We all know the importance of proper nutrition. Without adequate nutrients in our diet, our bodies don’t function the way they should. Good nutrition is essential for a healthy individual, and becomes even more paramount in the presence of illness and disease.
For that reason, you would expect that hospitals would provide the best-quality nutrition possible. At least, that’s what Carrol Krause expected.
The former reporter for the Herald-Times of Bloomington, Indiana, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014. When she was no longer able to eat solid foods, hospice workers brought her nutritional supplements instead. She read the ingredient list and was appalled.
In her blog, “Stories by Carrol”, she wrote about the poor quality of the food (if that’s what you want to call it) that she was given.
“Hospice had the very best of intentions, [but] the stuff they sent over was not real FOOD. In fact, I’m outraged at the idea that they feed this stuff to dying people.”
So what did they feed her exactly? She was given a bag full of Ensure products, including pudding, shakes and an apple-juice-like drink.
Ensure Nutritional Supplements
Ensure is owned by Abbott Nutrition, a global healthcare company that claims to be a leader in nutrition, science, research, and development [1]. Their website states:
“…our goal is to deliver nutrition products and education that meet the changing needs of families across the world. We make products to help babies and children grow, that work to keep bodies strong, and that support the unique nutritional and therapeutic needs of adults.
Nutrition is the foundation to healthy living and here at Abbott Nutrition, we provide resources to help people live their best life.” [1]
Ensure claims to be the number one doctor recommended brand for nutritional supplements, and to provide complete, balanced nutrition to patients [2].
These claims, of course, do not match up with Krause’s experience.
What is Really in These Supplements?
While the company claims to offer complete, science-based nutrition, what patients are really getting preservatives, fillers, chemicals, and a whole lot of sugar.
Check out this ingredient list for the chocolate-flavoured “Ensure Nutrition Shake”:
Water, corn syrup, milk, protein concentrate, sugar, soy oil, hydrolyzed sodium caseinate, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), canola oil, corn oil, calcium citrate, potassium phosphate, calcium carbonate, soy lecithin, cellulose gel, magnesium chloride, potassium hydroxide, choline chloride, magnesium phosphate, potassium chloride, sodium citrate, salt, natural and artificial flavour, ascorbic acid, potassium citrate, cellulose gum, ferrous sulfate, carrageenan, zinc sulfate, dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate, Magnesium sulfate, niacinamide, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamine hydrochloride, riboflavin, vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, biotin, chromium chloride, sodium molybdate, potassium iodide, sodium selenate, phylloquinone, vitamin D3 and vitamin B12 [3].
It doesn’t get better from there. Ensure clear, another popular product offered to hospital patients, pictures an orange and an apple on the front, but contains no actual juice. Instead, the first two main ingredients are water and sugar.
A Drink Filled With Chemicals
Some of these ingredients may sound unfamiliar to you, so let’s dig into them a little deeper:
Corn syrup: There is a strong connection between high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. It is chemically similar to sugar, but there is still uncertainty as to whether or not our body’s process it in the same way. In any case, high sugar intake is linked to diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and high triglyceride levels [4].
Chromium Chloride: This is a chemical that is known to be toxic, and to be an environmental hazard [5]. It has been shown to have a negative effect on the reproductive system and to cause tumours in animal studies [6].
Natural and Artificial Flavours: This could include anywhere from fifty to five hundred ingredients, and companies are not required to disclose what these ingredients are [7].
Dl alpha-tocopheryl acetate: This is a synthetic form of vitamin E, and is significantly less effective than its natural counterpart. It is linked to an increased risk of hemorrhagic strokes [8].
Niacinamide: This is a synthetic form of vitamin B3. It might make diabetes, gallbladder disease worse, and stomach ulcers worse, and could increase liver damage [9].
This is just a snapshot of the laundry list of potentially hazardous ingredients found in Ensure products.
A Call for Change
Before she finally passed away, Carrol had one call to action: give patients real food.
“Soup is good food. Pudding can be good food too if it has real milk and egg in it… But this swill (I don’t know what else to call it) from Hospice is completely vile,” Krause wrote on her blog in September 2015. “It’s not real food, only a collection of starches, sugars, artificial flavors, and nutritional powders all mixed into water.”
Carrol’s final request was for anyone who is a patient, or knows someone who is being given these products, to speak up.
“I wouldn’t feed this stuff to a dying animal, let alone a dying human being. If you agree, let the hospital management know. Or snipe at them via social media until they begin to pay attention. I think it’s time for a food fight!”