Over the last five years, I've been in hospital cafeterias at least once a year when various family members have spent a day or two in the hospital.

In this area, I'd say they're not terrible. Yeah, there are lots of ice-cold pre-made sandwiches in coolers and boring salads that are basically a box of lettuce with maybe 2 ounces of processed chicken. But during the main hours there's usually some sort of hot item like chicken that you can get with veggies. Unfortunately, I think that during off hours the pre-made sandwiches and lettuce boxes, along with chips, cookies, brownies, packages of cut up fruit, containers of low-fat sweetened yogurt, and bottled drinks are pretty much all that's available to staff who do shift work. Like, ILikeMice said, pretty much a local convenience store without the hotdogs. Since nothing else would be open in the neighborhood either, they're pretty much stuck.

What horrified me the most was the nurses pushing "protein smoothies" on patients. Every single time I've visited someone (and at different hospitals), the nurses recommended it as an item to order from the kitchen and people did. It reminded me of everyone bribing kids who were getting tonsillectomies with the promise of "all the milkshakes you want."

I'm not completely against protein powder. I have some in my house and use it in low-carb baking and sometimes make a smoothie for breakfast (not often). That's not my issue.

The hospital smoothies are very high sugar items like a "mango smoothie" with a little bit of protein powder thrown in. And they're massive--at least 20 ounces. They are like semi-melted mango sorbet, or a non-dairy milk shake. They must have close to 75g of carbs. They're just straight sugar under the guise of "protein smoothies." Last time I was there, my mom had two in a row in lieu of a real food meal.