed vegetables, beef for lunch, a wide choice for dinner rounded off with the choice of desserts.”

The hospital dietician keeps a tab on the needs of the patients. “We get the list and orders in advance. We do the room service, which enables us to get their feedback and also understand their tastes. We know well what, from the hospital charts, patients want and what to avoid. From within this we try and give them tasty and healthy food, adding or doing away with certain ingredients,” adds Abhishek Nair, one of the directors of CCCL.

The running of this kitchen is a complicated affair. For, a patient just coming out of tonsillectomy will be on a different diet than a patient recovering from a broken leg. A pregnant woman may require more calories and different nutrients than a young child would need.

Trained personnel including specialised chefs work in these hospital kitchens. Ernakulam General Hospital introduced dietary food for in-patients two years back. The project is implemented by the Hospital Development Society. “Here the patients are served a standard diet as prescribed by the dietician. Three fixed meals and evening tea are served free of cost. We are the only government hospital in the country to serve patient specific food . We have three dedicated cooks and staff for the job,” informs Mumtaz Khalid Ismail, consultant nutritionist who designed and initiated this project.

Since 1998 a full-fledged dietary kitchen functions at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre. “This is managed by the hospital and is condition specific. We look at therapeutic diet and also cater to the specific needs of patients like low-high fibre food, low fat depending on what the dietician prescribes. There is a cyclic menu which is ova-vegetarian,” says Brahmacharini Nivedita, chief dietician, Amrita Hospital.

“A flexible menu keeping to the dietary requirements, consistency, and timely service are the everyday challenges. We have a dietician on board who double checks on the quality and hygiene of the food. Then there are the random checks from the hospital that keep us on our toes,” says S. Ajithkumar, director of CCCL.

A patient, who does not want to be named, expressed surprise at the elaborate menu card in the room. “Staying in a hospital is not a pleasure. But let me tell you the food served lightened things for me. And when I returned I made sure I got the dietary menu I was served from the canteen chef.”

“We have a protocol as what to do when someone on a special diet comes in. When we plan the menu for this patient we include the diet prescribed. The whole thing has been formed making it flexible to include healthy meals for children to cancer patients who often have depleted appetites,” explains Sudhan.

Fish detected in Kerala for contamination using chemicals like ammonia

In Kerala, fish were detected for the presence of chemicals such as ammonia and formalin, and were found to be heavily contaminated. In fact, the most vulnerable were those that were brought to the southern state from its neighbouring states and those whose sale was delayed.

Ammonia is used to slow down the melting of ice used to preserve the fish, while formalin is a toxic and carcinogenic chemical commonly used to preserve dead bodies in mortuaries, to prevent body from deteriorating.

The demand for fish increases during the festive season [Kerala ushered in its New Year (Vishu) recently, and Easter falls on April 20 this year]. To meet the demand, large quantities of fish were stocked in different parts of the southern state. 

The Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), Kochi, tested over 50 samples over the past six months. These were collected from all over the state. 

Quality assurance officers confirmed that they contained high levels of the two chemicals, which are unfit for human consumption, as they affect the functioning of the internal organs.

Dr T K Shankar, head of quality assurance, CIFT, Kochi, said, “Food safety officers (FSO) from different parts of the state send samples of fish to check contamination in the institute’s laboratories. The reports are sent to the respective food safety authorities.”

P P Aloysius, surpervisor and in-charge, health department, Cochin Corporation, said, “When the demand increases (especially during the festive season), Kerala imports fish from its neighbouring states.”

Confirming that most fish are contaminated after they are caught, he added, “We undertook raids in markets, and found that contaminated fish were being sold. We seized and destroyed those that were found to be dangerous for human consumption.”

Jayakumar C, a director of Thanal (a non-governmental organisation working in the field of food safety), said, “When fish moves inland from the shore, or its sales are delayed due to transportation, traders use a certain amount of ammonia and formalin as preservatives.”

“They are used primarily to give it a fresher appearance and harden the fish, which is the parameter for its freshness. Formalin can stiffen the muscles of fish. If used in appropriate proportion, ammonia and formalin, which simulate refrigeration, could give it a longer shelf life,” he added. 

“The consumption of formalin could cause muscle problems in humans. There have been instances in a number of countries where eating food contaminated with formalin has resulted in severe complications and even death. Ammonia can cause mouth and stomach ulcers,” Jayakumar said.

FDA team seizes gutkha, paan masala, other material worth Rs 60,000

Nagpur Division of Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) on Tuesday seized Jafrani Jarda, paan masala and machine of manufacturing ‘Kharra’ worth Rs 60,172 from M/S Baba Traders, near Gandhi Gate Mahal.As per the gazette notification FSSA/Gazette/777-2013/7 dated July 18, 2013, Government of Maharashtra has imposed a ban on sale, distribution, storage and transport of food items like gutkha, scented tobacco, scented supari, (betelnut) scented paan masala etc for one year. Nagpur FDA, on a tip of, raided the premises of M/S Baba Traders and seized the items. Food Safety Officer (FSO) A D Raut, R B Dhabarde, FSO Vigilance L P Soyam conducted the raid and registered an offense against Ramesh Arjundas Jasnani, a resident of Adarpur Apartment, Nara Road,Jaripatka, at Kotwali Police Station.

Police Sub Inspector Atram has registered an offense against Jasnani on the complaint of FSO Akhilesh Damodhar Raut under Section 188, 273 and 328 of the IPC, read with sub-section 3(I)(II)(V), 27(2) (IV) under the FSSA act. N R Wakode, Assistant Commissioner (Food) FDA has appealed the citizens to inform FDA about the sale, distribution or storage of gutkha, paan masala and scented supari on FDA’s phone number 2562204 to help administration to implement gutkha ban effectively in the city.

How about cock comb with yogurt?

Delectable cockerel yoghurt should be on sale sometime later this year.
EU has given green signal for this 'novel food'
Busying themselves with essence of coxcomb and cockroach innards, Novel Foods Units across Europe have the task of deciding which bizarre ingredients are fit for human consumption They say that the comb on the top of the head of a cockerel has a chewy, rubbery texture. “It also smells bad,” says Josep Escaich, boss of Spanish pharmaceutical firm Bioiberica. It’s not,cockerel yogurt given EU go-ahead then, the first thing you’d think of adding to yoghurt. However, his company is in talks with leading yoghurt manufacturers to do just that.
It turns out that coxcombs are rich in an acid called sodium hyaluronate which, it is claimed, can help alleviate osteoarthritis. Under the product’s more user-friendly trade name, Mobilee, Bioiberica envisages people at risk from the condition consuming concentrated sodium hyaluronate on a daily basis — not just in yoghurt but in other food staples, too.
However, it’s not quite as simple as coming up with a catchy marketing slogan and putting it on the shelves. Mobilee is what’s known in the jargon of EU food safety legislation as a “novel food”. This means, according to the official definition, that it hasn’t been used for human consumption “to a significant degree” in the EU before 1997, and therefore can’t be brought to market without government approval.
Who gives the approval?
In the UK, the assessment is made by a department of the Food Standards Authority called the Novel Foods Unit, in central London. All EU states have similar organisations but Bioiberica decided to apply in the UK rather than Spain. “Foreign companies often come to us, either because of the English language, or because we’re extremely helpful,” says Novel Foods Unit adviser Manisha Upadhyay. They spent millions of pounds on scientific trials before the unit’s specialist committee of independent advisers assessed the findings and gave a view on whether that particular novelty is indeed fit for human consumption. They approved Mobilee in 2011, but their decision then had to be voted on by the rest of the EU’s member states, who said yes in December last year.
What’s consumable, what’s not?
Recent interest in eating insects has caused problems, too. The majority of insects haven’t been “widely consumed” in the EU so it should be illegal to sell fried cockroach, mealworm and the like. However, while it turns out that selling cockroach innards would be against the law, a whole cockroach is absolutely fine. Few people are aware of how many products Europe’s Novel Foods Units have kept off our shelves.
Among other delicacies, honey laced with bee venom was rejected (on the grounds that it could trigger allergies), as was powdered deer antler — said to help athletes recover more quickly from injury. Delectable cockerel yoghurt, however, should be on sale sometime later this year.