Niamh Condon set up Dining with Dignity in 2019 to provide catering & consultancy training in the healthcare sector. Since commencing employment in 2014 in an aged care facility in West Cork, she has grown and developed recipes and methods to suit dysphagia diets.
With over 20 years in the catering industry, starting in her uncle’s delicatessen/butcher shop, at just 12 years old. It was an introduction to a world of food that had her hooked. Here she learned how to break up lamb carcasses for display in the butcher counter and was mentored by her uncle who is a member of the Panel of Chefs of Ireland. She listened and learned, practicing cooking various cuts of meat that her uncle had shown her. At this point she understood that food was the centre of every celebration in life!
Being around food at a young age encouraged her love for food to blossom and she worked in hotels, restaurants, bars, and ran her own catering company, eventually taking on a new challenge in 2014 in an Aged Care Facility. Here her brief was simple; Cook good wholesome nutritious food and present it well!
Niamh faced challenges morally about the standard way in which pureed food was cooked and presented. It encouraged her to explore and innovate ways to give people pleasure from food again regardless of the swallowing difficulties called Dysphagia.
From here the passion for all things pureed had taken off and Niamh has been one of the 1st people to develop a recipe for a fully pureed pavlova within IDDSI guidelines.
Niamh has done consultancy work with HSE and private nursing homes, holding practical workshops. She has given talks to Marymount Hospice in Cork and Nutricia Ireland at their Symposium, on how to improve the dining experience for residents and patients, especially those on a texture modified diet.
‘Dining with Dignity’ has taken it’s name from witnessing the dining experience and seeing the need for change!
Niamh has also given lectures to Marymount Hospice and Nutricia Ireland on how to improve the dining experience for all their residents especially those on texture modified diets. Niamh also has QQI level 6 HACCP and has focused this within her Dysphagia Cooking liaising with EHO’s.
Internationally, Niamh has created good relationships with a company in Australia, ‘Flavour Creations’ that supply her with Food Molds and great advice. Bernadette Erikson CEO has built a good rapport with her since they first got in contact in 2015.
Niamh has contributed to newspaper articles and has gained a lot of attention within the health care nutrition circle.