As a family caregiver, there is not enough time in the day to juggle your caregiving duties, job, family, and other personal matters. One of the duties that can take a significant portion of your day is making meals for your loved one!
With our meal planning tips for caregivers, you can plan and prepare simple, tasty, and nutritious food for your loved one, and manage your life while caregiving.
Understanding the Nutritional Needs of Seniors
The body becomes less efficient in digesting nutrients as you get older. To make the matter even worse, tasting, chewing, and swallowing can become harder. These two combined can easily prevent your loved one from getting the adequate nutrition they need to stay in shape.
Some vital micronutrients, like potassium, magnesium, fiber, proteins, omega-3 fats, and vitamins are essential. That’s why a balanced diet packed with these nutrients should be carefully planned so your loved one can fulfill the daily intake recommendation.
The Basics of Meal Planning Tips for Caregivers
Now that you understand your loved one’s nutritional needs, let’s start planning by following these meal-planning tips for caregivers.
Assess dietary preferences and restrictions
The first step of planning is to list every personal preference and restriction your loved one has for food. For example, if your loved one has a history of heart disease, you may want to cross ultra-processed foods, foods with added sugar, and animal fats off of your list while adopting a DASH diet.
Don’t forget to ask your loved one’s physician what food is okay and what isn’t before making any decisions based on a particular condition.
Create a balanced meal plan
Once you know what nutrients your loved one needs and what nutrients or ingredients should be avoided, you can start creating the meal plan. The essential nutrients we mentioned earlier should be included in every meal plan. Here’s one meal plan example:
- Fish: Fish like salmon or tuna are rich in omega-3, potassium, calcium, and vitamin D.
- Green leafy vegetable salad: High in magnesium and fiber
- A small amount of pasta: The enriched one is high in folic acid
- Fruits: Can substitute water for hydration and source of fiber, vegetables, and vitamins
- Dairy: Milk, yogurt, or cheese are high in calcium
Practical Meal Preparation Tips
1. Prepare meals in advance
If you’re like most family caregivers who need to juggle your duty, job, and everything else, we recommend you cook a large quantity of the foods you have planned by following our meal planning tips for caregivers and freeze those foods when you have a chance (on the weekend, for example). Don’t forget to label the food’s name and the date you cooked it.
2. Use different cooking techniques for nutritious meals
Next, meal planning tips for caregivers include using different cooking techniques. Try steaming and grilling, which are healthier techniques compared to frying. Steaming retains nutrients by avoiding high temperatures that can damage those nutrients. This technique only needs water, with no oils or butter necessary. Grilling also retains nutrients by having a shorter cooking time.
Add herbs and spices instead of salt to make the meal exciting and enjoyable. Popular spices like turmeric have an anti-inflammatory effect, while cinnamon lowers blood sugar levels. For your elderly loved one, especially those with Alzheimer’s, herbs like sage show promising effects in improving brain and memory function.
3. Simplify meal prep
You can also cook one-pot meals, like risotto, vegetarian lasagna, soups, and more, to save more time. The idea is to mix all the ingredients into one single dish using one pot to simplify both the cooking and cleaning. To make sure your loved one doesn’t get bored with the food selection, you can also try cooking sheet-pan dinners like baked salmon served with bread salad.
4. Create a weekly meal plan
The last is to create a weekly meal plan. Try to create variations so the plan doesn’t feel repetitive. For example, choose scrambled eggs for breakfast on Monday, steamed fish and vegetables for lunch, and soup for dinner. The week after, you can choose the same scrambled eggs, followed by avocado egg salad for lunch and risotto for dinner instead.
Easy Recipe Ideas
Breakfast Ideas
Before going through the day, ensure your loved one doesn’t skip the ‘most important meal of the day’ to fuel the body. However, we understand that some family caregivers must juggle their time between caregiving and working. So our ideas for breakfast consist of something simple that can include:
- Eggs sunny side up or boiled with soft bread on the side
- Oatmeal (warm porridge or chilled overnight) with berries or other fruits
- Smoothie bowl with chia seeds
- Yogurt with berries (or other fruits) and granola
Lunch Ideas:
- Potato puree or mashed potato with soft-cooked vegetables
- Steamed or grilled fish, like salmon or tuna
- Omelet filled with cheese, spinach, and feta, or sautéed mushroom and onions
- Avocado egg salad
- Leafy vegetable salad
- Cottage pie
Dinner Ideas
Some ideas for dinner include:
- Vegetable soup
- Porridge
- Scrambled tofu
- Soft-cooked chicken with vegetables
- Risotto
End Note
There you have it—our meal planning tips for caregivers! Once you understand the basics of planning, this activity will only take some of your free time.
An Answered Prayer Home Care will be here to answer your call when you need help in meal preparation or other personalized support. Don’t hesitate to contact our team today and learn how we can help you and your loved one.
