Fluid Content of Foods Fluid Content of Foods*  Food Item  Serving Size Fluid Content/ Serving Main dishes Beef brisket Chuck arm roast Ground beef, lean Round roast Lamb Pork loin chop Ham Veal Chicken Chicken nuggets Turkey Cottage cheese Macaroni and cheese Spaghetti and meatballs Fish filet Hot dog   3.5 ounces (oz) 3.5 oz 3.5 oz 3.5 oz 3.5 oz 3.5 oz 3.5...

Pregnancy: Eating for Two Your diet affects your baby’s organs, brain, skeleton, and muscles. It is very important to your baby’s future health. Use the following chart to see how much weight you should gain during pregnancy. Weight Before Pregnancy Recommended Pregnancy Weight Gain Normal weight: BMI: 20–24.9 25–35 lb Underweight BMI: Less than 20 28–40 lb Overweight: BMI: 30 or higher 11–20 lb Obese BMI: 40 or higher Modest weight...

Committees or Journal Clubs:Steps to Get One Started Decide what your mission is. Make sure that it is not too broad, because it is easy to become unfocused and overwhelmed. If necessary, write a Justification Report for upper management.  Set the committee’s life span (until a special event has passed, indefinitely, etc). Determine how often the committee will need to meet in order...

Blogging Tips Do you enjoy writing and working on a computer? Have you thought about starting a blog, or would you like to improve your existing blog? These suggestions may help. Update often You absolutely must update your blog several times a week, and preferably every day, at least in the beginning. Take the time It is not just writing that takes...

Eating Out: Making the Best  of Low-Calorie Choices With hectic schedules, people are eating out more frequently. It is fine to indulge once in a while when dining out, but if you are eating out more than once a week the calories can add up quickly. It is easy to eat a whole day’s worth of calories in just one meal out....

Food Allergy or Not?   When people have unpleasant symptoms after eating something, they generally assume that it is a food allergy. In fact, only about 3% of adults and 6%-8% of children have a true food allergy. A true food allergy is an abnormal response to a food that is triggered by the immune system. Food intolerances, food poisoning, and toxic...

Collaborative Bidding in Food Service Collaborative bidding is a process of two or more institutions joining together to publish a “request for bid” to purchase food or nonfood items. The vendor combines the orders to get the lowest possible prices. The theory is that vendors can offer discounted prices, because a sales representative does not have to visit each institution.  Advantages of...

Raw Food Costs: How to Calculate Per Patient Day (PPD) To calculate raw food costs: Total all food expenses for the month Include food expenses from every food vendor used by the facility (groceries, produce, dairy, bread, etc) Do not include nonconsumable items, such as paper products and cleaning supplies Estimate number of meals served/month in the facility by one of these methods*: Review documentation of...