Serving seniors can be a challenge because of the age group’s dietary needs. Accommodating food allergies can add another dynamic to the task, as James Martin, director of Campus Culinary Services at The Village at St. Edward in Fairlawn, Ohio, explained as we joined him in his hunt for ideas at the 2015 National Restaurant Association Show last week.
“In our facility, we have independent living, assisted living, nursing care and memory care,” he said to provide some context. “So we have four different levels of diet and then you add in the component of allergens and it becomes pretty wide-ranging.”
What are some of the allergy challenges that are particular to senior-living menus?
One of the main challenges is having the right amount of information about the individual, especially in an older population. You may have people who are memory impaired and they can’t tell you a whole lot about themselves—especially if they don’t have any family anymore and they don’t have anyone that [you] can find out from. So sometimes you learn as you go. That’s the worst-case scenario because that’s not the way you want to find out. Typically you get that information from a family member, or from a doctor’s report as they are being admitted to your facility.
Have allergies become more prevalent in the last couple of years?
It’s been there for a while, but I think it’s emerging a little bit more. I think where it used to be 5 or 6 percent, it’s now 10 or 12 percent. I think that there’s more awareness [of] gluten, soy and peanut allergies, whereas before it was shellfish and eggs. [There weren’t] a whole lot in the past that were recognized and the list has gotten bigger.
How do you balance allergies with other dietary needs?
In the skilled nursing area, we use menus that are [on] a four-week cycle. It’s a set menu and we have a spreadsheet that we use for day-to-day service. On that spreadsheet you will have [all of your diet possibilities], then if there is an allergen on top of that, you just break that out and put alerts on individual service tickets. The ticket would say allergy all the way across it. It would be listed and you make sure when you are plating that you watch all of those individual needs.
Do you have specific menu items that would be able to be switched out if, for example, somebody is diabetic but also allergic to peanuts?
What we do have is an always-available menu that they can go to in order to choose an alternate item. So for example, if it is a gluten allergy and chicken nuggets are on the menu, then we would just send over a grilled chicken breast. We would just make that adjustment in the main kitchen.
You attended an education during the National Restaurant Association show about allergy-friendly practices. What are some of the takeaways that you are planning to apply at your facility?
I liked the idea of a [menu] matrix where everything is cut and dry [and easy to navigate]. I think that would go across the whole spectrum of all allergies. It’s something that we’ll look at with our dietitian and see if we can develop it. I think that would be very valuable.
The other [takeaway] is to be able to say that your facility is allergy-friendly. I think that you can use that in marketing your facility because whatever you can do to set yourself apart from the facility down the street is going to set your success in the future.