Everyone has a favourite dessert memory. Maybe it’s sitting on the curb with an ice cream on the first day of summer holidays, or savouring your mum’s homemade crumble that only makes an appearance on special occasions.
Whatever they are, they’re reminders that food is much more than just fuel. It’s also a way to celebrate, to cap off a day of healthy eating, and to delight in our favourite flavours.
Preparing healthy, balanced meals that you can eat without worry is what we do best at Able Foods. Every main meal you get is built on our Magic 8 Nutrition Guidelines and, if that’s not enough, they also follow the Australian Dietary Guidelines and Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.
But we also know that eating is not just about making the most out of nutrients. There’s a reason new items are added to our menu on a regular basis, and that we work hard to make sure they’re both healthy and delicious: We know just as well as you do that eating is also about enjoyment.
Discretionary foods: “Only sometimes and in small amounts”
Discretionary foods, which includes most desserts, are those that aren’t essential to our diets. Because of this, the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating recommends we only have them sometimes, and only in small amounts.
Able Foods is taking this rule of thumb seriously, while also leaving room for you to choose and control what and how you eat. When we develop desserts for you, we still follow a set of nutrition guidelines. This means all the desserts on our menu have controlled amounts of sugar, sodium, and saturated fat, and are carefully portion-controlled.
We know the pleasure of slicing into a warm apple crumble after a hearty meal and making friends over desserts brought from home. Able Foods believes the nourishment we get from food is as valid as celebrating milestones and building connections and community over the occasional slice of cake.
A balanced diet can include dessert
It’s important to remember not to let discretionary foods like desserts take the place of more nutritious options. Balance is key to a healthy diet and a healthy relationship with food.
So what can a day of healthy eating that includes dessert look like? It could be a slice of pie that follows a dinner of roast beef, or rounding off a healthy sandwich at lunch with cold chocolate custard on a warm afternoon. There are also lots of ways to cut down on discretionary foods, like choosing fruit instead, eating “mindfully” and stopping when you know you’ve had enough, and controlling portion sizes.
The long and short of it is that, on occasion, there is room for dessert.
Able Foods Is An NDIS Registered Provider Of Health And Nutrition Services.
Don’t pay full upfront. We invoice your plan manager for you.
1 For more information on discretionary foods, visit https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/discretionary-food-and-drink-choices
2 The Australian Dietary Guidelines consider one ‘serve’ of a discretionary food to be foods that contain 600kJ. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that 0 – 3 serves of discretionary foods per day can be suitable, depending on age, height and activity level. Able Foods’ desserts are a maximum of 1.5 serves (900kJ).
