Welcome to Caregiver Cooking!
Hello & welcome! I’m Amanda, and Caregiver Cooking is a project inspired by caregivers I’ve known and worked with, informed by my own experience & a whole lot of research. Caregivers, especially family caregivers, frequently find themselves with more tasks than time available[1] and preparing food is often a major source of stress for caregivers[2]. This is where Caregiver Cooking comes in: all the recipes you’ll find here are designed with caregivers in mind. In addition to recipes there are resources for food planning (read more here about why I prefer this term to “meal prepping” or “meal planning”), suggestions for techniques to be most effective in the kitchen, and a newsletter if you want to follow along. Recipes will include meals & snacks, are meant to be flexible, and take into account some of the unique challenges present in cooking as a caregiver.
Not sure if you’re a caregiver? Check out “Who is a caregiver?” and see if it describes you! Whether you are or aren’t a caregiver, I hope you find something useful here. A couple of my favorite things to highlight are the food planner and the importance of snacks.
Thanks for reading this far! If you’re curious about my credentials, I would be too. I’ve been cooking for over 30 years now — for myself, friends & family, and as a caregiver. I’ve studied nutrition and I have an M.S. in Gerontology, the study of aging. My field experience for my degree was a year-long project supporting family caregivers with Caregiver Connect and since finishing my degree I have also worked with caregivers one-on-one to find resources and support specific to their needs. I’m also a yoga teacher (RYT-200).
A couple things you might find unusual around here: there are citations all over if you want to learn more and the recipes include options that make preparation more flexible. I’m a real research nerd! If you want to learn more, follow along and check out what I’ve been reading. If you’re looking for recipes and not homework, don’t worry, there’s no assigned reading. All the recipes make sense without reading a single citation. I put options in recipes because everyone has a different time, money, and energy budget. Including options right in the recipe is meant to lighten cognitive load[3] when deciding if or how to make a particular recipe.
Caregiver Cooking the weekly newsletter is published directly to your email inbox. The free version includes one recipe, a couple techniques, ideas, or tips, and news focused on the intersection of aging and food. For $5 per month, that becomes a newsletter with three recipes per week, carefully matched to simplify shopping and preparation, along with tips and techniques for easier preparation that can be applied to other recipes as well. If you have specific needs and are interested in individual services, please email me to schedule a no-cost consultation.
Citations:
- Committee on Family Caregiving for Older Adults; Board on Health Care Services; Health and Medicine Division; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Schulz R, Eden J, editors. Families Caring for an Aging America. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2016 Nov 8. 3, Family Caregiving Roles and Impacts. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK396398/
- Locher, J.L., Robinson, C.O., Bailey, F.A., Carroll, W.R., Heimburger, D.C., Saif, M.W., Tajeu, G. and Ritchie, C.S. (2010), Disruptions in the organization of meal preparation and consumption among older cancer patients and their family caregivers. Psycho-Oncology, 19: 967-974. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.1656
- Sweller, J., van Merrienboer, J.J.G. & Paas, F.G.W.C. Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design. Educational Psychology Review 10, 251–296 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022193728205