| Food For Thought |
Be Food Safe! Prepare with Care: CLEAN. Wash hands, utensils, and surfaces often. SEPARATE. Don't cross-contaminate. COOK. Use a food thermometer. CHILL. Chill food promptly.
 email or call me at the office 916-364-5300.
Janet Montano, RD Director of Menu Services |
| Staff Tips | |
Setting up an out of office auto responder email is a cinch. Email sent to you on your 'out of office day' will be notified of your absence and return date by way of a generic email. Not only a common business courtesy, but could save you time and explanation via multiple emails when you return.
Go to your email program, type in "out of office message, email, or auto responder" for instructions.
Please send Pati your comments, questions and tips in regards to HMC staff tools,email, website, etc. |
| Contact the Editor |  Please send your RDNews comments, suggestions & questions to Judy Morgan, MBA, RD |
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Greetings!
Summer is here! Please read on for valuable information and tips on summer food safety. Explore the links in RD Tips for CEUs, resources and opportunities. |
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July 4th Holiday Food Safety
Most of our skilled nursing communities will be celebrating the Independence Day holiday with an old fashioned BBQ meal cooked outside, and maybe even served to the residents outside on a shaded patio. Keep in mind, the facility still needs to assure the foods are purchased, stored, prepared, held and served in a safe and sanitary manner to prevent food borne illness and food textures served appropriately per MD orders. Many menus will include hamburgers, chicken, (even hot dogs!), and potato or macaroni salad, fresh fruit, salads and dressings, fruit and cream pies. These are all essentially Potentially Hazardous Foods that are prone to time and temperature abuse especially at outdoor events in the summer heat. Here are some things to look for and discuss with your Dietary Managers when planning for these outdoor dining events:
- Make sure the fresh fruit is purchased from an approved vendor vs. a roadside fruit stop
- Wash all fresh fruit thoroughly before prepping/serving and use a clean cutting board to prep each different fruit
- Homemade potato/macaroni salad and cream pies need to be chilled quickly and temps recorded on the cool down temperature log
- Salads/dressings and PHF desserts need to be kept on ice during the serving time
- Meat cooked on the BBQ still needs to have the internal temperature checked for proper final cooking temperature: ground meat 155F, chicken 165F, pork 165F
- Holding temperatures need to be checked and recorded for hot and cold foods served at the outdoor dining event: at least 140F for hot foods and 41F or lower for cold foods
- Keep hot BBQ meat and beans on a sterno flame in chafing dishes during the serving time and spot check temperatures often to assure safe holding temps
- Make arrangements to chop, grind or even puree the food to the proper texture per MD orders and reheat as needed to 165F for hot foods prior to serving
- Check the facility's policy on serving whole hot dogs even for Regular diet orders due to the high choking risk
- Review the HM Composite Policy and Procedure Manual, Food Service Management section, pages 298-303 meat, poultry, fish/protein salad preparation, pages 314-315 salad and fruit preparation, pages 340-342 food serving temperatures for reference when planning the BBQ meal service.
Click here for a printable copy of this article to share with your facilities |
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RD Tip |
Need CEU's?
Here are a few links to some interesting opportunities for online, webinar and self-study CE programs: For those of you interested in furthering your nutrition support knowledge, try Aspen's website and scroll through the Teleseminar and Forums section and the Nutrition Support Review Course. Consider Aspen membership if you think you may want to purchase some of their CE programs, as they are discounted for members. For a wide variety of clinical nutrition and administrative self-study courses for CEU's, Click here.
For those of you interested in learning more about culture change and resident directed care, click here for information about the webinar on July 8th.
RD Resources
These website links provide information and articles relating to our RD profession. You can sign up for their email newsletters by visiting their websites.
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| Dear Dietitian |
Help your communities have a safe and fun holiday BBQ and share these tips with them. You may even find some exciting new recipes to try at the facility or for your own celebration at home.Click here to see some new recipes for your holiday BBQ.
Sincerely,
Judy Morgan, MBA, RDHM Composite |
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Registered Dietitian Newsletter
