My very first job was delivering meals in a hospital. It was the 80s, and it was Nova Scotia, so we’re not taking Michelin 3-star cuisine here; the food was straightforward, comforting and fairly bland. But it was all made in-house, in a massive kitchen that (between patients and cafeteria) cooked 1200 meals three times a day. For hospital/cafeteria food, it was pretty decent, and as reasonably unprocessed as you can get working with that quantity.
Hospital food has always gotten a bad rap, but in the mid-90s, in order to cut expenses, almost all hospitals switched from in-house food prep to using contracted services. From a business standpoint, it totally makes sense – even dietary aides and cafeteria workers are unionized – back when my friends were making the late-80s minimum wage of $3.50 an hour, I was making $8.10. Holidays got me double that. Paying a flat per meal rate to an off-site caterer winds up being a lot cheaper. And that space where the cafeteria used to be – well, why not rent that out to fast food chains, since that’s what people like to eat anyway?
That 80s hospital food wasn’t gourmet by any means but at least there was a notion, a pretense, of it being nutritionally sound. My bosses were nutritionists and dietitians, not marketing wonks looking to save a buck.
The result was that hospital food’s reputation got even worse. I know plenty of people who have friends or family bring them food from home while in hospital, because the stuff from the contracted caterers is just inedible.