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The Andersen Medical Centre Kitchen
January 2010
Support from different sponsors in the Netherlands has enabled us to fit up the new kitchen.
This is a significant improvement for the hospital; before this, family members of patients would have to bring their own food. Patients without family were therefore a big problem for the clinic, and solutions had to be improvised. Food for the personnel had to be prepared outside on charcoal fires.This situation was far from hygenic.
Now, we have a large bright kitchen with a big oven. The special furnace is designed to use as little wood as possible, making it not only cheap but environmentally friendly to run.
We plant the fastgrowing trees ourselves that are needed to provide fuel for furnace.
Furthermore, we have a small burner for smaller quantities of food that need to be prepared quickly.
The menu is not very varied but does contain all the essential nutrients: proteins, fats and carbohydrates, supplemented with fruit and vegetables for vitamins and minerals.
The main products that we use are available and cheap:
Maize, beans, potatoes, white cabbage, spinach sukuma wiki (a Kenyan cabbage), rice, milk, eggs, sugar, tea, cooking oils, salt, flour, bread. Chicken and meat is very expensive but can be prepared by kitchen staff if the family members bring it themselves.
We estimate that it costs around 50ct - 1 euro per day for 3 meals. Sample menus:
Tea with bread
Rice with beans
Ugali with sukuma wiki (a sort of porridge with cabbage)
Uji (thin maize porridge)
Cabbage with chapatti (pancake)
Potatoes and spinach
This may seem rather meagre, but most poor Kenyans are only able to eat once a day, and are only able to fill their stomachs with ugali (maize porridge).
With grateful thanks: Bea Andersen-Schipper.
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