Many older people lack interest in cooking. Some turn to microwaveable frozen meals, while others rely on takeout or even replace a meal by snacking on cheese and crackers. Some people view cooking as too much trouble for one person. The good news is there are ways to boost the nutritional value of what you eat without a lot of work. Let’s take a look.
Meal Ideas for Graceful Aging
Breakfast
If you’re a cereal person and find scrambling eggs and cooking bacon or sausage too much work, you can add fresh, or even frozen, berries to your cereal or swap out your cereal for low-sugar yogurt, topped with berries and nuts.
Boiling eggs is easy, and if you boil several at the same time, you have them ready-to-eat for the week. Add sliced tomato and avocado drizzled with olive oil.
Scrambled eggs can be enhanced with vegetables like peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Prepare a large batch of scrambled eggs with vegetables, so they’ll last for a few days. Almost all vegetables will work, but some of the most nutritious are spinach, asparagus, and tomatoes. To make it even easier and tastier, just add pico de gallo to the scramble.
Lunch
Lunch is a meal that can easily get overlooked and is often skipped. Soup and salad are fast and easy. Pre-packaged salad greens can be dressed with olive oil and vinegar. Boost the nutritional value by adding avocado, tomatoes, and pine nuts. Make it a complete meal by adding chicken strips, shrimp, or any leftover meat or seafood.
Soup is one of the most nourishing meals but can be difficult and time consuming to prepare from scratch. There are some canned soups that are healthy. Campbell’s Well Yes soups are packed full of vegetables and whole grains, and no artificial ingredients. Choose from protein packed soups to vegan soups. There are also lightly salted soups. Amy’s low sodium Lentil Vegetable Soup and Hearty Italian Vegetable are other good choices.
If you must skip lunch, or prefer to snack, here are some healthy options:
- Hummus dip with carrots, celery, or jicama sticks
- Nut or seed butter with celery
- White bean dip with cucumber slices. Here’s an easy-to-prepare recipe.
Dinner
Crockpot recipes make dinner easy and nutritious. Plus, you have leftovers for days. I recommend freezing leftovers in individual servings. This recipe can be varied with any choice of meat. The vegetables need to be hearty root vegetables like rutabaga, parsnips, yams, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, turnips, onions, and carrots. For more delicate vegetables, like mushrooms and leafy greens, you can add those to the pot in the last hour of cooking to kick up the nutritional value.
All you need is:
- 1 tbsp. of olive oil
- 1 tsp. of paprika
- ½ tsp each of thyme, basil, salt, garlic powder, and pepper
- 1 whole chicken or meat of choice
Layer the bottom of the crockpot with large chunks of any
hearty root vegetable. Have fun, and use more than just one. Onion goes well
with everything.
Mix together the olive oil and seasonings, and coat the whole chicken (or other meat of choice) and place on top of vegetables, breast side up. No liquid required. Turn on the crock pot on low for 7 ½ hours and let it go. Easy, delicious, and healthy! And remember to add leafy greens in the last hour for an extra nutritional boost.
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