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Why do hospitals push so much carby food?

I told them when I in hospital that I was T2 and on a lchf diet, but I asked for the regular meals, and I will eat what I want from them.

My partner brought food in so was not too concerned about the food on offer.
 
This is my worry as it looks like I will be in hospital soon for possibly 3 days or so for an operation.
Recently diagnosed as prediabetic and I'm coeliac and dairy intolerant as well. My experience before prediabetes diagnoses of gluten and dairy free food in hospital in the past few years hasn't been a good one
 
Well they really must offer a the gluten free diet at least. It would be negligent if they didn't.
 
Can someone bring you some food in? I would be thinking the same, I certainly would take some healthy snack options in Tupperware with me. Hope your op goes well and you are back home quickly
 
I don't know what your diet has been like for the past few years but 3 days of carbs is unlikely to make much difference in the grand scheme of things. They ought to be able to cater for gluten and dairy allergies however.
 
It is difficult, I lost weight which I can ill afford to even with my husband bringing in food. It is all down to costs. I feel very sorry for people with no one to bring them food.
 
Yeah, you'd think the food providers would liaise with your care team to provide something that's safe but when I was in they kept trying to give me deserts. We're not talking NAS deserts mind (which I enjoy on occasion), but stuff like spotted **** & custard.

My weight loss regime started while in there by accident!
 
When a child, I remember being horrified on hearing that unfortunate hospital in-patients in developing countries often had to rely on relatives bringing edible food in for them. Fast forward 50 years, and - guess what? - that’s how it is in the wealthy West. Little did I know… The old adage that hospitals are no place for sick people has never been truer.
 
I remember back in the seventies and visiting my dad in hospital after a bout of malarial like symptoms, which he picked up in Burma during the war.
The drink my mum took him was lucosade, the bottles of which were on every nightstand, the eighties were the likes of ribena and unbelievably was the sports drinks and energy drinks in the nineties.
What were we thinking?
Don't forget that most cold/flu meds are glucose or sugar based.
 
I was hospitalised for 2 weeks not long after my diabetes diagnosis, most of it in a specialist diabetic ward, which as far as I can tell mostly meant the nurses did finger prick tests at random during the day. Not only was breakfast carb-laden, I had to insist every morning that they not add extra sugar to my cereal! Rest of the meals v carby but had no idea what I should be eating. However they did prescribe me a meter and explain how to use it, which set me on the right path.
 
I had 2 emergency admission earlier in the year, different hospitals. The first was a ward specialising in diabetes. They were absolutely spot on with my diabetes - pre-meal BG, insulin in time, diet was perfect to choose low carbohydrate. Cannot speak highly enough. Second ward mirrored the first admission, but I had to move different times due to COVID accommodation, but again, this hospital was absolutely spot on.
 
I was discharged a couple of days ago after a fortnight on the heart ward of the local county hospital. My patient data board correctly stated for all to see that I was following an LCHF diet which was originally subtitled Low Carb High Fat, but when Sister saw it, she rubbed out the word Fat and replaced it with Fibre, because it was an absolute NO-NO to have high fat on a coronary care ward.
My first-morning FBG was 4.4 mmol/l which immediately rang all their alarm bells. I was forced to eat a small packet of highland shortie biscuits to ' cure my dangerous hypo' I was also given a piece of lemon drizzle cake to swallow, but I managed to swap it for a bar of chocolate with the patient next door who was happy with Eatwell and cake but the chocolate was his no-no as it contains sugar. I decided (like another post above) to keep Stumm and not try to educate them otherwise.

The food was good, and so long as I avoided the vegan specials and did not request pasta or potato then even though the doctors had removed my diabetic sweeties and gave me no other means to control my bgl. my sugars generally hovered around the 12 mmol/l mark (whereas at home it would be half that). This was claimed to be GOOD and where they wanted me to be despite my protestations. I did get one tut-tut with a reading of 15.6 after another pack of biscuits and they threatened to put me onto insulin, but I refused.

They have no idea what T2D control requires and treated me like T1. Every day I was urged to eat some porridge or Weetabix or Bran Flakes and to have a pudding with custard or ice cream. You would think they were doling out the food on commission. So the problem for T2D seems to be systemic in the NHS and even the DSN that saw me had no idea what LCHF did, nor the time to learn.
 
Used to be we could get a cooked breakfast in hospitals - plenty of carbs on offer but some protein too. Then politicians decided the private sector did everything better, forced the public sector to take the lowest bid, etc. By the time they were allowed to look at other things about from the money it was too late. With the cuts in real term funding for the NHS added in most contracts are for a set amount of calories and not much else, and as expected the private sector is about profit and bread is a cheap filler.
I've asked family and friends to feed me next time I need to go in.
 
Update on my recent 2 week holiday in hospital. The hospital used random spot checks to test my sugar levels, so as such there was no proper attempt to monitor my progress (in either direction!). So as soon as I came out, I instigated my LCHF diet (non keto levels) and started my own prandial based monitoring.
My FBG since discharge read: 7.8 / 7.2 / 6.1 /6.1.
My daily average reads: 8.5 / 8.6 / 7.7 / 5.9

So far travelling in the rught direction. I am no longer on Metformin, so I expect to be approx 1 mmol/l above what I was achieving before hospital, and I have also suspended my supplementation with Bitter Melon and Gymnema Sylvestre, My daily average prior to admission was running at around 6.0 so I am close to my starting point after week of freedom.

So it is clear that when the hospital withdrew all my meds and fed me Eatwell (with selective options where feasible), it had charged up my liver battery, but not by too much. Ergo, for me, Eatwell does not led to a proper control mechanism without requiring much higher medication. Something I knew already, but a bit more anecdotal (n=1) evidence,

Edit to add: Eatwell made me very constipated, and I also lost 4 kg in 2 weeks. Maybe Metformin has another useful function that I am now deprived of.
 
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