Nutritious meals for the elderly

There has never been a universal standard answer to a nutritious meal suitable for the elderly. The core principle is "individual adaptation first", which is more important than the popular perception of "light, soft and rotten, with less meat". It is to match the three core indicators of the elderly's chronic disease conditions, chewing and swallowing ability, and daily dietary preferences. Any standardized recipe that is divorced from individual conditions is essentially invalid.

To be honest, I have been working as a caterer in a community nursing home canteen for almost 5 years, and I have encountered too many family members who followed the "standard elderly recipes" online. Last week, an aunt came to us with a neatly printed "nutritional meal list for the week" and said that she had made it for her 78-year-old father for half a month. The old man had lost almost 3 pounds and refused to eat any more. I laughed when I took the recipe: oil-free steamed vegetables, all-grain rice, and only a little bit of salt. Who else would not be able to stand it after eating it for half a month. Later, we adjusted the plan and allowed the old man to eat half a piece of his favorite soybean curd with porridge in the morning, put a little less oil in the lunch dishes, and replaced the pure grains with one-third of the grains mixed with polished rice until soft, and added a hand-sized amount of steamed lean pork. After only half a month, the old man took the initiative to tell his family that "the food tastes much better recently."

At this point, someone may ask, is it wrong to say that "the elderly should eat a light diet" that has been passed down for many years? Actually no, it’s just that the scope of application of this statement has been enlarged. At present, the academic circles have two different directions for guidance on nutrition for the elderly. One is the traditional approach to chronic disease prevention and control, which believes that young people aged 60 to 75, especially those with underlying diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia, must strictly control their intake of oil, salt, refined sugar, and red meat to reduce the risk of acute attacks of chronic diseases. ； The other school of thought is the prevention and control of sarcopenia that has received more and more attention in the past five years. It is proposed that for the elderly over 75 years old without severe liver and kidney dysfunction, there is no need to strictly control the diet. Moderately increasing high-quality protein and even slightly relaxing the salt intake standards can reduce the risk of muscle attenuation and hyponatremia, which is much more meaningful than forcing them to eat bland boiled vegetables. These two views are not right or wrong in themselves, but they are applicable to completely different groups of people, so there is no need to compete.

I've been in a trap before. Two years ago, I was preparing meals for an old man with diabetes. I deliberately chose dragon fruit with a low glycemic index as a snack. I forgot that he had a weak spleen and stomach, and he would suffer from diarrhea when eating cold food. Later, he switched to steamed apples, which controlled sugar and would not irritate the gastrointestinal tract. This solved the problem. You see, even recognized healthy ingredients may have completely opposite effects on different elderly people. There is also a 90-year-old grandma who loves to drink iced yogurt just taken out of the refrigerator. Her children always say that it is too cold and hurts the stomach, so they will not let her drink it. Later, we asked her attending doctor, who said that she has never had any gastrointestinal problems in her whole life by drinking cold yogurt, so there is no need to restrict it. Now she drinks a small box of iced yogurt every afternoon. She is very happy and has no health problems.

Many people have a misunderstanding about nutritional meals for the elderly, thinking that they must be "so soft that they don't need to be chewed". In fact, this is not the case. Elderly people with good teeth and no swallowing disorders can eat stir-fried vegetables cut into smaller pieces and rice stewed softer as normal. There is no need to puree the rice, which will affect the enjoyment of eating. There was an uncle Li who lost all his teeth. At first, the liquid diet we gave him was all grain porridge. After drinking it for two months, he lost 3 pounds. Later, we added broken pangasius puree, steamed pumpkin puree, and a little sesame oil to enhance the flavor. When he drank it for the first time, the usually talkative old man held up the empty bowl and asked, "Is there any more?" ”, which made the children next to him blush.

If you really want to be practical, you don’t have to worry about how many grams of protein or how many grams of dietary fiber you eat every day. There are two simple judgment criteria: one is to look at the grip strength. If an elderly person usually has difficulty holding a thermos bottle or carrying two kilograms of vegetables, it is most likely that the high-quality protein supplement is insufficient. Adding more eggs, fish, shrimp, and lean poultry will be more effective than any supplement.； The other is to look at your weight. If you don't deliberately lose weight and lose more than 2 pounds in a month, you have to adjust your diet quickly. Don't wait for something to go wrong before looking for supplements. For the elderly with underlying diseases, it is more useful to ask the attending doctor about dietary restrictions before preparing meals than to search for ten health advices on the Internet.

Having been doing catering for the elderly for so long, my biggest feeling is that nutritious meals for the elderly have never put "health" shackles on the elderly. It is not about replacing all the delicious food with bland "healthy food", but it is about finding a balance between health and happiness that is most suitable for them. After all, for the elderly, eating well and satisfying is the best way to maintain good health.