How Food Connects Us With Memories

Senior citizens often associate food-related memories with their childhoods. These memories can have a significant effect on their mental and emotional health later in life. Memories such as helping Mom bake a cake, smelling Grandma’s cookies at a family picnic, or cooking dinner with an older sibling can prompt seniors to think about times associated with joy, relaxation, and peace of mind.

• Healthy Foods for a Healthy Mind

When it comes to taste and memory care, some seniors may be able to improve their memory when they are prompted to think about the taste of foods they enjoyed in their younger years. Some researchers even suggest that these memories influence whether or not people adopt a healthy and balanced diet in adulthood.

Food has the ability to trigger deep and meaningful emotions that can affect the body. That’s why it’s best to evoke positive food memories for the seniors in your life, especially if they are suffering from memory loss issues.

• The Emotional Effects of What We Eat

The olfactory of the brain has a “button” known as the hippocampus. This section of our brains controls our emotion and memory function and is responsible for the automatic nervous system and our sense of smell. This has a lot to do with why the smell of a food item can bring a person’s mind back to where they were the first time they tasted the food.

It is also important to remember that our need for survival is primal and our sense of smell often indicated where we could find food in prehistoric times. This explains why our hippocampus is connected to our digestive systems. Several of the body’s hormones that regulate hunger and digestion have receptors in the hippocampus.

Our brains also send us a message that we are being rewarded when we eat foods we enjoy. Seniors may remember getting candy for good behavior as a child or receiving their favorite cake for their birthday. When we eat foods that are pleasurable to us, the reward center of the brain is activated. The dopamine in the brain then changes the short-term memory associated with food into long-term memory.

• How Food Memories Affect Your Relationships

Researchers assert that people’s attitudes toward certain foods and diets stem from their early food memories. These memories impact the sense of security we feel in our relationships. Author Eve Turow, who wrote A Taste of Generation Yum, explores the reasons that some people are extremely picky and others turn into “foodies.”

Turow asserts that some people become enthralled with the beauty of food because preparing and sharing meals with others builds community. All the various advances in technology can lead to alienation when everyone is enthralled with their mobile or wireless devices. This means that more people are experiencing loneliness, and making plans to enjoy a meal with friends and family can feed the soul as well as the body.

Food also stimulates the senses. Making a meal and enjoying it allows you to touch, smell, and taste the food. Even showing your family member pictures of a certain food can evoke positive memories and a sense of calm and security.

Food has cultural significance for people as well and gives them a sense of identity. Many older individuals may find a significant part of their identities in the foods they have been enjoying all their lives. Food has the ability to help people form opinions about others as well. For example, if you’re eating out with business associates and one orders a salad while the other orders a cheeseburger, you may tend to think that one person is regimented and mature while the other is carefree and outgoing.

Some seniors may also want to create new food memories by taking more control over what they eat. There are so many things in our world these days that we can’t control. However, seniors can learn how to make a healthy version of their favorite foods to help them experience more joy and less stress.

Cooking with elderly loved ones can help to bring back pleasant memories of holidays and family traditions. Preparing these meals helps to remind your loved ones of how much you care for them and want them to be comfortable. You may also see improvements in your parent or grandparent’s health as they engage their senses to help you prepare a delicious meal you can enjoy together.