Dietitian Profile - Megan Scutti, Clinical Dietitian and Nutritionist for Amherst

We talked with Megan Scutti, the Clinical Dietitian and Nutritionist for Amherst College, and asked her a few questions on what it looks like for her and her team to create safe dining experience for students.

• How do you go about creating menus that accommodate various dietary restrictions without compromising taste and variety?

"Our team's goal when creating new dietary and allergen-friendly menu items is to be as  inclusive as possible. To us this means that if we are serving chicken Parmesan for example, how can we create a chicken Parmesan or similar option that is gluten-free and dairy-free so our students do not feel singled out with a completely different menu. Along with this, we audit our 4-week cycle menu with the goal of always having a hot entree that fits our top dietary restrictions of gluten-free, vegan and halal. Everyone’s taste preferences are different and that is why we love student feedback to make sure that everyone, including students with dietary restrictions, are enjoying our dining hall and feel as though they have a variety of options"

• What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced when managing food allergies or special diet requests on campus? Any advice for other campuses facing similar challenges?

"Our biggest challenges would be the supply chain for specialty diets. Every day there seems to be more and more allergen-friendly options popping up in the local grocery store; however, this movement has been a bit slower in the foodservice world. We find it can often be hard to find similar options that come in large enough packages to feed the volume we produce. The best advice our team has is to talk to your food purveyors! Often, if they hear multiple organizations are looking for a certain product that may only be available in a niche market they may be able to look into similar products they have access to or bring it in."

• What trends do you see emerging in the area of special diets and food allergies in college dining?

"While food allergies are still the most common reason I meet with students regarding the dining hall, I am seeing a rise in more allergen-friendly diets for other medical conditions. For example, I have students I work with who may choose to go gluten-free to help support their thyroid or someone who may try a plant-focused diet to improve their heart health. Specialty diets are definitely here to stay and increasing each semester!"

• What does your team look for when selecting vendors or partners to support your allergen friendly initiatives?

"We love products that fit the needs of more than one restriction. When a product fits the needs of more than one or all allergies, this is a no brainer for our team to try out."

• Are there any best practices you or your team have developed that you think could benefit others in the industry?

"Working with and communicating with our students has become crucial. We have a few regular students who love to try new things and will give us honest feedback. We can try to bring in what we think a college student may be interested in, but seeking preemptive feedback has been successful in truly finding out what they may be interested in seeing on their dining program."