Food-Service-Manual-for-Health-Care-Institutions

Food Service Manual for Health Care Institutions
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Table 15.1. Serving Sizes for Use with the Food Guide Pyramid
Food Group Serving Size
Bread, cereal, rice, and pasta 1 slice bread
1 ounce ready-to-eat cereal
1
⁄2 cup cooked cereal, rice, or pasta
5–6 small crackers
Vegetables 1 cup raw, leafy vegetables
1
⁄2 cup cooked or chopped raw vegetables
3
⁄4 cup vegetable juice
Fruit 1 medium apple, banana, or orange
1
⁄2 cup chopped, cooked, or canned fruit
3
⁄4 cup fruit juice
Milk, yogurt, and cheese 1 cup milk or yogurt
11 ⁄2 ounces natural cheese
2 ounces processed cheese
Meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts 2–3 ounces cooked lean meat, poultry, or fish
Foods that count as 1 ounce of meat:
1
⁄2 cup cooked dried beans
1 egg
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1
⁄3 cup nuts
Research Council in 1989. The RDAs specify nutritional requirements for individuals based on
gender and age. Menu planners should evaluate regular patient menus to determine that they
indeed satisfy the RDAs. In cases where a patient’s medical condition requires modifications to
the regular menu, the menu planner should refer to the health care operation’s dietary manual.
Budget Allocations
The menu is the major factor in establishing and controlling food costs. With some effort and
imagination, a skilled menu planner can design a menu that offers variety, interest, and appeal
and still remains within most budgets while being planned around up-to-date, tested recipes.
Keeping a running total of the cost of items on the menu as it is being planned allows the planner
to balance high-cost items with low-cost items so that total daily costs can be kept within
the limits of the budget. However, the same cost level should be maintained from day to day
rather than balancing over-budget days with days on which the cost is considerably less than
the budgeted daily average.
This approach works fairly well for controlling costs with nonselective menus, provided
the cost information is current and projected market conditions are considered when menus are
planned far in advance. When a selective menu is offered, a forecast of the demand for each
item must be determined before total cost per meal or patient day is computed.
When menus are planned for employees and guests, cost and selling price must be considered.
The selling price should cover ingredients, labor, specified overhead, and profit. (Specific
pricing techniques are discussed later in this chapter.) Accurately forecasting demand is
difficult because the selling price itself affects the demand for individual items on the menu.