Healthy competition is always a good thing, particularly when it comes to customer health and satisfaction. We love seeing healthcare foodservice departments showcase their healthy, innovative initiatives. Not only do they deserve the bragging rights, but they also make other organizations realize that it is possible to create food that is healthy, delicious, and fun.

Congratulations to Elmbrook Memorial for winning the second annual Hospital Food Fight, benefiting the Stillwater Cancer Support Services. Not only do they create good food, but they try to educate their customers as well, encouraging them to make good choices when they leave the hospital.

ThreeSquares® OnDemand foodservice management software has several tools to help your organization make healthy, delicious, creative, and interesting items to serve to your customers. Those tools include nutritional analysis, menu management, and a customizable recipe box with plenty of room for your customers favorites! Contact us for more information about how ThreeSquares® OnDemand Foodservice management software can improve your foodservice department!

Probiotics are not “new”. They are, however, a newer trend in a world that is beginning to focus more and more on foods impact on health vs. medication. But what are they?

Probiotics are living bacteria. Our GI systems need bacteria (gut flora) to function properly- we actually have over 500 species of bacteria in our bodies. The bacteria help in the breakdown of food, keep our GI tract healthy, and also ensure that we have adequate levels of Vitamin K. Certain medications and infections can decrease the amount of gut flora and lower the amount of “good” bacteria we have, causing different GI complaints. Adding probiotics to one’s diet can help alleviate these issues.

A review and meta-analysis of the benefits of probiotic supplementation was published in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The review found that probiotics can be helpful to those suffering from antibiotic associated diarrhea. This is good news to those taking multiple medications, as diarrhea can cause dehydration as well as malnutrition.

Some good sources of probiotics are yogurt, uncooked cheeses (heat kills the live organism), and kefir, which is a drink similar to yogurt. Include these products on your menu using Menus OnDemand™ Menu Management Software to ensure the health and happiness of your customers.

Eating breakfast has been recommended by health professionals for years. Breakfast, while typically thought of as a morning meal, is anything eaten within an hour or so after waking up. Some of the many benefits found from eating breakfast are improved concentration, increased energy, and a diet higher in important vitamins and minerals. WebMD has a few more reasons to include breakfast in your daily routine.

Another reason for including breakfast every day; it may reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes. A study published March 28, 2012 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who skipped breakfast, regardless of BMI, had a 21% higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Statistics like that are hard to ignore, considering 25.8 million American’s have the disease, with 7 million being undiagnosed. Type 2 diabetes is the most common type.

It is important to remember that not all breakfasts are equal. A whole grain cold cereal with low-fat milk provides healthy carbohydrates, protein, and great fiber to start the day. Eggs are a nice addition to any breakfast, providing a great balance of carbohydrate, protein, and fat for energy through out the day, as well as satiety. Do you serve  a fan of the typical “Breakfast food”? That’s fine! Any meal that is balanced in whole-grain, nutrient-dense carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats is a good option when first waking up.

ThreeSquares® OnDemand Foodservice management software system is great for planning healthy breakfast meals based upon individual preferences or dislikes. Manage dangerous allergens or texture needs to ensure each and every customer you serve gets the best start possible to their day! ThreeSquares® OnDemand Foodservice Management Software includes HACCP-ready recipes for every meal of the day, and comes with pre-loaded menus ready for immediate use.

What better reason to include new egg recipes on your menu than for National Egg Month? Eggs are incredibly versatile and can be used in a variety of ways, so don’t be afraid to get creative!

Whole eggs are a fantastic source of protein, choline, lutein, and other nutrients that are beneficial for individuals of all ages. Egg whites contain 5-6 gms of protein that is easily digested and contains no fat or cholesterol. The yolk contains choline, a B Vitamin that has been shown to improve activity of the nervous system and reduce chronic inflammation. The yolk also contains lutein, which helps prevent age-related macular degeneration.

The Egg Nutrition Council Blog has some great information on the benefits of using whole eggs and including eggs on menus. Serve breakfast for dinner one night as a fun change in routine. Hard boiled eggs make great snacks, especially with salsa or hummus dip. Add new ingredients to scrambled eggs, such as black beans and avocado for a southwestern twist.

Recipes OnDemand™ Recipe Management Software has several recipes featuring eggs, complete with HACCP guidelines and ready for immediate use! These recipes can be used in a variety of different settings, including acute care, long term care, corrections, K-12 education, university dining, retail, and hospitality, among others.

Are you doing anything to celebrate National Egg Month? May has several other silly, fun holidays, such as National BBQ month. Do you recognize any unique holidays during the month of May?

The American Neurological Association has some good news for berry lovers; greater intake of these fruits can decrease the rate of cognitive decline as we age. This study, first published online in April, is the first to look at long-term intake of berries and their effect on cognition in women as they age. There have been promising experimental studies, which prompted this study. After adjusting for co-founders, berries have been shown to have a significant effect on our mental health.

Recently, blueberries have been getting some press as a “superfood”. Blueberries are packed with powerful antioxidants and tiny phytochemicals called flavonoids. They also have high levels of Vitamin C and Potassium, which can lower your risk of heart disease and cancer.

With all those health benefits in one tiny, tasty bite who could resist adding a blueberry or two on the menu? Try our recipe for Blueberry Cobbler, featuring frozen blueberries. Frozen fruits are JUST as healthy as the fresh ones and conveniently available all year, even if the fruit is out of season. This recipe can be found in Recipes OnDemand Recipe Management Software and can easily be included on menus in Menus OnDemand Menu Management Software, two of SureQuest’s On Demand software solutions.

Do you use berries on your menu? Do your customers enjoy menu items featuring different berries?

UCLA came in at number 1 from the list of the 25 healthiest colleges in the U.S, a ranking created by health and fitness media website Greatist. UCLA has some of the best fitness facilities, both indoor and outdoor, in the country, as well as innovative nutrition programs. Schools like Colby College, University of Texas at Austin, and Yale were touted as having some of the best healthy dining options. These dining plans often included local and organic options, and also provided healthy guidance in the form of dining recommendations or dietitian approval.

Did you make the list?

University dining is a huge market with a lot of room for innovation and creativity. Collegiate palates are becoming  more refined and health conscious, giving those planning the menus room to explore new ethnic cuisines and food trends. What are some interesting things you’ve seen or tried at your college and university dining hall?

Menus OnDemand™ Menu Management Software and Recipes OnDemand™ Recipe Management Software are great additions to any university dining environment. These products have incredible flexibility, allowing you to change and update your menu frequently with new and exciting recipes to compliment the changing tastes of the university dining environment. They also provide nutritional analysis of all recipes and menus, keeping your health conscious customers happy!

Were you that kid whose parent threw you in the deep end without a life jacket or were you the lucky one, enrolled in swim lessons at the tender age of 4? I don’t want you to relive bad memories of near-death experiences. I only want to show you how important proper preparation is for future success. This is also true for software implementation; having a dedicated implementation team, and adequate training, keeps you on track for major milestones and prevents “scope creep”.  It also ensures that there is no down-time in productivity once the system goes live.

At SureQuest we care for our customers and do everything we can to ensure success. We want our valued customers to feel they made the right decision from the start- which is why we have the implementation and training resources that we do.

Adding new, or changing, foodservice management software doesn’t need to feel overwhelming and even impossible at times. We’re there every step of the way to keep those murky waters as clear as possible and instill confidence in your staff. Foodservice management software should make your life EASIER, otherwise what is the point?

SureQuest provides

• Dedicated Implementation Managers – To make sure you are successful when you first implement your SureQuest solution.
• Assigned Trainers – completes your on-site training and follow-up internet training

Some other companies may tell you that we charge too much in training. Would you rather start out prepared for success or get tossed in the deep end without knowing how to swim? The training we provide via several different mediums has proved to be invaluable to our current customers, making the process of going live with our software painless and exciting.

Want more information about how our foodservice management software solutions can improve almost every aspect of your hospitality, culinary, and dining operations? Feel free to contact us or register for our free, live demonstration, Demo with Dianne today!

Kidney stones are a painful experience that affects millions of people each year. The older we get the more likely we are to develop kidney stones due to a myriad of reasons. Our diet, medications, weight, genetics, ethnicity, and lifestyle are all involved with a person’s risk. And for those of you working with seniors, the chance of developing a kidney stone gets higher with age. Men who are 50+ years old have the highest risk of developing kidney stones, making it important for those working with that population to be the most prepared.

A lot of what determines whether we may experience stone development or not are things we cannot change, such as age or ethnicity, diet and lifestyle factors are controllable factors. Because of this, it is important we focus on things we can change that will positively impact our prevention of kidney stones, as well as what to do if they become a problem.

Kidney stones are typically made of Calcium Oxalate. Which makes it ironic that studies have shown those with low calcium intakes are more prone to developing kidney stones. Also, once kidney stones are present, it is recommended to not alter calcium intake naturally found in foods. Any calcium supplementation needs to be evaluated by a medical professional before continuing. This article in The Chicago Tribune Health talks about some other dietary factors that have an impact on kidney stone formation, including dehydration and high sodium intake.

These findings show that it is incredibly important that we continue to include menu items that are high in calcium and use recipes that call for various dairy products for our customers. One example is SureQuest’s Recipe for Creamed Spinach, packing close to 200 mg calcium in just one serving!

This recipe, and thousands more, can be found on SureQuest’s Recipes OnDemand™, Recipe Management Software. Recipes OnDemand is a part of Menus OnDemand™ Menu Management Software and ThreeSquares® OnDemand, our premier foodservice management software suite.

There is some Big News around the SureQuest office. We’ve been busy the last few weeks revamping our website to reflect our new OnDemand foodservice management software! With all of the incredible functionality of the original installed software, our cloud-based OnDemand line of products brings an improved user experience from anywhere you have access to the Internet.

Still not sure what the big deal is? Or what all this “Cloud” stuff is about? Basically, software and data are provided to you from a remote location on a server, which you can access from your web browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, etc.). This means that you won’t need to install any software on your personal computer and can in fact control your food service department from any device with a web browser and Internet capabilities. By using cloud-based software, you can keep your organization running with the most updated version of ThreeSquares® OnDemand at all times without any effort on your part.

You pay bills and control your banking online, manage your social life, communicate, most of us even read books online… why wouldn’t you run your business or department online, too?

Check out our Products and Services page to find a foodservice management software that will fit seamlessly with your hospitality, culinary, and dining organization. Customer’s deserve top-of-the-line products to fit any need (Long-term Care, acute health care, retail, education, even Kosher!) brought to you by a TEAM that will assure your company’s present and future success.

Don’t hesitate on implementing the leading cloud-based foodservice management software suite, ThreeSquares OnDemand, which includes menu, recipe, and tray ticket management. Contact us for more information or register for our free, live, web-based demonstration, Demo with Dianne today!

Soda, diet or not, is everywhere. Kids bring it to lunch in their lunchboxes, cafeterias keep the fountain machines flowing, and retail operations can make large profit margins by including it in “value meals”. There are individuals “addicted” to soda, be it the carbonation, flavor, sugar, or caffeine. There are plenty of studies available that show the link between regular soda, made with caloric sweeteners, and obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health issues. But is diet soda any better? Researchers are finding that to be a complicated question to answer.

According to this article on CNBC, titled Complicated Link Between Diet Soda, Health, researchers found that  people who consumed diet beverages were more likely to develop metabolic syndrome. But after taking a step back and looking at the overall dietary patterns of those individuals, those who consumed a healthy diet WITH diet soda vs WITHOUT diet soda had a mere 2% increase in developing health issues (20% vs 18%, relatively).

The researchers identified the typical ”western” diet- high in meat, processed foods, and sugar- to be more indicative of future health decline. Combine with diet beverage intake and those individuals had a 32% risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

What does this mean for us? What most Registered Dietitians have been saying for years and what the Academy of Nutrition and Dietitics advocates; Everything in Moderation. An overall balanced, nutritious diet with adequate amounts of physical activity can include diet soda with little to no adverse health effects.