Every Australian aged care home needs this, a taste testing committee

A Qld aged care home has got a new way of keeping its standards and it involves a panel of aged care residents to help.

Opinion: It’s not quite MasterChef, but having a panel of aged care residents critiquing the food before it can be allowed on the menu sounds like the perfect solution to raising standards.

This is what is happening at one aged care home which has set up a taste testing committee.

What a great idea? In fact, I think it should be compulsory in every aged care home because I have been sent pictures of food being served in some facilities and it’s not pretty.

If they ever dared set up something similar in those places it would go something like this; ‘This tastes like a cheap party pie’ (that’s because it is) or, ‘The presentation isn’t great?’, in the case of a plate of unidentifiable slop.

On average aged care homes spend $14 per resident per day on food, with latest figures showing some fork out as little as $6 a day.

In the latest residential survey, one in five residents said they never liked the food in NSW’s worst rated home. That’s not acceptable.

Another resident at a different home told me he spends $100 a week on Uber Eats because most of the food served is either processed or tinned.

“Vegetables have been usually boiled to the max and are tasteless and bland,” he said. “Any form of fruit salad is from a tin, never any kind of quality fresh fruit.”

However, in Palm Lake Care, Caloundra, Queensland, which has set up this taste testing committee, things are a lot more jolly.

Apparently, the sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce got the thumbs up and the mild prawn curry is a favourite.

Chef Amit Jyoti is known to cheer up residents by bringing them a fresh sandwich full of smoked salmon, capers, cream cheese and red onion and the braised beef shin can’t be missed. Bravo to the chef. We need more like him.

Let’s not forget the residents are often paying a lot of money to be in these aged care homes, with daily fees at the most expensive adding up to more than $100,000 a year.

The least they can do is allow them to choose food they like to eat.

Originally published as Every Australian aged care home needs this, a taste testing committee