Food and Health Communications

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Recipe Analysis

If you have any interest in the restaurant business or food industry in general, now is a great time to hone your recipe analysis skills and start marketing your services. President Obama signed the health care reform legislation into law on March 23, 2010. In Section 4205 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, all restaurants with 20 or more locations must display calorie information for regular menu items on the menu, menu board and drive-thru menu boards. In addition, other nutrition information such as total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, sugars, dietary fiber and total protein must be provided in writing upon request. Included in the law are vending machine operators with 20 or more vending machine locations to display calorie information for certain items (1).Checklist:? Look at recipes – do they need to be made into standard formats that are easy for the kitchen to follow and easy for you to enter into the analysis program?? Do subrecipes need to be created? (salad dressings,sauces, stuffing, etc.)? Analyze recipe? Provide analysis and food labels? Provide suggestions for which recipes “fit” versus which recipes seem “way too high” for certain nutrients; help lower trans fat, sodium, fat and calories? Consultation to tweak recipe to make the nutritional out- come more appealing? Consultation to help chefs create healthy recipes? Consultation to help chefs create health claims that fol- low laws? Train the staff to follow recipes in the kitchen and for the wait staff to communicate clearly to customers and offer healthier suggestions for existing menu itemsRead more here:http://foodandhealth.com/continuinged.phpThis is a free 1 hour CPE course on foodandhealth.com