Special and Healthy Diet

There will be occasions when one will be asked to provide some special diets or to cater for a guest with special dietary needs. Such people and their respective diets ma include;

Vegetarian and other ethical diets.

Should avoid food like meat or fish of any type, or dishes made with or containing the products of animals. Check for ‘vegetarians’ who occasionally eat fish and/or meat (semi-vegetarian or demi vegetarians), do not eat milk and dairy products (ovo-vegetarian), do not eat eggs (lacto-vegetarian), do not eat any food of animal origin, including honey, dairy products, egg (vegan-vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, pasta made without eggs, soya products and other products of plans are acceptable to vegans), eat only fruit, nuts and berries (fruitarian or fructarian)

Some 10 per cent of 15-18-year-old girls claimed to be vegetarian or vegan. Vegetarians, and vegans in particular, need to carefully balance their food intake to ensure that they do not go short of iron, vitamin B12, zinc, vitamin D and calcium. The less restricted the diet the better. However, vegetarians have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, gallstones, kidney stones and colon cancer; they are also less likely to become overweight or to have raised cholesterol levels.

Pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Food to avoid: do not eat soft, mold-ripened cheese, pate, raw or partially raw eggs, undercooked meat and poultry, tuna, swordfish or marlin, liver or liver-containing foods, alcohol or more than two portion of oily fish a week.

Also see Therapeutic diets