Low Carb Foods to Take for a Hospital Stay

The things that immediately come to mind are chunky salads including cole slaw but not lettuce and uncut baby tomatoes with perhaps some cold meats in separate containers/packets, hard boiled eggs, kept whole and possibly pickled, easy-open tinned fish. Those should last a day or so out of the fridge. I'd be surprised if the ward didn't have a fridge you could use, though.

Will visitors be able to bring food in to you from your fridge at home? If so, maybe you could leave prepared food there and have things brought in for you. Many wards have microwaves available these days so maybe things ready made to be reheated on the ward.

Is your coconut porridge able to be made in advance and reheated? If so, maybe you could have some small pots ready for reheating. Having your own supply of non-dairy milk should be possible either in a carton, or transferred to a bottle which can be sealed.

Hope your stay in hospital goes well and you come home as good as new.

Rachox said:

I have to have an operation coming up in the next few weeks, requiring a stay of two or three nights. From previous experience it is very difficult to pick low carb meals from the hospital menu. I am pretty ok with snack foods, plenty of ideas there. it’s more the meals, breakfast and dinner, I generally skip lunch. I don’t know if I’ll have access to a fridge. I’ve started this thread as a reference for anyone else who is facing a hospital admission

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When a friend had to spend some time in hospital earlier this year, she ate a lot of eggs - omelettes, scrambled and of course brought in hard boiled.

If you are only there for a couple of days - one of which is likely to be by-and-large fasted (before your op and afterwards), it might just be simpler to just choose the best from what they can deliver to you.

I'd prepare for admission by having the intervening period very nutritionally dense. the work it out from there. It's not a long time.

My only reservation would be if you felt that a potential increase in carbs for a couple of days would lead you right off the reservation, and I guess after this amount of time diagnosed, you'd know that already. (Not asking you to declare yay or nay on that.)

Rachox said:

I have to have an operation coming up in the next few weeks, requiring a stay of two or three nights. From previous experience it is very difficult to pick low carb meals from the hospital menu. I am pretty ok with snack foods, plenty of ideas there. it’s more the meals, breakfast and dinner, I generally skip lunch. I don’t know if I’ll have access to a fridge. I’ve started this thread as a reference for anyone else who is facing a hospital admission

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Most hospitals provide a cheese salad option, so I'd choose that for dinner every time.

How about hard boiled eggs and a can of mackerel fillets in olive oil with an easy-to-open ring-pull lid? I'd also take my own home-made vinaigrette because commercial salad dressing and coleslaw always contains too much salt, not to mention sugar!

You can buy little pots of tuna ready to eat. Take your own low carb rolls. Tomatoes and cucumber should be ok out of the fridge. Keto Hana cereal? Nuts. Avocados should last a couple of days. Make a batch of low carb cheese crackers and taken them in.

I'm just copying my suggestions from the other thread, and I'm tagging @Margarettt who was interested in this thread as well.

I have no experience with hospitals thankfully, but lots of experience packing for a week of sailing without a fridge, and with very limited options to cook.

Rachox said:

I am pretty ok with snack foods, plenty of ideas there. it’s more the meals, breakfast and dinner,

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Snack foods are food too, and they can make a nice meal as well, just a little different from 'normal' meals.
You already have a low carb roll with salmon, cream cheese and cucumber as part of your evening meal, with coleslaw regularly. Swap the salmon for cheese or so (do not keep salmon outside a fridge!), and like @Annb said, coleslaw will keep for at least two days outside the fridge, and you'll have a meal just like at home.

There are lots of foods usually kept in the fridge which will keep well unrefrigerated for 4 days. Yoghurt; cheese; hard boiled eggs; salami or other dried sausages; my favourite midnight snack of chicory leaves and hummus or pork scratchings dipped in aioli; avocado; tomatoes; celery stalks and peanut butter (yuck!); cucumber (just throw away the dried out end slice before use), and then there are all those foods that don't need refrigerating anyway: nuts; high % cocoa chocolate; cheese crisps; low carb bread, you can even take the toppings from the hospital bread to put on your own, just bring some butter and marmite.

All the best with your operation!

From what I remember when I was in hospital for 10 days last April, breakfast were different cereals, toast, and orange juice, lunch was soup, followed by a portion of protein and some veg and a pudding, tea was a sandwich. The portions were so small I was hungry, so I eventually succumbed and even indulged in a couple of biscuits at supper time.

If I were planning a hospital stay, think I'd take some small tins of meat, such as tuna in water, corned beef. Maybe small jars of olives and pickles, Baby Bell and/or Dairy Lea cheeses, couple of avocados, protein bars, pork scratchings, nuts, nut butters, dark chocolate....

They will have a fridge in the nurses station.
My DIL is a nurse, and know that some patients require low carb or dietary needs.
The nurses in my last stay, sent out to mackies for a salad for me, cos I hadn't eaten all day!

I agree with most of the suggestions, and if like me you won't have what's on offer, bring your own, let someone bring it in, or if your hospital has, and it should, there will be a restaurant, to get bacon and eggs etc.

Or, again if you can, like my stay in hospital, fast! You might have to, if you're having an op.

Be well, and hope you're ok goes well!

Best wishes

Thanks for the thread @Rachox and the tag @Antje77 . I have two big boys (it slays me to admit it but I suppose they are young men) who will bring things back and forward in a cool bag but they will have to be left very clear instructions. There are lots of great ideas here. Thanks folks.
If my posts make even less sense than usual between the 14th and the 18th next month lets put it down to all the morphine and dihydrocodeine post op.

I second the suggestion to sneak off to the hospital caff for a fry-up. Some time ago a Board member said that was what he had done, and I was tickled with that imaginative solution.

Our hospital is the same, it's Costa Coffee and every crumb appears to be loaded with carbs.

Rachox said:

I would love to do that, unfortunately there is only a very small café in the hospital, optimistically called the Eatwell! It is like a small version of Costa, coffee and carbs

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Mine has a cafe but I'll be on the 5th floor with a knee replacement. Going to the loo is an olympic event.

You could try contacting the hospital & ask for a sample menu, it’ll give you some idea how much food you would need to supply yourself, not sure if hospitals would let you take nuts in though
The ward should have a fridge you can use
I’d be taking body coach banana, oat & blueberry muffins, tins of fish, cooked meat, individually wrapped cheese, homemade egg muffins
Hope your hospital stay goes well for you

Home made cheesy seedy (or plain seedy) crackers keep well in an airtight tin.

Packets of Cheesies are very satiating

Maglil55's favourite coconut collaboration chocolate pots have a long life and don't need be kept in a fridge (even if that's where they are sold. They do taste better chilled though.)

Packet of jaffa cakes! Just for @Rachox

Rachox said:

Maybe I should notify the forum of my op date, when I get it, as I’ll be in a similar position with strong painkillers too!

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Margarettt said:

If my posts make even less sense than usual between the 14th and the 18th next month lets put it down to all the morphine and dihydrocodeine post op.

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Use it to say all the things you always wanted to say and blame the medication!

I'm hoping/expecting to be going in myself in the next few months.
Without access to a fridge, I'd take small tins of tuna (80g ones?), homemade nut butter balls (any nut butter, a little sweetener and coconut flour help firm them), 85% of darker chocolate, cheesies,
and portions of my homemade cereal based on flaxseed - ask for another cup of hot water for this and mix with dried raspberries and little cartons of UHT cream.

I've been told that although my hospital only serves carbs for breakfast they now have a new 'breakfast cafe' menu in the restaurant serves bacon and eggs - so if I'm mobile that's where I'll be heading. I didn't even know about this until a doctor friend told me a couple of days ago. Worth checking?