Live Well by Eating Well apparently

Yesterday was a long day for me. I was informed at about 11am that my sister was in labor at the hospital with her second child (a girl). I left work at noon and headed up to be there with the family for her. I got there as she was getting her epidural, so we went down to the cafeteria for some lunch.

The Panorama City hospital is a remodeled, updated one owned by Kaiser Permanente (http://www.kp.org/). Which, if you've ever seen or heard their commercials, has a tagline of "Live Well". They have little incentives, like on-line programs for managing your health and classes at their locations to help live a healthy lifestyle.

So I go into the cafeteria to get food for lunch and decide to get something from the salad bar. I make a salad and then get some fresh fruit, followed by a drink. I notice they have caffeine free Diet Coke - my favorite! I'm standing in line and the guys behind me start making comments like "I can't believe they don't carry regular Coke", "How can they only have FAT FREE Oreos?". I start looking around and notice it's true. They only have diet and "zero" sodas. Only fat free desserts. Even the chips are healthy - Sun Chips, Baked Chips and Whole Grain crackers. I get back to the table we're at and my family is complaining about the fries. Know why? They are BAKED, not fried!

I was very impressed with Kaiser's ability to follow through with their "live well" theme. I used to candy stripe at the Encino-Tarzana hospital and I remember their cafeteria having the greasiest, fried, cafeteria-like food. I LOVED it as a kid, but was it really that good for you? I think people are used to that kind of food, so the different food offered at this hospital caused people to feel outside of their norm (thus all the comments about the food). As someone who has been very overweight, conquered it and now tries to eat heathly, I appreciate when a place offers wholesome choices where I'm not constantly forced into eating stuff that's not good for you. Thank you Kaiser!