Alastair Duncan
Around 7.30am, I arrive at the hospital and would normally get something naughty for breakfast, like a croissant. At the moment, though, I'm on a sponsored "slimathon", so it's low-fat yogurt and fruit. I'm hoping to raise £500 for the Food Chain, a registered charity that delivers meals to housebound HIV patients, and the Florence Apio Ugandan Orphan Trust.
I'm not a trained chef but I love cooking. I started out with a microbiology degree in 1984, travelled the world and ended up in Australia working for Peter Chaplin, a pioneer of Pacific-Rim cuisine. I returned to England in 1989 and ran my own outside catering company for seven years.
Ward rounds start at 8.30am, with doctors and nurses checking HIV patients. Many are malnourished, with vitamin deficiencies, vomiting and diarrhoea, so they need a nutritionally dense diet such as rice pudding made with cream and fortified with extra milk protein. Their immune systems are low, so food must be fresh and clean, especially when they bring it in from home.
At 11am, there's a session teaching doctors and nurses about the importance of nutrition for HIV patients. Nutritional assessment is vital, as combination drugs which control the virus need to be taken correctly 95% of the time to work, and this could mean with food or without. There are often side effects such as high cholesterol and diabetes, which must be carefully managed.
At midday, it's lunch, normally a pizza and salad, but today just a half-fat Cheddar cheese salad sandwich and a strong black coffee.
The afternoon is spent in the out-patients' clinic. Each person has to be treated individually and could need help with things like keeping high cholesterol under control. Often, however, they are thin, so cutting out fat is no use. If this is the case, we encourage them to eat foods high in monosaturates like avocados, olive oil and oily fish, plus starchy foods like pasta and potatoes.
People think that HIV is on the decrease, but whereas five years ago there were 750 patients in our clinic, we now have 1,750. More than half the families we deal with are of African origin. I've had to learn a lot about African cooking because each region uses different oils and some are high in saturates.
At 5pm, I leave the hospital and go off to a meeting of the Food Chain. I'm chairman this year and, as well as helping to cook 400 meals each week, I help to organise the fundraising. The chefs are all trained in producing special diets for HIV patients. We also have 700 volunteers (but need 1,000) who help prepare and deliver meals cooked in five kitchens which are loaned to us by local authorities at weekends.
At 9pm, it's back home to cook dinner - I love making curries. The last thing I do in the winter is switch on the heater in the greenhouse, where I'm growing winter squash and unusually shaped aubergines.
Interview by Jane Baker
Factfile
Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital, London
Beds: 1,100 (St Thomas'), 800 (Guy's)
Dietitians: 30
Food Chain:
Web: www.foodchain.org.uk
Just a minute…
What prompted you to come into this industry?
When a friend fell ill with HIV, I became a volunteer with the charity Food Chain, where I met Hazel Ross, the first HIV dietitian in the country. It was like a light bulb going on. I knew I wanted to work in this area. I closed my catering business, took a postgraduate degree in dietetics and joined St Thomas' in 1997.
Ideal dinner guests
Singer Debbie Harry, Elton John, who is one of the patrons of Food Chain, Nigella Lawson and Charles Darwin.
What would you say to Tony Blair?
Please fund the NHS properly.
Tell us one of your most embarrassing moments
We had some food left over from a Food Chain meeting, so I popped into another meeting room to offer it around. It was a life art class and the nearest person I could hand the tray to was the nude female model, which ruined the pose. I don't think they were too pleased.
