How to Get Your Elderly Loved One to Eat Healthier

If you can get your elderly loved one to eat healthier, that can help them in so many ways. Research shows that eating nutritiously can help to fight off many diseases including heart disease and inflammatory conditions. If you would like to help your elderly loved one live a healthier lifestyle, getting them to eat healthier every day is a great start.

Home Health Care in Hampton Bays NY: Senior Healthy Eating

Socialize While Eating

Many elderly adults don’t eat well because they feel alone. This may be due to their spouse passing away recently or just because they don’t feel like making food for just one person. However, you can help them to eat healthier by making mealtimes more sociable. You or their elder care providers can eat with them and talk during the meals. This can give your elderly loved one something to look forward to during meals.

Freeze Vegetables and Fruits

Your elderly loved one may not be buying vegetables and fruits enough. One reason that many elderly adults won’t buy fresh vegetables and fruits is that they don’t want to waste their money. If it is just your loved one eating, the food generally goes to waste before they can eat it all. However, you can help your elderly loved one to freeze vegetables and fruits, so they don’t go to waste. This way they can eat these foods on a more regular basis.

Utilize the Leafy Greens

There are certain foods that don’t really taste that great after being frozen. This mainly includes leafy greens. Foods such as spinach and kale should be eaten fresh. If your elderly loved one enjoys eating these foods but doesn’t want them to go to waste, help them figure out ways to incorporate these more into their diet. They can have them in smoothies, eggs, sandwiches, salads, soup, and more.

Meal Preparation

Another way to get your elderly loved one to eat healthier is to work with them on meal preparation. Maybe you or their elder care provider could go over to your loved one’s home every Sunday and prep meals for the week. If healthy meals are already prepped ahead of time, your elderly loved one won’t have to worry about making them last minute. They will be much more likely to eat healthy if the meals are already made and ready to eat.

Slow-Cooker Meals

There are many different slow cooker meals that you or your loved one can make that are extremely healthy. You can do a simple search online to find these meals or buy your elderly loved one a nutrition-based slow cooker cookbook. This way the meals can be put into the slow cooker early in the day and be taken out whenever your elderly loved one is ready to eat.

These are some of the tips on how you can get your elderly loved one to eat healthier. Use these tips starting today.

If you or an aging loved one is considering hiring Home Health Care in Hampton Bays, NY, call the caring staff at Artful Home Care today at 631-685-5001.

Sources

https://www.niddk.nih.gov

https://www.choosemyplate.gov