Nurse, there’s xanthan gum in my soup!
On behalf of everyone who might get hit by a bus some day, THANK YOU, Alison Negrin! Recently I visited a neighbor at one of our local hospitals, and I was horrified at the swill she was served for supper. White bread, pressed-turkey-flavored foodlike substance, hydrogenated mayonnaise, apple-flavored sugar water, and red wiggly dessert add up to gutpaste, not nutrition.

How are ailing people supposed to heal when they’re served slop that self-respecting bacteria wouldn’t even touch? Why haven’t the doctors managing patient care and the insurance companies paying for most of it demanded, long before now, that hospitals serve health-building meals? Why has Ms. Negrin come up against so many brick walls when everybody’s grandma knows the power of a hearty bowl of soup?

And my grandma never put xanthan gum in her soup! Did yours? What the heck is “Culinary Cream,” why is it low-potassium when most Americans are potassium-deficient, and since when are so many Americans lactose-intolerant in the first place? (Is it the lactose, or the bovine growth hormones? Try this, folks: A cup of plain, non-BGH, full-fat or low-fat yogurt every day with your fresh fruit of choice. Don’t get the prefruited stuff; it’s loaded with sugar, which interferes with calcium absorption. Don’t get nonfat; your body needs some fat to help it process calcium which, let’s face it, is a ROCK. Don’t spend your money on gelatin fillers or other ingredients you can’t pronounce — real yogurt thickens up without all that junk. And no, I’m not a doctor, but if I ran the hospitals they sure as hell wouldn’t be microwaving chemi-lasagna to inflict upon people whose health is already in jeopardy.)

With all the beautiful, organic produce, meat, dairy products, and whole-grain baked goods available around here, it defies logic that our local hospitals are maintaining contracts with US Foodservice or any other megacorporation whose professional standards (and personal career choices, Mr. Leonardelli) rise no higher than dumping overprocessed, make-believe “food” on the public, let alone viewing the hospitalized public as their captive goldmine. Those contracts have to expire sooner or later, so please, you Kaiser folks and Summit folks and everybody else in a position to make life-or-death nutritional decisions for hospital patients, would you cut ties with those scummy scum vendors at the first possible opportunity? Depending on the bus, I might not have strength enough to lead a hunger strike, but anyone who expects me to choke down Wonder Bread and Jell-O for more than a day had better install an extra-large puke bucket in the ICU.

Again, thank you, Ms. Negrin, for protecting the sick and believing that one person truly can change the world. You are much needed and much appreciated, soup IS better with fresh veggies and real cream, you’re not alone in your concerns, and yes, it’s shocking that in the “richest nation on earth,” providing wholesome food to ailing people should be such an uphill battle.
Nancy McLaughlin, Oakland

Do the right thing
Thank you for highlighting the important work Alison Negrin and her counterparts at John Muir Health are engaged in to source more sustainably produced foods. Yes, there are many challenges to this progressive work. However, more and more champions in the healthcare sector are recognizing that, due to their health-driven mission and their purchasing power, hospitals can be leaders in promoting and supporting healthier food production, packaging, and distribution practices that constitute a sustainable food system. Hospitals around the nation are doing just that with a whole host of programs, such as sourcing locally grown and certified foods, eliminating meat grown with the use of nontherapeutic antibiotics, hosting farmers’ markets, and switching to fair-trade coffees and teas.

This is only the beginning. Momentum is building in many sectors to transform our food system into one that is economically viable, socially just, and environmentally responsible. Hospital by hospital, school by school, consumer by consumer, the market is shifting and will continue to do so. We urge more hospitals to get on board by signing the Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge (HealthyFoodinHealthcare.org). And we urge food distribution companies to take responsibility for making sustainably produced, locally grown foods more accessible to their institutional clients. It’s the right thing to do for the health of patients, workers, the planet, and future generations.
Lucia Sayre, San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility, Berkeley

Would you eat that?
My mother was in a convalescent hospital for two years and would hardly eat anything they served her. She would point to the plate of food on the tray and ask me, Would you eat that? I got so frustrated trying to get her to eat that I couldn’t stand it. I eventually wrote to Alice Waters suggesting that she write a cookbook for hospitals and nursing homes. One of her staff wrote me back to say that Alice was busy with other things, but informed me that Kaiser had a farmers’ market — which was a step in the right direction at least.

Imagine my delight, then, to find others working on this issue. As I put it in my letter to Alice Waters, many residents (the convalescent hospital where my mother was staying always called them “residents”) had little to look forward to, considering their failing health and limited mobility, so better food — tasty, good-looking food — would probably be the highlight of their day.

Please extend my thanks to Alison for tackling this important subject, and extend my wishes that she succeed in her endeavors. My own idea of what to do — make a cookbook that explained the importance of fresh produce and whole grains, and especially the appearance of the food being served — may be fundamentally sound, but from reading your article I see that it will take a lot more if we are to succeed in getting our parents and elders food they will actually want to eat.
Dennis Fritzinger, Berkeley

“Wish You Weren’t Here,” Burning Books, 2/28

Did he read it?
After reading Kristan Lawson’s review of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, I have to wonder if he’d ever read the book. Does he really think the highest Shia authority in Iran would permit Mortenson to continue building schools if there were even a suspicion that he was practicing “a form of cultural imperialism”? And how, exactly, is enabling villagers to teach literacy to their girls “a form of cultural imperialism,” especially in light of the fact that a mere five years of female education is enough to improve maternal and infant mortality?
Joy Durighello, San Francisco

“Not So Secret,” Theater, 2/28

Did he read it? (reprise)
Your review of The Secret Garden did not seem to be about the show itself, rather the material as written that you obviously detest. There are some gaping holes in your thinking on the subject.

The production you would have wanted to see would have been based more on the children, however, that would have put an enormous strain on a child actor (even double-cast) to shoulder much more. You cite Oliver and Annie as examples of why that is plausible. However, both parts are much less difficult that of Mary Lennox or Colin. Their characters are much more complex, and more difficult vocally. Oliver sings two songs: “Where Is Love” and “Who Will Buy.” He barely speaks.

Colin matches Oliver with two songs, “Take Me to the Garden” and “Round-Shouldered Man.” Mary Lennox sings “The Girl I Mean to Be,” “Someone Is Crying,” “Someone Is Crying (reprise),” “Show Me the Key,” “Wick,” “Dear Uncle Archibald,” and “Come Spirit, Come Charm.” Were nine songs not enough for you? She barely left the stage. If you have made up your mind about a show before you come, you should at least check your facts when tearing it apart. The girl who played Mary on the Broadway cast was the youngest girl to ever win a Tony. There is a reason: Annies are a dime a dozen.

You use the book as the meter for how things should be; however, you disapproved of the Yorkshire accents. If you had read the book recently, you would see that many of Dickon and Martha’s lines are lifted directly from the book, and are as written, in broad Yorkshire. Read the book, sir, and you will see that Martha and Dickon’s central shared characteristic, as described by the author, was their broad Yorkshire accent. Yorkshire is also widely known in theater to be the most difficult accent to use onstage.

You were expecting Archibald to appear more like Corey Feldman? In our society, it does not take much to be an outcast. In upper-class British culture, if you had a deformity like a hump and were well-to-do, you would have enormous training in posture to conceal your defect. Having him hobble around the stage would have made the audience take him less seriously. The focus on his emotional wounds is much more interesting and complex.

It is obvious you do not know what you are talking about. Try harder. It’s a free paper, but don’t cheat us with these baseless articles. I saw the performance firsthand. It was stunningly acted by an outstanding cast. You made a disservice to them and the readers by insulting them with this tilted review.
Howard J. Hamond, San Francisco

Editor’s note
The writer could stand to check his own facts: In his original letter, Mr. Hamond misspelled Mary Lennox as “Marry Lenox” in all cases, incorrectly cited the song “Show Me the Key” as “Show Me Her Key,” and cited two songs, “Take Me to the Garden” and “Dear Uncle Archibald,” that don’t seem to exist by those titles. Meanwhile, as long as we’re counting, Oliver also sings in several ensemble numbers (Oom-Pah-Pah,” “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two,” “Be Back Soon,” and “Food, Glorious Food”), has solo parts in “Consider Yourself” and “I’d Do Anything,” and sings the “Who Will Buy” reprise solo.

“Grocery Co-Opted,” Cityside, 2/7

Errant authority
It is frustrating that the Housing Authority is not cooperative with state, county, and city mandates, initiatives, and call to action to address our current poverty and sickness crisis. I would just like to point out that the Mandela Food Cooperative venture is in alignment with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Obesity Prevention Plan, the Alameda County Health Department’s Chronic Disease prevention recommendations per their 2006 report, and the Oakland Department of Human Services’ Community Action Partnership objectives to end poverty.

Laura Kathryn Donham, Oakland