Cooking for Seniors: 5 Golden Tips

Taste plays an important role in our enjoyment of eating. Our taste buds can detect the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami – and the ability to recognise these different tastes decreases with age.

Taste and smell work together, as taste is often enhanced by the aromas of food. As our sense of smell decreases with age, it can also impact our sense of taste.

When seniors experience a decrease in the sense of taste, they can also lose interest in food. This can result in a loss of appetite leading to weight loss, poor nutrition and weakened immunity. A diminished sense of taste also makes eating less pleasurable. 

By paying attention to all five senses when preparing food, we can minimise the impact of sensory disorders and improve the quality of life for our seniors. 

Here are some ways that home cooks can preserve texture and enhance flavours, while packing more nutrition into meals:

• Use high-contrast colours to help seniors see better, which allows them to see all of the food on their plate. For instance, you can consider using wolfberries while cooking to add colour to your food. Use of bright and vibrant vegetables like carrots and pumpkin also helps to improve the appearance of a dish. 
• Incorporate spices such as cinnamon, cloves, fennel, peppercorn, and star anise into your dishes. This can be prepared in advance and used during cooking. This will impart more layers of flavour to the food.
• Use a liberal serving of garlic and shallots when stir-frying as they impart flavour and fragrance to the food.
• Choose specific colour-coded or patterned crockery to help ensure consistency of portions.
• Serve food at an appropriate temperature as serving food at the wrong temperature results in a loss of taste.
• Beyond the food itself, the environment also plays a part. You can also create an open kitchen area so that seniors can smell the food that is being prepared, helping to stimulate their appetite.

So, let us get cooking in the kitchen! The social connections mealtime creates are almost as important as the pleasure of the meal – do enjoy the quality time together with your loved ones. 

 

Learn more: Sodexo's Institute for Quality of Life partnered with the University of Ottawa’s Life Research Institute to deepen our understanding of seniors’ sensory impairments