Residents on minced or puréed diets eat from the same cycle as everyone else. This service writes the texture-modified versions of your cycle so that every meal still offers a real choice, the portions still meet the same food guide, and your kitchen can produce them from the same recipes.
- Type A homes serve meals that follow the therapeutic and special diets in each resident’s care plan.
- Alberta’s standards do not name IDDSI. Alberta Health Services’ menu-planning guidance (2022 content, with a formatting edit in March 2026) says it has no immediate plans to move fully to the IDDSI framework.
- Texture-modified variants of a menu you send are already part of a menu review. Writing them from scratch is quoted separately.
Where texture fits in the Alberta standards
The accommodation standards for type A homes ask that meals follow the therapeutic and special dietary requirements noted in each resident’s care plan. They do not name a texture framework. Alberta Health Services’ menu planning guidance (2022 content, with a formatting edit in March 2026) describes its own texture levels and says it has no immediate plans to transition completely to IDDSI.
In practice homes use whichever terms their care plans use. The menu is written to those terms, with the IDDSI level alongside if your team charts in IDDSI.
The IDDSI guide sets out what Alberta’s and British Columbia’s enacted text require.
What you receive
- Texture-modified versions of each meal in your cycle, at the levels your residents need.
- A choice at every meal for each texture level, not a single default plate.
- Recipe notes on how each item is modified, and what to serve where an item cannot be.
- Plating notes so a puréed meal still looks like the meal it came from.
Texture-modified variants of a menu you send are already part of a menu review; separate dysphagia menus are the therapeutic menus add-on on the pricing page. Staff who serve these meals can take eating assistance and choking prevention training.
Common questions
Does Alberta require IDDSI in continuing care?
No Alberta accommodation or health service standard names IDDSI. Alberta Health Services’ menu-planning guidance says it has no immediate plans to transition completely to the IDDSI framework. Homes may still use it.
Is reviewing our texture-modified menus included in a menu review?
Yes. Texture-modified variants of the menu you send are reviewed as part of the menu review. Separate dysphagia menus read as menus in their own right are the therapeutic menus add-on on the pricing page.
Can you write texture-modified menus for a cycle we already have?
Yes. That is the most common request: the regular cycle stays, and each meal gains texture-modified versions written to match it.
Texture-modified menus describe what is planned for each texture level. They do not replace a resident’s swallowing assessment or care plan, which remain with the home’s clinical team, and the work is not a finding of compliance. Confirm the standards that apply to your licence class.
- Accommodation Standards – Continuing Care Home Information Guide (Government of Alberta, effective 1 April 2024)
- Planning a Healthy Menu, section 5: texture modified diets (Alberta Health Services; 2022 content, formatting edit March 2026)
- The IDDSI Framework (International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative)