MMQAs: What to do, what not to do in 2026?
- OSCAR Care Group
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
MMQAs are a critical tool to identify what is working well in aged care homes and where improvements are urgently needed. After completing hundreds of Menu & Mealtime Quality Assessments (MMQAs) across aged care homes around Australia in 2025, OSCAR Care Group Dietitians have seen clear patterns emerge.
The good news? Many of these issues are preventable with the right knowledge, dietetic support and staff training. Let’s dive into the consistent MMQA errors and how to avoid these in your home in 2026.
Inadequate Servings of Grains on a Texture Modified Diet
Mashed Potato is a friend on the texture modified diet, but not all day every day…
Mashed Potato goes well with so many dishes for lunch and dinner. But it is classified as a vegetable serve and not a grain. Aged Care homes need to provide various opportunities for residents to consume grains throughout a day.
For residents on a regular diet, cereal and toast at breakfast, scones at morning tea, cake at afternoon tea and bread rolls with soup at dinner are great ways to incorporate grains. Let alone the many grains spread across main meals and desserts, allow for aged care homes to easily offer the opportunity for residents to meet the recommended serves of grains.
However, for residents on texture modified diet, we see porridge often served at breakfast, and sometimes, that’s about it for grains. Pureed fruit and yoghurt might be served as a snack, and mains with mashed potato, often at lunch and dinner. This lack of variety in grains can bring taste fatigue, and does not provide the nutritional variety that grains offer.
Dietitian Tips:
We need to see more variety on the menus, and offer residents on a texture modified diet meals and snacks as close as possible to the regular diet, whilst still meeting IDDSI requirements.
Serve appropriately texture modified grains, instead of potato as the starch component in main meals on more occasions
Incorporate texture modified grains into mid-meals and desserts on more occasions.
Some food items that are counted as grains include rice, pasta, quinoa, cous cous, noodles and so much more.
Reach out to OSCAR Care Group for nutrition support, education and menu planning assistance to avoid these errors.
Inadequate Servings of Protein & Vegetables
Protein - 2 prawns or 37g of fish or 56g chicken is not enough protein serve
When serving the main meals, Aged Care homes need to provide quality protein at the appropriate serving size.
Our Dietitians have observed many instances of hot meals being provided with inadequate protein serves.
Aged Care Homes have a responsibility to provide adequate protein to residents. Ensure each hot main meal choice provides at least 1 full Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (AGHE) recommended serve of meat, chicken, fish or eggs. For example: 65g lean cooked beef or lamb, 80g cooked chicken, 100g cooked fish, 2 large eggs or 1 cup cooked lentils. There are many other ideas.
What about Veggies - How big is a serve of vegetables?
A standard serve of vegetables is about 75g.
For example:
½ cup of green vegetables
½ cup of legumes, beans and peas
1 cup of leafy greens
½ cup of sweet corn
½ medium potato
1 medium tomato
Recommended serves of vegetables per day according to age group.
| 51-70 years | 70+ years |
Men | 5 ½ | 5 |
Women | 5 | 5 |
Tips to include more vegetables during the day:
Add minced vegetables into rissoles, meatballs, nuggets, meat patties, sauces, and pastries.
Cook tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach with scrambled eggs
Bake savoury muffins with vegetables such as pumpkin, tomato, zucchini, corn and peas
Mash cauliflower and potato together
Include lentils and spinach into spaghetti or lasagne
Cook rice with black beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas
Inadequate Dining Experience & Feeding Assistance
During the audits across Australia, our Dietitians have observed inadequate dining experience and feeding assistance. Residents not being offered seconds, staff not describing a meal to a resident when serving, medication rounds disrupting mealtimes, televisions and noisy mealtime environments or staff standing over a resident during feeding assistance, whilst catching up with another staff about how gross the pureed food looks.
These are all examples of poor dining experience, which can lead to reduced oral intake.
Food, nutrition and the dining experience is an important way to improve a person’s wellbeing and quality of life. It is about nurturing a dining environment that promotes a sense of belonging, social engagement, reablement, and enjoyment. Aged care homes need to satisfy the needs and preferences of residents, to provide great dining experience and enhance mealtime enjoyment to encourage greater food intake.
Also, providing assistance to anyone who requires support to eat and drink safely can help maximise a resident’s oral intake, reduce weight loss and risk of malnutrition.
Dining experience and feeding assistance are part of The Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (1 November 2025). Providing physical assistance to support older people with eating and drinking is falls under Standard 6: Food and Nutrition - Outcome 6.4: Dining experience (Action 6.4.1).
Residents may require assistance during mealtimes for various reasons, including having dementia, arthritis, dysphagia or poor vision. Assistance at mealtimes can be a great way to assist residents with finishing meals, including supervision, cutting meals and full assistance and enhancing nutrition.
Nutritional education sessions for Residential Aged Care homes
Nutrition is everyone’s responsibility! Increase your staff’s knowledge and skills to improve residents’ overall quality of life, care and health. Feeding Assistance and Dining Experience are some of our 40+ education sessions designed to provide in-depth knowledge on Dietetics in Aged Care.
These educations sessions are designed for Nurses, care staff, food service staff, kitchen staff, care directors, and lifestyle staff.
Each session is no longer than 30 minutes.
Contact us for the full list of education session topics and pricing.
Our Team of Dietitians around Australia can present a session for your team in person or virtually. Find out more about OSCAR Care Groups’ Nutrition Education options or email us at dietitian@oscarcaregroup.com.au
IDDSI Inconsistencies
IDDSI inconsistencies have been flagged as the greatest concern out of the hundreds of MMQAs conducted in 2025. These included unsafe fruit and vegetable choices, tough, crispy or sticky foods, and food particle sizes that did not meet IDDSI texture requirements. These issues can increase the risk of choking and aspiration for residents on texture modified diets and highlight the need for ongoing support and guidance.
Given the number of inconsistencies observed, these findings can’t be explored in detail here. We’ll be sharing a dedicated article shortly that takes a closer look at MMQA findings related to texture modified diets and offers practical guidance for aged care homes.
Overall, the findings reinforce the importance of regular IDDSI training for all staff involved in food preparation, service and mealtime assistance, helping ensure residents on texture modified diets receive safe, appropriate and enjoyable meals.
Discover OSCAR Care Group's IDDSI Training.
Upcoming IDDSI sessions
Insights from 2025 MMQAs
By learning from our findings of the 2025 MMQAs, aged care homes can start 2026 with confidence, knowing where to focus possible improvements. With the right staff training, dietetic support, and practical menu planning, many common errors can be prevented, ensuring residents receive safe, nutritious, and enjoyable meals every day.
Reach out to OSCAR Care Group today to schedule your MMQA or access nutrition support and staff training — together, we can make every mealtime safer and more enjoyable for residents.
