Menu Planning for Child Care

Why plan a menu? Especially if you are in a home care situation? 

Money & Time

Food is usually the greatest single expense a home provider incurs, and it is usually only below salaries for most centers, unless they have a VERY nice building.

Sample Menu:

A similar menu format is available in a Word form-fill document for you to use in planning.

What a menu provides: 

1. The ability to buy in bulk when items are on sale and in season Half price meat sales, buying stuffing and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, freezing apples when they are .69/pound in the fall, all can help drop food costs by up to 50%. If the applesauce on sale at half off expires in 6 months, then you know how many you will use up within that time frame because you have a menu that tells you. You only purchase what you need.
2. Reduced waste Without a menu, often items are purchased and forgotten in the back of cabinets or fridges and left to expire or rot. With a menu, only food that will actually be used needs to be purchased.
3. The ability to prep ahead, make ahead and/or freeze to reduce time Standing around staring in a pantry or fridge is time wasted. Knowing what is going to be served, a provider can properly allocate the necessary time and steps to the process, utilize a crock pot to reduce hands-on time, and prep for meals when it is convenient, rather than at the last minute.
4. Assurance that the children are getting the best nutrition Feeding on the fly can lead to using what is on hand, rather than what is actually needed to provide the best nutrition. Knowing what will be served throughout the day will lead to a more well-rounded diet for the children.
5. The ability for families to plan around the menu They can know they won't be repeating something already served to the child, or if the menu has something the child doesn't eat well for the day, then they will know to provide a more nutritious dinner rather than McDonald's.
6. Addressing food allergies If parents are required to supply alternative foods for their allergic child, then a menu is an important tool for all parties involved to be able to make the process seamless. A parent  of a lactose intolerant child can see that yogurt is being served, and send a soy product that day. The parent of a child with an egg allergy can see that mini quiche are being served and send an egg substitute. There isn't the need to back-stock special items that could potentially go to waste.
7. Organization  There are many different methods of organization. One way is to have 5 tubs representing each day of care, and placing all the necessary non-perishables into it at the beginning of the week with recipes slipped into card holders on the front. Another is to have an organized pantry with rotating food storage. Whatever your system, it only works well if you have a plan and know what your needs are and will be.
8. More sophisticated palates Children can learn to like nearly any food they are exposed to a minimum of 10-12 times before the age of 2, outside of inherited physical restrictions that can occur, such as with cilantro or broccoli. Without a menu, most people have a fairly limited number of dishes they regularly serve. Unfortunately, this is NOT to the benefit of children. Without exposure to a variety of foods, children are denied the ability to LEARN to like a wide variety of tastes and textures. Limiting their food explorations can lead to many nutrition-related problems later in life.We all know of adults who won't touch a vegetable if their life depends upon it, and unfortunately, sometimes it DOES.
9. Cooking with the children Food experiences are the only [safe] complete 5-senses experience. The learning capability with cooking is amazing. Math, science, language, literacy, fine and gross motor skills, following directions, taking turns, other social skills...the list goes on. Knowing what will be served when, allows for providers to plan ahead to allow children to participate in their food experiences by measuring, mixing, and manipulating as appropriate.
10. Planning for a garden The best cost is FREE, or relatively so. Knowing what you regularly serve, you can choose to plant some of those fruits and vegetables with the children and serve them fresh and organic when in season. Gardening teaches them so many skills and concepts! If you have the gumption and space to do so, growing more and freezing fruits and vegetables can provide nearly year-round cost savings.

You can NOT serve 

home canned products in child care! 

However, you can serve frozen.

Pitting cherries harvested that morning
from the backyard to make individual cherry crisps
- a great fine motor activity.

Creating a good menu can be VERY time intensive, so you only want to do it once, and then tweak it as needed.

Aspects of a good menu:

1. Rotates automatically every 4-5 weeks to provide the best cost and time savings This allows for bulk purchases because you can determine almost EXACTLY the quantities you will use in a specific time frame and the parents do not have to wait on a monthly menu to be handed out to make their own plans.
2. Serves perishable items within an appropriate time frame For instance, if purchasing avacados at Sam's Club, you'll need to use them up within a relatively short period of time or freeze them. Serving them as a fruit at one meal and again a few days later at snack as quacamole with chips, ensures you get the cost savings without waste. This is especially true for smaller groups.
3. Doesn't duplicate quickly While it would be nice to cook up an oven full of chicken and serve it three days in a row in different ways, it is better to freeze the cooked meat and spread it out across the menu.
4. Includes a variety of flavors, textures, colors, and ethnic dishes Foods served should reflect the cultures of the children in care and the community at large. 
5. Meets or exceeds USDA guidelines A menu rich in superfoods, vitamin A & C and low in transfats and processed foods not only is good for the children, but it is a good marketing aspect for your program as well. Most parents are looking for quality care, and that includes a quality menu. The children in our care deserve foods that are multi-grain or whole grain, have good oils & fats, and are high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Food is either good for you or bad for you. It either fuels the body, or takes resources away from the body in order to process it as waste. As providers, we need to ensure that what we are placing into the newly formed bodies of our charges are only good things.