It's menu auditing season!
As care homes prepare to change their menus over from winter to summer fare, aged care dietitians are auditing incoming summer menus to ensure they will meet the nutritional needs of older adults living in care.
For several weeks now I’ve been elbow deep in menus and recipes, reviewing and revising the working document that is the Residential Care Home Menu. I am always impressed by the complexity hidden within a care home menu. It promises a lot!
When visiting a care home, your reflex may be to read the day’s menu the same way you would read the menu at a café or restaurant: scanning it for what sounds good to you to eat at that moment. But a care home menu has to provide more than one elective meal in a day or a week. Menus in residential care differ significantly from a restaurant menu in some very important ways. Let me offer some comparisons as an explanation:
The menu at a fast food restaurant like McDonald’s promises:
Product reliability, no variations. Branded, standardised pre-made meal items that can be found at every restaurant
Freshly prepared, safe food
Budget-friendly options
The menu at a café or restaurant promises:
Interesting food options that bring pleasure or interest to your dining experience
Unique takes on familiar dishes, great presentation on the plate
Prices that reflect the setting of your visit
A menu at a residential care home promises:
4 or 6 weeks of meals and snacks every day of the week and every week of the year
3 meals and snacks daily, with choices at lunch and dinner, options of beverages, dessert and fruit
weekly variety with few repeated dishes over the 4- or 6-week menu cycle
a full vegetarian menu
food that helps the resident feel at home
food that meets the cultural needs of the residents
food the resident can physically manage
to meet the nutrition needs of ALL residents in the home
The menu is also expected to:
meet the expectations of family members
meet the food budget
At its very best, the aged care menu offers nutritious, tasty, easy-to-eat, easy-to-cook familiar meals that are beautifully presented and meet cultural and nutrition needs of each resident, all delivered within budget.
This is a big promise indeed. It is the ideal of every resident, family member, food service staff member, facility manager, operations manager, aged care dietitian and upper management.
Importantly, the people who deliver on this promise don’t all work in the kitchen. Residents and families share information about cultural needs and personal food preferences. Care staff may plate and serve the meals, assist residents at mealtimes, and collect feedback on individual preferences. The menu itself may be purchased from a catering company, or it may be written by the company chef, a dietitian or the kitchen manager. The registered dietitian audits the menu and recipes, and also makes specific adjustments to meet individual residents’ nutrition needs. The GP or dietitian may order a specific diet such as a low fibre or low sodium diet for one resident. Management is involved in setting the budget, purchasing, investing in staff training, deciding who is responsible for menu expectations and standards, and collecting feedback from residents. Crafting a menu well means all those responsible to deliver what it promises have the information they need.
In residential care, nutrition is a team sport. When you next look at a menu in a care home, take a moment to think about who is needed to deliver the promise of the ideal meal for every resident, 3 times a day, every day of the year.
