Serve Size and Estimated Energy and Protein Contents of Meals Prepared by ‘Meals on Wheels’ South Australia Inc.: Findings from a Meal Audit Study
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Date
2018-02-20
Authors
Arjuna, Tony
Miller, Michelle Deanne
Soenen, Stijn
Chapman, Ian
Visvanathan, Renuka
Luscombe-Marsh, Natalie D
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Rights
© 2018 by the authors.
Rights Holder
the authors.
Abstract
An audit of ‘standard’ (STD) and ‘energy and protein fortified’ (HEHP) meals from Meals on Wheels (MOW) South Australia’s summer menu was conducted to evaluate the consistency, and serve size and nutrient contents, of their menu items. Twenty soups, 20 mains and 20 desserts from each of the STD and HEHP menus were prepared at the MOW South Australia’s kitchen and delivered to three ‘sham(dummy)-clients’ over a 5-week period. Each meal component was weighed in triplicate, to the nearest gram, the variation within the serve weight was calculated, and the overall energy and protein content of each meal was determined using FoodWorks (Xyris Software, Highgate Hill, Queensland, Australia). On average, the variability for soups and mains was ≤6% and for desserts was ≤10% and although the measured serve sizes of the MOW meals were consistently smaller than prescribed serve size, the differences were minor. As a percentage of recommended daily intakes (RDIs) for adults aged over 60 years, we calculated that the STD meals contained 21–39% for energy and 42–63% for protein while the HEHP meals contained 29–55% for energy and 46–69% for protein. These findings demonstrate that MOW meals currently meet the voluntary meal guidelines for energy and protein.
Description
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords
meals on wheels, nutrition;, community;, meal service, ageing
Citation
Arjuna, T.; Miller, M.; Soenen, S.; Chapman, I.; Visvanathan, R.; Luscombe-Marsh, N.D. Serve Size and Estimated Energy and Protein Contents of Meals Prepared by ‘Meals on Wheels’ South Australia Inc.: Findings from a Meal Audit Study. Foods 2018, 7, 26.