Foods that may help alleviate some of the symptoms associated with Dementia!!

By Hugh McGivern

About 3 years ago whilst working as Executive Chef for Caterplus I was tasked with coming up with better ideas to feed people with Dementia.

With some deep research and a few sleepless nights I had grouped the symptoms into Red, Amber and Green in order of importance, the next job was to find foods that have been used for the last millenium that may ease some of the symptoms, I also looked at other countries and researched what they did, the further East I went the numbers declined. Japan having the lowest, but I can't start feeding older people Sushi and Teriyaki.
As a chef the next bit for me was the easiest; formulating new and nutritious recipes, concentrating on 4 of what I consider to be the most worrying symptoms.
1. Sleep.
2. Anxiety.
3. Weight Loss.
4. Weight Gain.
This year with the backing of Kings College I am about to conduct new trials with new recipes, these will run for 6 months and the results collated at the end of the year. Next year I will roll out new training for chefs of all levels to train and educate how to get the most from their ingredients. The end product being restaurant quality meals served in a Care Home environment, we all eat with our eyes and people suffering from dementia are no different, just by improving food, improves their quality of life. At Hotelympia this year I was lucky enough to be invited by the Craft Guild of Chefs to demonstrate a couple of dishes that I already serve, at the previous Hotelympia in 2010 I demonstrated at the Cost Sector stand and done 10 dishes in an hour.
Having spent 28 years cooking at different levels in differing environments all over the world it has given me the skills to develop these new ideas.
With an annual bill of £20billion this is a growing concern. Colleges and Hospitality Courses should encourage the next generation to learn more about the science of food. There has never been a better time to use the old adage "Food for Thought".
Food and Cooking is fun, instilling some basic rules to follow regarding the retention of nutrition during training will last a lifetime to be passed on by future generations.
For some of my recipes they can be found at HMTConsulting.wordpress.com  and HMTConsulting on Facebook .
(The Caviar was kindly donated by French Fine Caviar)