|
By Katrina C. Guevarra
Hospital food is known to be bland and
boring—not really something one would look forward to during
a hospital stay. However, this is one trend that St. Luke’s
Medical Center and Chef Gene Gonzales will try to reinvent.
Chef Gene, founder/president of the Center for
Asian Culinary Studies tells us how this concept came about. “What
happened was I catered for the opening of the metabolic center at
St. Luke’s. These were menus for diabetics and I came up with
dishes and beverages that were perfect for diabetic
patients that were healthy and palatable at the same
time.” The chef was invited by the food and nutrition
department of St. Luke’s to work together with their resident
chefs and dieticians.
“From now on, St. Luke’s will not only
prepare healthy meals, it is making an effort for
these meals not to taste like the usual hospital food,” Gonzales
adds.
Food and nutrition department manager Marilou
Rivera stresses, “Kasi dito sa St. Luke’s we want to be
different. We don’t have to be like the rest of the
hospitals. This strong desire for change prompted us to hire
chefs and culinary arts graduates. She adds, “The hospital is
the best place to merge culinary arts and nutrition.
It’s one thing to prepare good food, but is it right for your
nutrition needs? The hospital setting allows us to marry both.”
Gonzales further clarifies his point. “And
this is also part of the fact that they wanted a chef to create a
program that will elevate their nutrition department to a
higher level. A lot of their nutritionist and dieticians are focused
on the science of giving the therapeutic needs of their patients. My
participation here is to balance the science of nutrition
and the taste.”
Ronald Buela, the hospital’s head chef, welcomes
this new development. He first started with the Manila
Peninsula and traveled overseas for training. He has also has
extensive experience as a chef in London.
Gonzales also created a program that will
give Buela’s staff recipes that he would just be able to monitor
and that they would be able to improve on in the coming months. Though
it is classified as culinary cuisine, they should never ever compromise
the patient’s health.
Gonzales and Buela have also
formulated food that can be tube-fed to patients who can’t
take solid food. “Yung mismong meal, they put in a blender
for clients who cannot take food orally. The diets are
customized according to patient’s needs. “There are diets that are
specially requested by the attending physicians. So our
nutritionists and dieticians have to work under these parameters,” adds
Buela.
This can really be considered a breakthrough
with the fusion of the health benefits of hospital food and the
richness of culinary cuisine. Now we can really say that food
doesn’t have to taste bland to be healthy.
Katrina C. Guevarra is a student of The
Manila Times School of Journalism.
|
