Vegans in Aged Care

Claire Insley, media spokesperson for the Vegan Society of Aotearoa New Zealand, investigates how well various care homes throughout Aotearoa provide for the dietary requirements of aging vegans.

As the inevitable aging process occurs, even vegans become unwell enough to fully look after themselves and may wish or need to move into some kind of retirement village or care home. As luck would have it, one of our members, Stephen Reeve, is living in a retirement village and reached out to us about this subject. I asked him some questions about his experiences where he was living and how easy it was for him to be catered for.

Peas and Potatoes

Stephen has been vegan for 14 years and purchased an apartment within a retirement village in August 2023, with his wife. They prepare their own food so it has not been an issue whether the village provides good vegan meals or not. However, they do offer some in-house catering so residents can “eat out” and meet up with other residents within the village. Reeve asked about a vegan Christmas lunch option at the village and was told they could offer only “peas and potatoes” — he decided to go to Queenstown instead! 

Closer to Christmas, as his wife was booking a place, they were informed that a better vegan option could be made, however Stephen was already set on travelling.

All in all, Stephen and his wife do not feel well catered for at the village arranged events and meals. However residents often club together for takeaways nights and have been including places that offer vegan food. It is great that other residents support their choices and Stephen feels hopeful that the Christmas lunch option at the village this year will include a proper vegan option.

I spent some time contacting various other retirement villages and care home providers, as well as catering service providers to see what their side of the story was. 

Metlifecare

I was impressed by the swiftness of response and positive attitude from Lara Harrison, the food and beverage manager at retirement village provider Metlifecare.

“Our aged care homes are catered by Metlifecare’s internal food and dining service, and we provide meals that appeal to all residents’ individual dietary requirements.  This process of aligning meals to resident need is part of the admission process where individual resident care plans are developed for each individual. While we don’t currently have any vegan residents in our care homes, we do offer a vegetarian menu, which can be easily amended to a vegan menu if we were to have a vegan resident. Meat-based proteins would be replaced with plant-based sources of protein, such as pulses (beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas), soy byproducts (tofu, soybean, soy milk), nuts and grains (barley, quinoa, etc).

“In contrast, our independent living residents have the choice to either cater for themselves or access our cafés that provide a wide variety of menu options.

“Metlifecare has a National Food and Beverage Manager, who leads a team of passionate foodies and dietitians which aim to provide our residents with high-quality, delicious, and nutritious food to support their wellbeing and specific dietary requirements. Essentially, their job is to source ingredients and plan menus to ensure that dietary requirements are addressed, while also striving to create attractive meals — from the look and smell to the taste and texture. 

“Our food and beverage team are aware that there will be an increased number of residents opting for a vegan diet into the future, and we are well prepared for this from a food and dining perspective.”

Ryman Healthcare

I also heard from a spokesperson for retirement village and rest home operator Ryman Healthcare.

“We cater for roughly 6,750 residents throughout our 48 villages each day in on-site kitchens run by chefs… This includes mainly residents in care and serviced apartments but also some independent residents who choose to dine with us. At this point we do not have a lot of vegan residents although that is likely to change in the future. We do have a large number of vegetarian or ‘flexitarian’ residents however.

“Our delicious menu offers at least one vegetarian option on the menu for lunch and dinner each day. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays we have two vegetarian options at lunch. Many of our vegetarian options can easily be adapted for vegan residents.

“As with any specialised diet, if we could not easily adapt the vegetarian option we would work with each individual to find a suitable alternative. Our village chefs do this on a case-by-case basis. This is relatively common for many reasons, for example residents with multiple allergies.

“We would never take the meat off a dish and just serve the vegetables to a resident.

“Our innovative hospitality platform called Saffron allows care staff to take meal orders on tablets, providing residents with photographs and ingredient details. This helps us to manage nutritional needs and food preferences as residents will only see dishes that are suitable for their diet type.”

The State of Care

It sounds like neither of these providers actually cater to vegans at present, but are aware of the growing need to do so, which is a good thing. It certainly sounds like any vegan looking to check into such a service would need to inform the chosen residential place well before moving in and talk properly about requirements.

Finally, I got in touch with catering provider Cater Plus, whose website looked very good and sounded very positive, with many different food choices being catered for. The provider was unfortunately unable to give me any idea on the number of vegan meals they provided at a national level. Apparently each client privately keeps that information. 

It certainly pays to shop around and find out how meals are provided at your chosen provider. Are they cooked in-house, or does another company provide them? As the population continues to age, it is very likely such providers will be required to cater to increasing numbers of vegan clients. At this stage it at least seems like most vegans need not fear being forced to eat meat or settling for very poor meals — sadly the same can not be said for various hospitals throughout the country. 

Aotearoa Vegan and Plant Based Living Magazine
This article was sourced from the Autumn  2024 edition of The Vegan Society magazine.
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Disclaimer
The articles we present in our magazine and blog have been written by many authors and are are not necessarily the views and policies of the Vegan Society.