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When a 5-year-old girl was admitted to Children's Hospital Boston this past summer with allergies to milk, wheat, soy, peanuts and corn and a strict, preservative-free diet, Jeffrey Little, MS, RN, LDN, patient services manager in the Food Service Department, knew his next trip to the grocery store would be a little harder than usual. As Children's official food shopper for children with allergies, Little finds ways patients can safely eat while they're in the hospital by buying food just for them at local grocery stores and overseeing the patient line responsible for preparing the meals in Children's kitchen. "Multiple allergies are becoming more and more prevalent in our patients," he says. "Sometimes you think 'What can I feed this child?'"
Little is a registered dietician, which comes in handy when compiling menu options for patients with life-threatening allergies. He often finds himself grocery shopping two to three times a week to cater to patients' many different dietary needs. "It can be hard to make some of these dietary restirctions kid-friendly," he says. In the case of the 5-year-old, the solution was free-range chicken, bok choy, rice cereal and rice cookies.
Patients' backgrounds often play a key role in determining what they're comfortable eating. So Little will do what he can to duplicate what the child would normally eat at home—while making sure to avoid allergens. "Parents are always surprised and appreciative that we go that extra mile for their children and cater to their tastes," he says. In addition to cultural differences in diets, some families have food preferences, like only eating organic food, and these specifications are outlined when Little and the Children's dieticians meet with the patient and family before he heads out to shop.
Some dietary restrictions are extreme. One patient had a stainless steel allergy that required Food Services to purchase new cookware in order to make his meals. But usually, Little and the Patient Services staff able to keep things simple by putting together allergy-patient-friendly lactose-free, gluten-free and peanut-free menus. Because of the severity of potential allergic reactions, including potentially deadly anaphylactic shock, Little and his team take responsibility for preparing the food too, using special utensils in Children's kitchen. "We have to be on our game the whole time," he says. "If we don't know everything in our products down to the last ingredient and it goes to a patient, that child is at risk for a reaction," he says. As an extra precaution, the kitchen has designated only one small area where peanut butter is allowed.
Food Services is currently undergoing an overhaul to comply with a new room-service ordering system that will ultimately help patients with allergies share dietary specifications when they place their daily food orders more easily. "They don't want to be in the hospital and we don't want them to have to worry about their meals," he says. "They have enough things to worry about and food shouldn't be one of them."
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