When moving an aging loved one into an assisted living community, one of the greatest concerns will be ensuring they receive proper nutrition throughout their time there.
However, it’s not difficult to find an assisted living dietary program suitable for your loved one’s needs. This is true even if they’re vegan or have certain medical issues, like high blood pressure or diabetes.
Below we’ll decode Minnesota’s assisted-living food code and uncover how assisted living facilities cater to seniors’ dietary needs.
Assisted Living Community Food Code 101
While it may sound complicated, when we talk about the food code for Minnesota’s assisted living facilities, we’re referring to the Department of Health’s official food safety requirements. Every state has a similar mandate to ensure their assisted living facilities are safely handling and serving food to prevent foodborne illnesses.
This code is especially important as all senior living communities cater to highly susceptible populations due to their age and other health issues. The Minnesota Food Code defines a highly susceptible population as people who are more susceptible to foodborne illnesses due to the following factors:
- Preschool aged children and senior citizens
- They obtain their food from a custodial care facility, health care facility, nutritional services, or socialization services (such as a senior center)
All this means is that the food safety requirements for assisted living facilities are more stringent compared to facilities that aren’t serving highly susceptible populations.
How Assisted Living Facilities Cater to Seniors’ Dietary Needs
Assisted living communities are institutions whose residents depend on proper nutrition. Therefore, it’s essential that they understand each individual’s dietary requirements and preferences, which takes a lot of communication, planning, and organizing.
Generally speaking, many senior living facilities will use some type of assisted living menu software to keep track of the residents’ dietary preferences and needs. They’ll also put an emphasis on the following:
- Record maintenance for each resident’s dietary requirements
- Notes of new residents’s arrivals and the nutritional changes they observe over time
- Records of any food allergies or sensitivities
- Records of health conditions and medications
- Employing unique strategies such as color-coded cups or plateware, seating charts, and more to ensure the appropriate meals are given to the correct individuals
The Most Common Dietary Options Offered in Assisted Living Facilities
Once you get past resident nutritional needs assessments, planning, and organizing, understanding how an assisted living community prepares its dietary programs isn’t so difficult. This is especially true as all assisted living communities mostly follow these common dietary options:
- Allergy- and food sensitivity-friendly meal plans: If your loved one is gluten-free, nut-free, dairy intolerant or has other specific food-related allergies, you can rest assured that there will be unique menu options that accommodate their needs. Senior communities always take food issues seriously and follow special precautionary measures to ensure food safety and reduce any chances of cross-contamination that can set off an allergic reaction.
- Diabetic-friendly meal plans: Roughly 30% of American adults over the age of 65 are managing diabetes, which requires a very controlled meal plan with low-sugar foods. Many assisted living facilities provide diabetes and low-sugar diet education to their residents and direct the kitchen staff on how to create diverse and healthy meal options that are also satisfying.
- Low-sodium meal plans: Too much salt is never a good thing, especially if your loved one has high blood pressure or kidney problems. You can easily count on the fact that assisted living facilities will always cater to low-sodium diet requirements in addition to low-sugar diets to ensure the health and wellness of residents with chronic conditions.
- Texture-modified meal plans: Some seniors require what is referred to as the “mechanical soft diet”, which requires that all foods are pureed to aid with chewing and swallowing difficulties. If your loved one has a medical condition that affects their ability to chew and swallow whole food, they’ll likely be accommodated with a healthy diet of mashed or blended solids and nutritional liquids to ensure their dietary requirements are met.
- Plant-based and vegan meal plans: Plant-based diets are well regarded as they help to reduce cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of certain types of cancers and heart disease — among other medical concerns. Many seniors prefer to eliminate meat and animal by-products by doctor recommendations or simply lifestyle preferences. Either way, it’s very common for assisted living facilities to accommodate plant-based and vegan diets.
Feeding Assistance for Senior Living
Meal plans and dietary accommodations aren’t the only things involved in the dietary programs of assisted living communities. Feeding assistance is also incorporated into these programs.
As seniors continue to age, sometimes independent feeding becomes more of a challenge. This is often due to:
- Decline in cognitive function
- Decline in muscle mass
- Chronic conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease
- Ill-fitting dentures
- Other medical conditions
To prevent residents from becoming malnourished and dehydrated, the assisted living staff can monitor everyone during mealtime to assess their abilities to feed themselves properly. There will can also be physicians, therapists, and nutritionists available to assess residents’ weight, eating habits, and overall mental state.
There will also be several common mealtime assistance strategies, such as feeding assistants who support residents during mealtimes to ensure that:
- The residents receive the proper amount of nutrition during each meal while allowing as much independence as possible through active participation
- Altered utensils are offered to encourage independence through ease of use
- Food is pre-cut if needed
- Excess packaging is eliminated
- Other methods are carried out, such as spoon-feeding or verbal directions
We Know How Important Dietary Planning Is
Meal time is an important part of senior living as it ensures your loved one is not only meeting their nutritional requirements but also enjoying time spent with their new friends and the attentive staff that they’ll come to know well. At Sunflower Communities, we put an emphasis on enjoyment and bonding, which is why we conduct quarterly surveys to see how our residents feel about the food we prepare for them and much more.
Get started with us today to learn more about our menu planning and assisted living facilities.