The solutions

Solutions that can be made available to address the problem of dysphagia and, in general, of other feeding disorders are manifold: blended traditional cuisine and ready-made blended foods.

In order to control costs, whilst keeping the production of special blended meals as part of an organisational and economic chain of traditional catering, the solution typically used is blended traditional cuisine: after preparation and cooking in accordance with the traditional menus, food is chopped up and brought to an adequate level of homogenisation, using special homogenisers or, very often, large size and powerful blenders for obtaining, after a long process, a more or less homogeneous product.

The problems linked to the traditional solution are mainly qualitative, especially related to the variability of the recipes during the preparation and the consequent difficulty in securing constant and precise rheological and organoleptic characteristics of dishes with the total absence of lumps and solid parts.

As an alternative to the blended traditional cuisine, there are ready-made dishes that are marketed as special food for dysphagia or as simple ready-made blended dishes or flans and are proposed by non-certified companies as a generic solution to the problem.

This solution has the advantage of ensuring adequacy and consistency from a rheological point of view, especially for special products authorized by the Ministry, but it also presents significant problems among which:

• very high cost of product compared to traditional cuisine
• logistic and organisational difficulties in the management of product
• difficulties in integrating the practical use of these products in the management of the kitchen
• lack of variety of recipes for a diversified and articulated menu
• poor organoleptic quality of the product
• significant environmental impact due to the packaging and single portion packs.

Each of the two solutions has different advantages and disadvantages and, therefore, does not completely solve the problem of special blended diets for people with dysphagia.
The solution io sano® vice versa, combines the advantages of the two options and offers an overall solution meeting different objectives: security and rheological constancy, organoleptic quality, flexibility of use and integration into the kitchen, reduced direct and indirect costs.