Eating well with dementia

The Food Chain

BBC

Arts, Society & Culture, Food

4.7 • 545 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dementia is a syndrome associated with a decline of brain function that can affect memory, thought processes and behaviour. In some cases this can impact people’s ability to shop, cook and eat a meal. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s Disease.

In this programme Ruth Alexander meets people living with dementia and their families, to hear about the ways in which a diagnosis can impact mealtimes.

Ruth meets Alan and Amy Lambert in Manchester, England. Alan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2024 and his daughter Amy lives with him. They share some of the techniques they’ve developed at home to support Alan.

For Ruby Qureshi in Canada, cooking was a huge part of her life before being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2020. Ruth hears how her husband Pasha Qureshi has joined her in the kitchen in a supporting role.

Jo Bonser in Nottingham, UK shares her experiences of supporting her mother who lived with vascular dementia and in 2016 stopped eating and drinking. Jo has gone on to set up a company, Dignified Dining that offers training in this area.

And Aideen McGuinness is a registered dietitian working in the Memory Assessment and Support Service in Country Wexford Ireland, and co-author of a guide on dementia and nutrition.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Produced by Beatrice Pickup.

(Image: Alan and Amy Lambert sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of soup and plate of toast. Credit: BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game,
0:05.9	a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible
0:10.7	story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money
0:15.1	is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use.
0:20.5	We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going
0:25.3	to have to fix. The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:43.2	So I'm making my dad a roasted vegetable soup.
0:45.0	Mainly tomatoes.
0:47.4	It's whatever's in the fridge, to be honest.
0:50.9	There is a shelf in the fridge labelled for him.
0:56.5	That doesn't always work, and there's nothing more soul-destroying soul destroying than like preparing food for him the day before and then coming home and seeing it like untouched left on the food shelf.
1:03.6	Does he forget to eat? He doesn't forget to eat. He's always had a really healthy appetite
1:07.6	but I think yeah it's more that he kind of doesn't make the connection
1:12.7	of, like, oh, that's my food, I can eat that. This is the food chain from the BBC World Service
1:20.8	with me, Ruth Alexander, and I've been invited into the kitchen of Amy and Alan in Manchester, England.
1:27.0	Amy cares for Alan, her dad, who's living with Alzheimer's disease,
1:30.6	a form of dementia that affects memory, thought processes and behaviour.
1:35.1	There are more than 100 forms of dementia.
1:37.9	And in this program, we're going to be exploring how they can affect meal times.
1:42.6	We'll hear about the challenges, the workarounds and the
1:45.9	breakthroughs. I suppose food has always been really important to us as a family and it'll be the
1:53.6	time that we would sit together and eat. So yeah, if I'm not here during the day or if I'm like
	...

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