Running the centre
Special diet
A special diet is the adapted menu a canteen serves to someone who cannot or does not want to eat the standard one: because of an allergy or intolerance, coeliac disease, religious reasons, being vegetarian or vegan or medical advice. In a residence it needs a record for each person and a kitchen that keeps it in view.
Also known asspecial menu · adapted menu · dietary requirements · diet
What changes depending on the reason
Not all diets carry the same weight. Those that come from an allergy or an intolerance are about safety: the dish cannot contain the allergen, and the kitchen must be able to say what is in everything. Religious or ethical ones are about respecting a choice, and medical ones (low salt, no added sugar) depend on whoever prescribes them. The Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESAN) guide on unpackaged food says that where meals adapted to each allergy or intolerance are served ("egg-free diet", "gluten-free diet"), the allergen signs are not needed, but allergen information must still be given whenever it is requested. How Bedel matches records and menus: allergens.
The words on the menu matter too. "Gluten-free" is not a figure of speech: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014 only allows that claim if the food, as sold to the final consumer, contains no more than 20 mg/kg of gluten. And "suitable for vegans" is voluntary information (Regulation 1169/2011, Article 36(3)(b)) which, like all voluntary information, must not mislead or be ambiguous (Article 36(2)). Whatever the kitchen cannot guarantee is said as it is; what happens with cross-contamination is explained under allergen traces.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that September's diet still holds in March. Records go out of date: someone stops being vegetarian, someone else is diagnosed with an intolerance halfway through the year. Without a simple way to update them, the kitchen is working from a list that no longer exists. These are health data and are handled as such.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Article 36(2) and (3)(b) (Official Journal, official copy on BOE, in Spanish)
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014 on the absence or reduced presence of gluten, Annex (Official Journal, official copy on BOE, in Spanish)
- AESAN, guide to food information for unpackaged food (in Spanish)
Related terms
- AllergensAllergens are the substances that cause allergies or intolerances and that EU law requires to be declared: fourteen of them, from gluten to molluscs. A residence dining hall must be able to say which ones each dish contains, even when the food is served unpackaged.
- Full boardFull board is the arrangement in which the residence provides, on top of the room, all three meals of the day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is the norm in colegios mayores (Spanish halls of residence) and in many Spanish university residences, and it means knowing every day how many people will eat.