The continuing rise in food allergies among young children is making catering an ever greater challenge for daycare settings.
Providing for children's specific needs requires kitchen staff with the skills to prepare lots of dishes every day and the knowledge to find suitable recipes, to source special ingredients and avoid any cross-contamination in the food preparation.
Nurseries can refuse to cater for children with allergies to basic ingredients such as wheat, eggs or dairy products, but it is an option that leaves the children feeling uncomfortably 'different' and their busy parents scrambling to prepare separate meals and snacks every day.
One solution to some of these catering problems is for kitchen staff to learn about cooking substitutes - simple replacements for 'problem' ingredients - and then go on to use them in a nursery's regular repertoire of dishes.
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