Cooking can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience, but the kitchen can be a major source of danger without the right precautions. Kitchen accidents can be caused by oil spills, pot handles that stick out, slippery kitchen tools, and even loose clothing. These risks are further amplified when you’re vision impaired. If you have low vision, cooking may seem like an impossible task, but it can be done! You’ll have to take more measures to ensure a safe experience when you’re in the kitchen. Fortunately, there are many ways you can improve kitchen safety by practicing proper eye care and making your kitchen low vision accessible. Here are some ways you can stay safe in the kitchen when vision impaired:
Get your eyes checked regularly
Your vision constantly changes, so regular eye exams are crucial for proper vision correction as your eyes adapt. Getting your eye checked regularly can help detect, prevent, and delay eye conditions and provide you with the proper prescription and vision correction methods for a more comfortable cooking experience. In between eye checks, understanding your prescription can help you gain a better perspective on your vision and how much it has changed. Your prescription contains information about your eyes that is required to make the right lenses for you. It will tell you if you’re long or short-sighted, if you have astigmatism and how severe it is, how strong your correction needs to be, and more. Knowing these things will guide you to make better decisions about your vision and help you better understand your next eye exam, leading to better kitchen safety.
Take advantage of your other senses
If you have low vision, you can take advantage of your other senses to help you cook and navigate the kitchen. Your sense of touch can help you locate ingredients and tools and cue you into making safe choices. For instance, if you’re going to heat food, you should check the materials of your packaging or containers to make sure they’re safe to put in an oven or microwave. If the material feels flimsy and light, like styrofoam or plastic, it might not be safe to use. Look for containers with some heft to them, like glass or ceramic, for a safer cooking experience. You can also use audible timers or alarms to help you keep track of when your food is ready if you can’t easily detect changes in the food while you cook it.
Keep your kitchen organized
A cluttered and disorganized kitchen will make it harder for you to spot ingredients and cooking tools when you have low vision, so kitchen organization for vision loss can help you grab anything you need without fuss. Use brightly colored or tactile labels to help identify where items are stored so you aren’t constantly searching high and low for what you need. When preparing food, you can also dedicate parts of the counter to certain types of ingredients, such as keeping dry ingredients on your left and wet ones on your right. Separating mistakable items away from each other can also ensure fewer mix-ups. For instance, keep salt and sugar in separate spaces so you don’t accidentally use one instead of the other. You should always put your items back where they belong so you don’t get confused the next time you step into the kitchen.
Kitchen safety is a must for anyone, but even more so for those who are vision impaired and may require more precautions to cook properly. Cooking with low vision can be fun and exciting if you take the right measures to care for your eyes and ensure an accessible kitchen space.
