Four Ways to Help Your Senior to Avoid Food Allergens
May 19, 2021
May is Food Allergy Action Month, which might mean that your senior needs to look more closely at her food allergens and how they affect her. If she’s not sure whether she has food allergies but does experience some reactions after she eats, she may want to talk to her doctor about allergy testing.
Make Sure You Know All of Her Food Allergens
A food allergen occurs because a person’s immune system overreacts to proteins in specific foods. Those overreactions can be minor or they can be major, including anaphylactic shock in which the person is unable to breathe due to swollen airways. While food allergens are often associated with children, people of any age, including seniors, can develop food allergies. It’s important that you and your senior are aware of all of the foods that cause her to experience allergic reactions so that you can help her to avoid them.
Educate Anyone Who Prepares Meals for Your Senior
If people other than your senior shop for her or help her to prepare meals, it’s important that they’re aware of her food allergens, too. They’ll need to wash their hands before preparing food for her, especially if they’ve eaten or been around foods that are allergens for her. Hiring elderly care providers to help with meal preparation can be extremely helpful in avoiding allergens, because they understand how important it is to make sure that your senior eats healthy meals that aren’t allergic triggers for her.
Read Food Labels Carefully
It’s really important to read food labels carefully. Sometimes foods that you wouldn’t think would have some of the allergens that affect your senior do contain those ingredients. Also, particularly with allergens like tree nuts, foods that are prepared in the same building may contain trace amounts of tree nut in them. This can be disastrous for your senior if she’s highly allergic to that allergen.
Cook Whole Foods and Avoid Cross Contamination
One of the best ways to avoid allergens in foods for your senior is to cook whole foods from scratch. That gets time-consuming and may require more energy than you or your senior have. Again, elderly care providers can be a huge help with this. You can prepare a menu for your senior and get the help that you need to make sure she’s able to eat homecooked meals.
Paying close attention to food allergies and having a plan to avoid them may be more important for your senior now than it was in the past. Changes to her health and side effects from medications can make some of those allergies more pronounced than they used to be.
If you or your loved one is looking for Elderly Care in Belmont, CA, please call Familiar Surroundings Home Care.
Santa Clara County: (408) 979-9990
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