How to Create a Healthy Meal Plan for the Elderly

My Pyramid.Gov

Creating a healthy meal plan for the elderly is not so different than meal planning for any family. If your senior is not on a special diet such as a diabetic diet or mechanical soft or something else the guidelines are pretty similar. Learn how to create a healthy meal plan for the elderly!

Things You'll Need

• Food guide chart
• Notebook
• Pen
• Desire to learn

Instructions

1. 

   Creating a healthy meal plan for the ELDERLY is not difficult. The first thing you need to do is study the food guide pyramid to gain an understanding of the basic food groups. You will notice that the base of the pyramid offers the most food choices. These foods are bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. You need 6-11 servings every day of these foods.

   Moving up the Pyramid you will find the vegetable group and the fruit group. You need 3-5 servings of vegetables daily, and 2-4 servings of fruit every day.

   Now, move up the pyramid again and you will find the Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese Group of equal importance to the meat, fish and poultry dry beans, eggs, and nuts group. You will need to include 2-3 servings from each group. Cheese is commonly considered a protein and is interchangeably with your meat, fish, poultry, dry beans and nut group.
   At the top of the pyramid you will find fats, oils, and sweets. These are foods you will want to keep to a minimum in your meal plan.

   Now you have a basic description of the necessary food groups to begin planning.

2. 

   Step two is equally important. You must learn PORTION CONTROL. What is a portion? Using a portion control plate can be helpful in learning how to serve smaller portions but it is not necessary. Take your plate and draw an imaginary line down the center and across the middle dividing your plate into four sections. Your portion should be no larger than each portion and should include foods from each food group.

   Here is a handy list of regular serving sizes for one serving:
   Meat, fish, or poultry: 3 0z or the size of a deck of cards
   Vegetables: 1/2 cup
   Dry beans and peas: 1/2 cup
   Fruit: Raw small apple, orange. If large eat half orange, apple, etc.
   large piece of fruit equals 2 aervings
   Fruit: Canned 1/2 cup
   Bread, tortillas, dinner roll, etc.: slice bread/1 tortilla/small roll
   Pasta: 1/2 cup can be counted like a slice of bread. Calories are similar

3. 

   Don't be discouraged when you find out about portion sizes. We are accustomed to seeing large servings that are much more than we need to eat. Muffins in the past were half the size that we purchase today. It can be quite a shock to discover how small portion sizes are supposed to be. As you can see from my pictures there are many food pyramids and some are a little bit different. I recommand the USDA FOOD GUIDE PYRAMID at My Pyramid.Gov.

4. 

   Meal planning for the ELDERLY is no different than planning for other family members. The only difficulty you might find is that the elderly tend to lose their appetite and you have to tempt them to eat with something they really like. If you are not successful you may need to have them drink nutrition supplements such as Ensure® or Boost®

Resources

• Healthcare Lady
• How to Lose Weight by Changing Your Habits
• How to Make Quick And Healthy Chicken Entrees
• Ensure Supplement on Amazon