Healthy finger food makes a difference in senior dining

When a person has trouble chewing or swallowing and is also living with dementia, mealtimes can be tough: that person may wander off after a few bites. And they may not be getting the nutrition they need either, with options often resembling a kids’ menu. 

“Finger foods given to seniors are often the foods you’d give to a toddler—chicken fingers, grilled cheese sandwiches—it’s not nutritious and there’s no variety,” says Sarah Gorham, chef and founder of Grind Dining, a consultancy that works with 80 senior living communities in 23 states on helping seniors with cognitive and neurological problems dine with more dignity. 

The key has been finding a way to pack a lot of nutrition into a single bite, and creating finger foods that are on par with what the rest of the residents may be eating on any given day.

The methods developed by Grind Dining can work with any regional menu, and senior-dining operations can brand the finger foods to fit their own marketing any way they’d like. Depending on where the senior dining is taking place, you may find barbecue brisket with beans and potatoes, chicken fajitas or beef Wellington (with all the components ground up and in one bite, packaged as a wrap, crepe or cupcake).

“We take the cooked protein, grind it and form it into bite-sized portions you can pick up with your fingers,” Gorham says. “Cooked and ground proteins are more digestible. And each bite is more nutritional, like pork, sweet potato and green beans together. A lot of times I’ve seen seniors only eat the sweet potato and not the rest of that plate. Think of it as a protein-packed hors d’oeuvre.”

Related:7 great ideas for senior dining finger food

One of Grind Dining’s clients, the Arbor Co., an Atlanta-based senior dining management company that serves 32 senior communities, has been using the one-bite methodology to create great looking, appealing food that seniors can eat by hand.

Starches are often used to bind everything together into a bite, like pasta wedges with meatballs.

“Wraps are one of the basic techniques,” Gorham says. “And once the chef or dining director gets the basics, they can start being creative with crepes or different types of pastry dough or even a vegetable wrap. Chefs can put their signature on it…it’s like any other technique. Once you get it, you can vary it.”

The variety of entrées that can be made into finger food is limited only by the chef’s imagination. Ideas include chef salad in a bite, veggie-filled crepes, mahi mahi bites and more. Check out the gallery to see more ideas.

Since it’s the whole dining experience that can make a difference in helping seniors get the nutrition they need, Grind Dining also has recommendations for the overall process, like offering warm towels at the beginning of a meal.

“With the passing of warm, scented hand towels, we’re trying to engage the resident, to bring them to the here and now,” Gorham says. “Residents with dementia can become agitated, pensive and they may wander. The warmth of the towel has a calming, therapeutic effect. We can pass a warm towel to a resident who is very uptight and agitated, and see her put it up to her face and let go of the cares of the world. That helps her enjoy the food.”

Another idea Gorham has uncovered through research is sorbet before a meal. Rather than a palate cleanser, as sorbet is traditionally seen, “skilled nursing research has found that residents who ate a citrus sorbet ate more,” she says. It turns out that a citrus sorbet activates salivary glands, acting as a cue for the body to eat more 

“We’ve developed these kinds of pieces to really provide a dining solution for individuals that have difficulty eating, whether it be Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, ALS or MS,” Gorham says. “Everyone deserves to eat the same great food as everybody else, regardless of their ability.”