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. 2022 Feb 17;19(1):109-117.
doi: 10.1177/15598276211062163. eCollection 2025 Jan.

Universal Meals: A Novel Program to Provide Healthful Nutrition to Diverse Communities

Neal D Barnard  1 , Natalie Hardcastle  2 , Lilian Correa  3 , YaQutullah Ibraheem Muhammad  4 , Aarti Batavia  5 , Vanita Rahman  6 , Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz  7 , Susan Levin  7 , Allison E Lenthall  7 , Dustin Harder andHana Kahleova  7
Affiliations

Universal Meals: A Novel Program to Provide Healthful Nutrition to Diverse Communities

Neal D Barnard et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Healthcare professionals recommending dietary changes to patients often find that institutional settings-businesses, universities, long-term care facilities, correctional institutions, among others-may not provide the healthful foods that healthcare professionals recommend. Moreover, such institutions encounter an increasing diversity of dietary restrictions, based on allergies, intolerances, religious mandates, or other reasons, that may be challenging to satisfy. To address these issues, experts in health, dietetics, culinary arts, religion, and ethics developed a simple set of guidelines that aim to meet the widest possible range of dietary needs. Three culinary teams then used these guidelines to create "Universal Meals"-simple recipes that were then adapted to larger production sizes for institutional use. The healthfulness of representative sets of meals drawn from these recipes was assessed using the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 and found to be superior to that of a meal pattern based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data.

Keywords: diet restrictions; food allergy; nutrition; vegan; vegetarian.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Dr Barnard is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He serves without compensation as president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Barnard Medical Center in Washington, DC, nonprofit organizations providing educational, research, and medical services related to nutrition. He writes books and articles and gives lectures related to nutrition and health and has received royalties and honoraria from these sources. Ms Hardcastle, Ms Levin, Ms Lenthall, Mr Harder, Dr Kahleova, and Dr Rahman received compensation from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine for their work on this manuscript. Ms Correa, Ms Muhammad, Ms Batavia, and Dr Yanklowitz declare no conflicts of interest related to the manuscript.

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