Adding something hot and spicy to a senior’s diet increases the smell and flavor of foods, while lessening the dependence on too much sodium and sugar. As you age, your metabolism changes, and without keeping a close eye on food intake, you may end up undernourished and jeopardize your health. The addition of spicy foods keeps your interest in foods as well as insures that you're watching your health.
Spices
Spices have strong flavor compounds that make up about 15 percent of the spice's molecule. That's why they have such an aromatic and taste intensity when added to foods. Herbs work in a similar fashion but their flavor compounds are slightly less intense. Together the herbs and spices combine to create spicy and palatable foods for persons of all ages. A spicy diet for seniors has some very positive health ramifications and is a good way to entice waning appetites that occur as people grow older. For example, prepare blackened salmon that combines hot Cajun spices with proteins, or hot peppers mixed into a pasta dish.
Senior Diets
According to the Institute for the Biomedicine of Aging at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, seniors benefit greatly from adding extra spice to their diets. As you age, the taste buds on our tongue decrease in number from around 4,000 to 6,000 to 2,000 to 3,000. This decrease will affect how you taste foods. At times, this accounts for an increase in salt and sugar intake to try and make tasteless food palatable. Additionally, as you age you may need to take more medications which may also diminish the taste of your food. Using an array of spicy foods can wake up your senses and encourage you to eat more and healthier foods.
Is There a Need for a Special Senior Diet?
Unless there are underlying medical reasons, such as acid reflux, cancer, diabetes, allergies and food sensitivities or medical contraindications, seniors benefit from eating much the same foods as the younger people. However, due to diminished taste, it's important that the smell and spice levels of foods are enticing to coax seniors into enjoying their food. Seniors tend to over-salt or over-sweeten foods to achieve tastes that are similar to those they remember, so the substitution of spices or already heavily-spiced foods will curtail adding salt and sugar to heighten the taste.
Adding Spice to Life
Substituting hearty spices into a senior’s diet, along with more fiber and calcium, have health benefits beyond added taste. Adding spices to proteins can enhance the flavors, so even if you are eating less food, it can still have a pleasing mouth feel without added deleterious items like salt or sugar. Trading the salt instead for dashes of cayenne pepper, garlic, onion, salsas, and antioxidants, can help you achieve a healthier immune system while keeping your blood pressure under control. Spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and even mixes such as pumpkin pie spice, can add flavor and substance to a dessert while cutting back on the sugar. Although there's no specific diet, replacing salt and sugar with an array of spices will keep a senior interested in foods and help them maintain good blood pressure, an increased immune system and interest in their own well-being.
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