Did you know that about 40% of U.S. households with very low food security include an adult with a disability? Food insecurity may contribute to poorer health outcomes in people with disabilities, who already experience significant health disparities.
Teaching basic cooking skills to people with intellectual disabilities may be one avenue to address this issue. I started the Accessible Chef website more than ten years ago to help people with intellectual disabilities learn how to cook. The site now includes more than 350 visual recipes, which use an evidence-based approach called task analysis to break complex recipes into discrete and manageable steps.
This nectarine and grain salad, originally developed by Australian grocery chain Woolworths, is vegetarian, healthy, and easy to make. I adapted it as a visual recipe, which lays out the exact ingredients, tools, and actions that are needed to make it. You can view part of the visual recipe below or the whole thing at the Accessible Chef.
I hope the resources on my site foster a greater sense of independence, self-determination, and self-advocacy in people with intellectual disabilities.
Accessible Chef Links
Additional Reading
- Chefs and Accessibility via The Los Angeles Times
- Food Insecurity in the Disability Community: Disparities in SNAP Access via Health Affairs, authored by Bonnielin Swenor, MPH, Ph.D, Director of Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center
- Disability is an Important Risk Factor for Food Insecurity via USDA