When cooking with a VI, it's important to find methods and tools that take out the guesswork and pain in the kitchen. From my experience, and trial and error, here are three short tips to eliminate some of those common kitchen issues.
Tip #1: Use tactile measuring cups
While cooking by feel is fun and all, I have found some glorious ways to mess up dishes and had to eat it anyway. To be more precise, it is incredibly helpful to be able to accurately measure ingredients and cook as recipes intended. Trust me, protein pancakes via guesswork are NOT fun. Try finding measuring cups with tactile numbers on them. I have a set with the numbers raised on the bottom of each. Check out our Instagram video on it via this link:
These tactile measuring cups allow me to properly use a simple rice cooker. One cup of jasmine rice, one cup water, bam, two cups of edible rice that isn’t so dry it crunches. And that is what we call a segway…
Tip #2: Use a simple rice cooker
Complex cooking with a visual-impairment is... Well, complex. I mean, if I tried poaching an egg, that thing would think it was reenacting Castaway. It would be stuck alone on the water for so long. But simple cooking doesn’t have to be unhealthy. Basic rice cookers without all the fancy buttons and gizmos are easy to use and clean. They are also inexpensive. Find a rice cooker with just one toggle switch that audibly toggles up when your rice (or quinoa) is done. EZ PZ, lemon squeezy. And if you want a couple more ideas with this tool, read our article linked below!
Tip #3: Utilize a talking food scale to better track your intake
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as the old maxim goes. But what the heck is an ounce of cooked meat? How much does this apple weigh? What are grams? Keeping consistent numbers on a diet, whether it be for gaining healthy weight or losing fat, necessitates being able to quantify things. Constantly asking your smartphone how many carbs are in a potato or having your roommate read a package’s nutrition facts for the bajillionth time gets old. I am three days into a more regimented bulking diet and meticulously calculating macronutrient numbers 6 times a day is already getting old. Enter the talking food scale. The general population can read a food scale easily but as with most things, there is an adapted version for those with VI. A simple design and talking features makes the talking food scale linked below a great tool. Need 6 ounces of cooked chicken, 100 grams of vegetables and 300 grams of rice for 3 of your meals? Imagine how daunting that would be without a food scale. With this tool, your diet consistency will amplify, as will your results. I didn’t know about this nifty device until researching for this article, but I am going to invest in one ASAP! Check out the links below for the page to purchase the one I found and a helpful review of the product from someone with a visual-impairment.
What kitchen tools have you found useful? Let us know on our Instagram!
Evan