Regardless of age, proper nutrition and diet are essential to a long and happy life. This holds doubly true for senior citizens who are more susceptible to a number of different ailments and illnesses. Unfortunately, with age comes a number of roadblocks that make an idealized diet rather difficult to achieve.
In an earlier post, we mentioned a few tips on how to easily incorporate the necessary nutrition into your senior’s diet. Here we plan on imparting a few habits you can set today that will make the transition to a proper meal plan more streamlined and less time consuming!
Always Be Stocking
The key to proper nutrition is having access to healthy foods. Not only does this make cooking healthier meals more accessible, it removes temptation in the form of unhealthy junk food and cuts down on unnecessary snacking!
Keeping in mind the essential vitamins and nutrition your senior requires, stock up your refrigerator and pantry with health conscious items such as yogurt, fresh vegetables, whole grains, and more. Whether you cook for your senior or they cook for themselves, always staying stocked will cut down on the time needed to prepare a healthy, and above all, delicious meal.
Prep Your Ingredients
One of the more time consuming facets of making your own meals is the work that goes into preparing ingredients for cooking. The act can be exhausting , especially for seniors who struggle with joint and muscle pains, and can extinguish any inspiration to cook outright!
If you know your senior likes to cook for themselves, seeking out prepared ingredients that have already been chopped, washed, or cooked can cut both time and possibilities of injury! Prepping multiple servings in one day can also make healthy eating a possibility for busier days in the future!
Cook According to Your Senior’s Conditions
Like we mentioned earlier, growing older can come with a variety of health issues like arthritis or gum disease that make healthy eating more of a hassle than it’s worth. With that in mind, planning meals and ingredients around your senior’s unique circumstances can go a long way towards making a lasting shift in diet.
Incorporate baked or mashed potatoes and other easily chewed foods like pasta, and fish that promise both flavor and high nutritional value. If maintaining weight is something your senior struggles with, adding high calorie but healthy food like peanut butter and avocado can help in that regard. There are a number of ways you can tailor your senior’s nutrition to their condition. What matters most is maintaining open communication and refining your meal plan until both of you are satisfied.
Conclusion
Nutrition will always be essential in maintaining our health as we age. Whether you cook for yourself or plan on cooking for your senior, incorporating these three habits into your meal prep plan can make proper nutrition an attainable goal!