SAGA VOICES
Each month our insight team conducts an in-depth poll of Saga customers to find out what you’re thinking. This month: mealtimes
We may love watching people on TV whipping up new recipes in the kitchen, but that’s where the inspiration ends for most of us. Almost 60% of Saga customers have fewer than ten dishes in their regular repertoire – and a quarter of those (27%) have only one to five.
Many are creatures of habit – 38% rely on those old favourites, rarely trying new dishes. Another 6% even have a set rotation, eating the same meals on the same days of the week. More than half (55%) cook a mix of new and old recipes, although that desire to experiment seems to fall with age. By the time people reach their 80s, 46% rarely try anything new.
But our survey of 2,069 people aged 50-plus reveals no shortage of recipe books. Half of us have ten or more of them, 19% have six to nine, 25% one to four and only 4% have none.
That’s fairly typical, says Clare Thornton-Wood of the British Dietetic Association, who has around ten dishes in her weekly repertoire but many more recipe books. ‘There’s a big market in cookery books but most people are cooking the same things, week after week.’
When asked what the biggest challenges in the kitchen were, 35% of women cited lack of motivation, 26% struggled with meal ideas and 22% hated cooking for one. Men were more likely to list a lack of cooking skills.
8% own 40+ cookbooks
38% rarely try new recipes
44% of men cook daily
That sounds familiar to Tiggy Parry, whose East Devon charity Project Food works with people who have lost their cooking ‘mojo’. Many are older women who have catered for their families over many years and are just fed up with the chore, especially if they are now on their own. The biggest game-changer, she believes, is cooking with and for others again – inviting friends over and going to theirs. ‘It puts some of the joy back into it,’ she says.
People often need to change the way they cook. ‘Many are using recipes they have cooked for 30 years. But taste buds change over time and you need much stronger flavours when you’re older to feel satisfied by your food.’
Parry’s other suggestions include: having your main meal at lunch or at least prepping it earlier in the day when you feel less tired; using frozen veg to avoid waste; getting an air fryer and/or slow cooker so ing
