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I just gave birth at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, and thought I'd 
share my eating experience in case anyone is in the same boat anytime soon.  
There is a call-up service for food (takes about an hour), but it wasn't open 
after I delivered - the only thing available at that time that sounded even 
remotely gluten free was a fruit plate, but it came with a muffin and I couldn't 
confirm exactly how it was prepared (and whether the muffin was placed on 
the plate), so that was unfortunately out.  I talked to the call-up service the 
next morning, and the woman could not have been nicer about checking on 
ingredients, etc. However, once I really got into the "how is it made" 
and "what it it made on" line of questioning, she apologized that I have to live 
my life this way and cautioned me against eating a lot of the gluten-free 
options that she thought that she was able to provide. Note - none of the 
gluten-free options that she presented appeared to have protein, other than 
eggs (which I could not confirm were prepared in a fresh clean pan with clean 
utensiles).  Another option is the cafeteria on the 2nd floor. Again, not so 
much in the way of gluten-free options, other than whole fruit. My husband 
said that there was a fruit bar, but it didn't look free of cross-contamination. 
One morning he did get eggs and canadian bacon. He swore up and down that 
it was prepared in a clean pan - he watched her do it. I ended up with a bit of 
a gluten reaction, so I'm wondering if there was perhaps something in the 
canadian bacon ingredients that had some trace gluten-containing ingredients. 
Finally, he went home and brought in some of those steam-in-bag veggies and 
steam-in-bag rices, which were great for lunches. We just put them in the 
common freezer on the floor and microwaved them when we wanted some. We 
also ordered once from Mity Nice Grill. They have a grilled chicken that's 
fantastic, and you can get a ton of veggies and potato option for your side. 
We ended up ordering two of these (it ended up being approx. $35) and they 
gave us 6 or 7 large grilled chicken breasts and enough sides for 3 whole 
meals for my husband and me. My husband ended up walking over to Water 
Tower Place to pick it up- it is 2 blocks over and was ready in 15 minutes. All 
in all, disappointing from a gluten-free perspective, especially for a hospital 
that has a celiac department and a brand new birthing center, but there were 
certainly enough other options that we could fend for ourselves.

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