Healthy Living - Preparing Food for Seniors

Durango TV News brings you Healthy Living in the Four Corners featuring local experts on wellness, nutrition, and lifestyle to keep you healthy and fit to enjoy all the region has to offer. Brought to you by Evening's Porch Assisted Living, a place you can call home. You're watching Healthy Living in the Four Corners. I'm Deborah Uroda. The Alliance for Aging Research estimates that one in two older adults is at risk for malnutrition. As we grow older, our dietary needs may change, our sense of taste and smell may weaken, and our digestive systems aren't as capable of absorbing nutrients as it once was. That can lead to weakness, loss of physical and mental function, and institutionalization. If you want to keep your elderly loved one healthier, longer, a tasty, balanced diet is essential. But how do you entice your loved one to the dinner table if they really don't want to eat? We visited chef Courtney Schlapfer at Evening's Porch Assisted Living in Bayfield to find out how she prepares meals to keep her residents happy and healthy. We think here that their foods can be healthy and nutritious without compromising what their cravings are and what their needs are and what's been nostalgic for them in their lifetime. And we do that by just sourcing really good, whole, organic ingredients, local. We are as farm-to-table as we can be here, sourcing seasonally local vegetables and fruits and putting them up for the winter as much as we can. Organic dairy, all of our proteins are organic, no growth hormones, no steroids. We sneak vegetables all the time into their diet. For example, instead of mashed potatoes, we'll do mashed cauliflower. We plan the menu each week for the next week, and we use a lot of resident input, actually. For example, Darwin writes the menu for Thursdays and helps me prepare on Thursdays and Fridays. It keeps them excited, and they always love complimenting one of their buddies here for what they've created, so it's neat to watch that. Everything we do is to try and promote health and healing and vitality and control inflammation and keep them happy and comfortable, like they're satiated and getting what they are used to getting. As a trained professional chef who cooks for private clients as well as evening porch residents, Schlapper says a few other tricks will make mealtime more inviting. Make nostalgic favorites, especially those meals that your loved one recalls fondly. Involve your loved one when planning meals and preparing menus. Provide colorful, attractive foods, and join your loved one for meals. For most of us, dinnertime is social time, and your loved ones will be more likely to eat their dinners if they have company. For more tips and ideas, you can contact Schlapper at eveningsporch.com. I'm Debra Uroda for Healthy Living in the Four Corners. This edition of Healthy Living in the Four Corners has been brought to you by Evenings Porch Assisted Living, a place you can call home.