Menu System: Nutritional Analysis

The purpose of a nutritional analysis is to ensure that the menu meets the nutritional criteria in the diet manual for the regular, therapeutic, and texture modified diets. The most important aspect is that the average for the cycle meets the requirements.

Some menu systems can complete a nutritional analysis for each meal and each day for each diet. Some can complete a nutritional analysis for each week for each diet, which provides an average for the week. And some just provide an average for the cycle for each diet.

If the cycle average meets the criteria, in most cases this is good enough. It is normal to be higher some meals and days for certain nutrients and lower other meals and days. The advantage of having a more detailed nutritional analysis is that if something is too high or too low, it is easier to determine which food items are creating the effect and change them.

If menus are purchased, a nutritional analysis should be included. If menus are written and there is not a computer system to complete an analysis, completing one by hand is next to impossible. Instead, the diet manual should be followed and the completed menu checked manually to ensure that the proper number of servings from each food group is included, that items high in certain nutrients are included as indicated, and that inappropriate foods are avoided.