New texture-modified food on the menu at TUH

After more than 18 months of consulting, taste testing, and trialling a new texture-modified food menu has been made available at Townsville University Hospital for patients who experience difficulties swallowing.

The food services team has worked closely with dietitians, speech pathologists, and suppliers to develop the new menu.

Assistant manager Alec Stevens said a lot of work has gone into making sure the new menu passes the safety, nutrition, and taste tests.

“About 150 of the 1500 meals we serve each day are for patients who require texture-modified foods,” Mr Stevens said.

“These foods are critical for patients who have swallowing difficulties to help make sure they can safely eat and drink.

“Texture-modified food is often thought of as being mushy and unappetising.

“That’s why it was crucial the food presented to patients looked like real food, as well as being something that could fit in with our current menu.

“For example, if we have roast lamb on our menu then we want all our patients to have access to roast lamb and to make the dining experience for patients requiring texture-modified foods to be as least restrictive as possible.”

Senior dietitian Kate Lovell said nutrition played an important role in improving recovery times for patients.

“The old texture-modified menu had items which were made from products which contained potential allergens like milk or eggs,” Ms Lovell said.

“This meant for people with those allergies they didn’t have a big variety of food which sometimes led to menu fatigue and eventually patients not eating as much as they should or wanted to.

“This meant some of our patients weren’t getting the nutrition they required which impacted their recovery and led to longer stays at hospital.

“This new menu has a lot more options for people with allergies and while it has only recently been made available, we have already received positive feedback from patients about it.”

Senior speech pathologist Emma Brown said it was important to be able to work closely with dietetics and food services to improve the dining experience for patients.

“There was a lot of consultation not only among ourselves but also consumers to make sure we got this menu right,” Ms Brown said.

“From a speech pathology perspective, the food had to be at a consistency to make it enjoyable to eat but also safe for those people who had difficulties swallowing.

“There was a lot of work to make sure we delivered a food menu which was safe, tasty, nutritional, and easy to make, and I am happy we were able to achieve that.”