The Importance of Meal Prep for Your Loved Ones
Tasks like grocery shopping, preparing meals, and kitchen clean-up can be difficult for elderly adults. Helping seniors with these tasks through professional meal planning or meal prep can promote long-term healthy eating habits. If you’re considering hiring home care meal preparation for your loved one, refer to the guide below for more details.
Signs Your Loved One Needs Meal Prep Services
Planning and preparing nutritious meals may grow difficult for our loved ones as they age, leading to health complications like weakness, muscle wasting, and an impaired immune system. Seniors may choose to snack or even skip meals altogether. Poor dietary habits may be a result of a variety of factors such as mobility or cognitive decline, or medications or health problems like cancer that impact appetite. Other root causes can include mouth pain, loss of taste or smell, or loss of interest in cooking due to living alone.
When you spend time with your loved one, observe their eating habits. Common signs of neglect can include:
- Skipping meals
- Light snacking over meals
- Unused, dusty cooking ware or appliances
- Frequently microwaving meals
- Expired food in the fridge or pantry
- Noticeable weight loss
If you notice any of these signs, consider hiring a company to do meal service for loved ones. An in home meal service company assures seniors receive the custom nutrition and care they need to live a healthy lifestyle.
How Meal Preparation Services Help Seniors
Dietary Restrictive Meal Prep
Regardless of underlying causes, ensuring proper nutrition is essential to leading a healthy, positive lifestyle. Companies that do in-home meal prep can keep dietary restrictions in mind, considering factors such as allergies or chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. Meal plans such as diabetic meal prep guarantee your senior’s health remains on track. Professionals keep serving sizes in mind, adjusting them to client preferences and needs while cutting down on food waste.
Mitigate Cooking Risks
Grocery shopping and meal preparation can also lead to accidents and illness for seniors with mobility or cognitive issues. Spilled liquids or broken plateware increase fall risk, while cooking has potential fire risks. In fact, cooking is the leading cause of fire injuries to people over the age of 65. Older adults are also more susceptible to food borne illnesses due to bodily changes as well as cooking instruction errors.
Professional home care meal prep removes these risk factors so that your senior loved one has delicious, nutritional meals stored and ready to eat. This uplifts both seniors and their caregivers in terms of daily responsibilities.
Socialization
Many seniors who live alone may not feel the desire or need to cook, which can result in unhealthy habits. Companionship with a professional in-home caregiver can turn cooking and/or dining into a more enjoyable experience. Professionals can provide caregiver meal prep so families can eat together, or prepare meals with or for seniors without their primary caregiver present.
TruCare Homecare is a women-owned and family-operated business centred on providing compassionate and exemplary senior care in the greater Philadelphia area. Our facility offers adult day care services in addition to home care services such as meal preparation, grooming, mobility assistance, and transportation. Caregivers are dedicated to creating meaningful bonds with clients and their families, offering tailored care plans that best benefit individual needs. Recognized as the Best of Home Care Provider and Best of Home Care Employee of 2019 and 2020, our reputation speaks for itself. For more information about our services, call our office at 610-878-2273.
