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Q&A
Staffing for food quality inspections and nutritional guidelines in shelters
0:31:39
ยท
4 min
Council Member Julie Won questions the adequacy of staffing for food quality inspections and raises concerns about nutritional guidelines in shelters.
- Won compares staffing levels for inspections between DHS and DFTA, noting a significant difference.
- The discussion covers concerns about meals not meeting minimum caloric thresholds and the use of milk to supplement caloric needs.
- Won highlights discrepancies between DHS nutritional guidelines and FDA recommendations, particularly for different genders and body types.
Julie Won
0:31:39
it seems that in a comparison for quality control between DFTA for New York City Aging and DHS sites, it seems that there seems to be a very stark difference in the number of staff doing inspections.
0:31:51
Almost as much as many as 30 people who work for DFTA to do these very important food quality control inspections, and it sounds like less than double digits for a very large agency with a very large constituency to do these inspections, and we continue to have quality control issues.
0:32:11
For food policy guidelines for minimal calories and nutritional content for shelters, it's been alerted to us through advocates that some meals do not meet the necessary minimal threshold which you have on your website, and because of that, they are using the inclusion of milk cartons to supplement the caloric needs.
0:32:33
Can you speak to how you're looking at the caloric intake per entree, and are you allowing these vendors to supplement with milk or juices instead of the entree itself?
Jill Berry
0:32:47
So food vendors are required shelters are required to provide us with their menus for us to review the menus, and we review those menus to make sure that they comply with the food standards.
0:33:02
The quality reviews that the shelter staff are doing monthly, that our nutritionist team is doing randomly, that our contract monitoring teams are also doing, are taking those sample meals and comparing it to the menu to make sure that what is being provided is the same as the menu that we approved and is in line with food standards.
0:33:27
And when that is not the case, we bring that immediately to the vendor's attention for correction.
Julie Won
0:33:32
Okay.
0:33:32
So if I'm understanding you correctly, cannot be using milk or juices to supplement the minimal caloric intake that they're supposed to provide per entree?
Kate MacKenzie
0:33:42
I think that's a very specific case, I don't have the details about that but to First Deputy Commissioner's point, all menus are required to be reviewed and if they are veering off of that menu, which it sounds like that might be the case, if milk was not listed on the menu then that's an area for exploration.
Julie Won
0:34:03
So if milk is in the menu, so say that my breakfast is a piece of toast and a carton of milk with an apple, then that whole menu counts as the minimal caloric intake, not that it shouldn't be.
Kate MacKenzie
0:34:20
That is my understanding and we'd have to affirm with the department of with the nutritionists at DHS.
Julie Won
0:34:27
Okay because when we looked at the nutritional guidelines on your website and we compared it to the FDA, there was a stark difference where for both men and women, you had it under 2,200 calories, I believe.
0:34:40
It was like a range of 1,800 to 2,200.
0:34:43
If you look at the federal website, they had it differentiated by gender, so for male and female.
0:34:48
And for men, they had it from like 2,400 up to 3,000 calories per day.
0:34:53
So it is no surprise that people are still hungry after the meals and they are frustrated that they're being told to just supplement with milk.
Kate MacKenzie
0:35:01
So we'll take a close look at that.
0:35:03
Again, I'm not familiar with the details of the caloric requirements for each meal for this specific age group.
0:35:08
I do know that, for instance, the kids have a smaller calorie level.
0:35:12
That's obviously understandable, but, this is something that we'll look more closely in.
0:35:16
And, also, just underscoring that, especially right now, as the federal nutrition dietary guidelines are being reviewed, our own, food standards are being reviewed and we'll be releasing an update in the spring of this year.
Julie Won
0:35:31
Okay.
0:35:31
Implore you to make sure that we're looking at both men and women because someone like me at one hundred and thirty pounds and five foot four is not going eat the same amount as a six foot two man who weighs two fifty pounds.
0:35:41
So they are not eating enough, and we had had reports from shelters and schools of children included being malnourished and showing signs of malnutrition and what that does to a child's development.
0:35:54
Moving on, what is the process for shelter residents to get reasonable accommodations for alternative meals such as vegetarian, vegan, halal, or kosher options?
0:36:03
And how many reasonable accommodation requests were received in 2024 and how many were granted?
0:36:08
Because we have had multiple shelter residents come extremely frustrated that they were not getting the reasonable accommodations for food.