August 16, 2020

Episode 1:6 Chef Abbie Gellman Talks About the Elements of a World-Class Culinary Program

26 minutes

Celebrity chef and nutritionist Abbie Gellman shares her experience in the science and art of providing a delicious and healthy culinary experience for senior living residents. The operative word is choice—discerning older adults demand individualized, restaurant quality food when the want it, where they want it. Also front of mind is food as the first line of defense in preventing disease.

About Abbie

Chef Abbie Gellman, MS RD CDN is a spokesperson, recipe and product developer, and educator. She creates, produces, and hosts cooking and nutrition videos and works with a wide variety of food companies/brands/commodity boards, foodservice operators, health professionals, and private clients. She also contributes to many publications; her first cookbook, The Mediterranean DASH Diet, was published November 2019.

She is the consulting “Better for You” R&D Chef/RD for the private company Happi Foodi and has created two lines of healthy frozen meals for them under the WalMart Better For You Great Value brand and the Happi Foodi brand; both can currently be found at WalMart. Abbie lives in NYC with her daughter, Olivia, and many shelves of cookbooks. Learn more about her at ChefAbbieGellman.com and connect with her via @ChefAbbieGellman on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Key Takeaways

More than 50 percent of the elderly Americans have sarcopenia—age-driven loss of muscle mass, function, strength that's driven by aging so you might making older adults are vulnerable falls and fractures and hospitalizations more and more as they get older and that is reflective of something along the lines of sarcopenia. and a culinary perspective, adequate protein throughout your day is the best way to combat sarcopenia rrom a nutrition perspective.

Nutrition must be as individualized as possible. There is no “one-size-fits-all.” The trick is to make food delicious and healthy while addressing the full range of needs of each individual.

Senior living facilities can hire Abbie to host “cook along with the chef” Zoom classes catered to certain disease states like diabetes. Abbie explains why certain things are good or might not be as good for them specifically. She then answers questions via chat.

The culinary program is the hugest opportunities out there because again Everybody Eats, right? We all want to enjoy eating. Older adults want to keep the pleasure of eating alive and not make it just something they do to stay alive.

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By Nancy Griffin