You won’t see us creating personalised meal plans for famous athletes, you won’t see us on hospital wards caring for the ill.
Chances are though, if you eat out, at some point, your menu choices have been influenced by a food service dietitian.
Increasingly, organisations are coming on board with wanting to provide their staff and patrons with nutritionally balanced options.
Your in-flight meal might have been given the nod by a dietitian, the food served in child-care centres is often reviewed by us, and even cafeterias in large corporate offices may request our services.
Meal delivery services that provide you with a week's worth of lunch and/or dinners delivered directly to your door are almost certainly going to have a dietitian on board.
These interactions typically only comprise a small portion of the food you regularly eat and as such, our influence can be easily missed.
Your in-flight meal might have been given the nod by a dietitian, the food served in child-care centres is often reviewed by us, and even cafeterias in large corporate offices may request our services.
Meal delivery services that provide you with a week's worth of lunch and/or dinners delivered directly to your door are almost certainly going to have a dietitian on board.
These interactions typically only comprise a small portion of the food you regularly eat and as such, our influence can be easily missed.
If, however, you find yourself eating a meal provided by the military, hospitals, boarding schools, prisons or residential aged care facilities then we are the people responsible for ensuring you receive a nutritionally balanced meal.
When you need us the most, when you are 100% reliant on food provided to you, we’re there to help.
When you need us the most, when you are 100% reliant on food provided to you, we’re there to help.
Our job in these situations is to ensure that the food provided to people in these facilities is:
- Nutritionally adequate and aligned with the dietary guidelines. This means ensuring that you are being offered a broad range of foods from the five food groups. Sounds pretty simple right? If it were simple more Australians would be doing it, however, Census data suggests that less than 4% of Australians are eating in line with our guidelines (1). But wait, there’s more…
- The food on offer should be appropriate to your clinical/cultural and aesthetic needs. This means that it if you have a clinical condition, such as hypertension, then the food offered to you is low in salt. It also means that if you have cultural preferences, such as preferring Asian cuisine, that you aren’t only being offered British-style foods. It also means your meal must look good AND you must be able to eat it (no point giving you a juicy T-bone if you’ve just had dentures fitted). It’s starting to become a bit more complicated... but wait, there’s more…
- We don’t just have to know about the food you are being served, we have to know about the food service system that is creating and serving your food. How are you ordering your food? The day before? A week before? Ala Carte? Do you order electronically or with pen and paper? How is the food made? Is it made fresh in an on-site kitchen? Is it brought in from an external site and reheated before service? How is the food served? In a community dining room? On a tray by your bed? Taking all of that into consideration, how do we ensure that you get a meal that meets your needs, looks good, tastes good and is still warm when you get it? Starting to feel like a lot of balls to juggle... but wait, there’s more…
- Not only do we need to do ALL of the above but we have to make ALL of the stakeholders happy including the chefs and cooks, the food service staff, the carer staff, the family and last but not least, the economists. Yes, we have to run a food service which meets patient/client needs, supports improved outcomes and is cost-effective... AND we have to find a way to continually make improvements.
If that sounds like a lot to juggle and keep on top of, it is. In fact, one publication even refers to us as "superheroes" (2).
My area of interest is food service in residential aged care facilities, which have additional considerations on top of those highlighted above. Enough considerations that it warrants a stand-alone post. Stay tuned!
(1) Australian Health Survey: Consumption of Food Groups from the Australian Dietary Guidelines, 2011-12
My area of interest is food service in residential aged care facilities, which have additional considerations on top of those highlighted above. Enough considerations that it warrants a stand-alone post. Stay tuned!
(1) Australian Health Survey: Consumption of Food Groups from the Australian Dietary Guidelines, 2011-12
(2) Wright, O. R. (2017), Foodservice management returns: The need to rejuvenate the superhero contribution of dietetics. Nutr Diet, 74: 113-115. doi:10.1111/1747-0080.12349
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