Getting Started
Malnutrition is the largest health issue when it comes to seniors, especially if they live alone. As a caregiver, or someone who is looking after their elders, you should prioritize establishing healthy eating habits, and set up a realistic routine catered to their needs as your primary focus. Healthy eating is fundamental, especially to seniors and our older adults who we are looking after.
At Daffodil Home Care, we advise our caregivers to be mindful of the many reasons why the senior in your hands for home care may be losing interest in their food. Meal prep is essentially a strategy for healthier for better eating habits. By learning how to utilize this skill as a caregiver, you have the potential to prolong the life of the senior in your care, and will ultimately benefit the person.
What’s important to know?
As we grow older, our metabolism and its many vital functions concerning your overall health & wellbeing begin to decrease. In result, many older adults naturally have the tendency to eat much less and much simpler/blander foods. In other cases, which are not uncommon, the senior in question may have an underlying health issue preventing them from having healthy eating habits. Examples of this can be mouth pain, digestive issues, loss of taste, smell or more, even the medication they are taking prevents them from having interest to eat, or it recommends not to eat for a prolonged period of time.
Nutrition & Preferences
First, you must note all the foods that the person likes/does not like. Be focused on the ingredients you are using in your food prep recipes, and the quantity of them. Some seniors may have high/low sodium levels, blood pressure, blood sugar, and many more needs. Most importantly, there is no reason to reinvent the way they eat, as the senior also has knowledge of the foods the enjoy, what times of day they eat, and so forth. Prioritize the healthiest options for them, their bodies need as many vitamins and nutrients as possible at their age. For example, packing meals with lots of fiber, proteins, will help them get all the beneficial ingredients they need.
Money & Duration
Consult with the senior first, to understand their needs. It is in their best interest to let you know how you can help them better. Plan your meals for the week, or a few days, depending on your situation. You never want the food to go bad, or be of a spending waste. Set your food budget and once you know everything that you would need to buy, meal prepping gets simpler from there. Allow for several hours per week for shopping, preparing, cooking, and storing.
Turn meal prepping into a bonding activity
For seniors and older adults, shopping, cooking, and prepping meals may be a much more difficult process than for their caregiver or companion. As a result, this is also part of the reason why seniors tend to eat less, as we discussed earlier.
What you can do, to make this process into an activity is to designate one day out of the week, each Saturday for example, as your “meal prep day”. You can either do this together, or some steps alone depending on the senior’s conditions.
Interesting fact: According to a recent survey, more than half of people stated that a lack of a companionship during their mealtimes (cooking for only one person) are some of the biggest challenges that face seniors who live alone.
With a designated day to spend and connect with your senior to prepare the meals for the week, this turns what used to be a difficult chore, into an enjoyable & connecting experience.
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