Introduction:

an assessment of hospital menus should be regularly performed to suit the needs of patients. Drinkable goat milk yogurt could have nutritional advantages over the cow's milk variety.

Objectives:

to evaluate the satisfaction of patients with the hospital menu and with the inclusion therein of drinkable goat milk yogurt as a dessert as compared to a cow milk dessert.

Material and methods:

a satisfaction survey for the hospital menu and its included dessert (non-sweetened goat milk yogurt vs a sweetened cow's milk dessert (yogurt or rice pudding)) was conducted in patients admitted with baseline diets.

Results:

in all, 214 responses were analyzed: 43.9 % of respondents were women. Mean age was 62.1 ± 15.8 years, and average patient stay was 14.1 ± 20.1 days. Acceptance of the hospital menu was rated as good in a high percentage of respondents (temperature, 90.9 %; preparation, 75.6 %; presentation, 88.9 %; time schedule, 73.7 %). Overall satisfaction with the lunch meal (1 to 10) was 7.5 ± 2.1 in patients who took the drinkable goat milk yogurt vs 7.4 ± 2.2 in those who took the cow's milk dessert (NS); satisfaction with the dessert was 6.1 ± 3.2 vs 7.9 ± 2.5 (p < 0.000), respectively.

Conclusions:

overall satisfaction with the hospital menu was high, and the acceptance of the liquid goat milk yogurt was lower than that observed for the cow's milk dessert. The absence of sweeteners in the former may have influenced the results obtained.

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