There's a community in my kitchen

I'm thrilled and honoured to have a guest post up on the fabulous Limes & Lycopene blog.  A Community in my Kitchen, inspired by Kathryn's excellent 31 Days to a Better Diet series, describes one practice I've recently added to my "diet" that is helping me eat in ways that are healthful for me and the planet. And have a good time doing so.

I'm not going to say much more than this -- you'll have to read my true food confessions on Limes & Lycopene.

Comments

[Vincci]

Thanks for sharing that, Elaine. I generally communicate online with people that I've met before in real life, so my "community" is certainly not as large as yours!

I thought that your comment about being a clinical dietitian hit the nail right on the head; during my internship I liked how task-oriented working in acute care was, just going through the caseload, writing chart notes, etc, but I could never see that as a career because I feel like the patients don't really learn about healthy eating - the selection at a hospital is very limited, and many are on enteral or parenteral feeds.

Do you ever feel that way in your work? Do you think there's room to talk about food instead of nutrients in an acute care setting? I'm interested to hear your thoughts :)

[Elaine]

Hi Vincci. Thank you for reading my post and for your comment. Yes, it can be hard to provide information on healthy eating in the acute care setting. In Neuroscience, where I work, I have two opportunities: (1) before discharge, helping people with dysphagia make healthy food choices even though they are on a modified texture diet and (2) providing individual or group education sessions on secondary stroke prevention to stroke patients. Also, many families like to bring in food for their loved ones and the dietitian can provide guidance on this. Sometimes nutrient-density may be the priority; other times, comfort food/eating for pleasure may be more important.