Toby 

I just want start doing more cooking. Just want, I want to be able to, just like, learn how to read a recipe. And a lot of recipes are really small. I wish that they designed them so the text is larger.

Matthew

I’m actually dyslexic, and it’s specifically I know it’s like, commonly associated with, like, reading my reading’s okay, it’s more with how I like process like information. If you told me to, like, cook something simple, like spaghetti and Bolognese or something. which most people wouldn’t need a recipe for, I would probably still need a recipe, if that makes sense. Like, I think I could follow a recipe fine.

Jo

I think most things that make life easier for other people make things easier for loads of people.

Toby 

Yeah like, with cheese graters, I need one which has got a handle on it, so it’s so I can just hold it level with my left hand and then just grate it with my right hand. Because, like, I find that just like flat cheese graters they’re not user friendly

Shaun 

My arthritis and cerebral palsy has left me wheelchair bound and I rely on carers, and I rely on two of my best friends that I’ve known since school. They help me with about 70 to 90% of things daily.

Joel 

If you want to eat healthy as well with now and then health, not healthy, but one or two occasions have some different, but not all the time. Just get fast food, just to get out, just to eat junk food.

Anahita

Is that what your support workers get?

Joel 

Yeah, they’re going help me with no cooking.

Jo 

It’s a common story, I’m afraid

Shaun

I rely on my carers to cook for me, because a medication makes me shaky. I rely on my carers to make drinks for me and cups of tea, hot drinks for example

Chewie

Have you got a kitchen in your little flat?

Joel 

Yeah I don’t do cooking much

Chewie 

Why’s that?

Joel

Don’t have people to help with it afterwards?

Chewie 

You don’t have support to do it? Yeah,

Joel

No,

Chewie 

They come in and just do your little bits and pieces and don’t have time

Joel

Yeah.

Jay 

What did you like to cook before?

Joel

Cakes and stuff

Seb 

Yes, you should do what can do for yourself, and they should support you and help you to do the most that you can do, support you to cook for yourself.

Jo 

Yeah, my brother likes omelets, and he asked his support worker if you’d help him do an omelet. And the support worker said, “I don’t know how to make an omelet.” And so they had something out of the freezer again. It’s also what the support workers skills are, or what they value.

Seb 

But It’s not hard to make

Joel 

An omelet, No what about recipes?

Jo 

Why didn’t they just look it up on the internet? They couldn’t help but no, they didn’t know how to make an omelet, so the fast food came out again, and we’re trying to help my brother to eat things he enjoys and that are healthy. It’s really difficult.

Sam 

I recently took something out of the oven without using an oven glove because someone had touched the oven glove, and I didn’t want to touch it because I thought they may have coughed on their hand before touching the oven glove. Because of my concerns with hygiene that people may call OCD, and I might not eat things for a long time, even if I get hungry.

Tilley 

I’ve always had difficulties around food in a lot of different ways. I have times where I don’t eat. This is not necessary deliberate. I don’t know what it is. I can’t bring myself to eat, and I just don’t feel hungry, and I have too much going on, and I’m tired and I it’s just a million reasons why I just won’t eat.

Matthew 

Yeah, like the way I say is that I I eat to live, not live to eat. You know, some people love the taste of food. They live to eat, like the nicest pasta or like chicken. They go to the nicest restaurants to try these things. But for me, it’s always been what can I gain from eating this kind of food, like the taste of food has never really like mattered for me.

Sam 

As an autistic person, the sound of people chewing or crunching their food or slurping, swallowing or glugging their drinks, causes me sensory overload. It causes me really bad sensory pain, and I can lose it. I could end up leaving the room and get really frustrated to the point that people find me anti-social or rude and find me a nightmare to deal with.

Caroline 

One of the biggest challenges I actually have as a visually impaired person when it comes to accessing food in shops, is I also have dietary requirements. So I have food allergies to things like nuts and sesame seeds and coconut and I have to be careful, obviously, about what I eat to make sure I’m avoiding those allergens. But I can’t read the ingredients lists on labels, the fonts too small for me, and so this means I tend to stick to food that I know is okay. I have a magnifying app on my phone, and so I can if I need to check ingredients, it can be quite cumbersome and time consuming, and I can feel quite self-conscious doing it. So I might do it for one or two items, if I feel able to, but I couldn’t do it for you know, a significant amount of time.

Jo 

Yeah, it would be great to use a bit of technology that you could pick up a device and you could put in, you know, allergic to celery or whatever, and then you could bleep a code or something on the side of the packaging, and it would just tell you if that was in there or not.

Chewie 

Is shopping easy for you?

Seb 

For me, I go around myself now most of the time and there are millions and millions of people on their phone texting, they walk into me,  I do try to move and then you got people on both sides with maybe kids and bikes.

Anahita 

And that’s another reason why it’s easier to just order food from home.

Caroline 

Yeah, to find where items are, particularly if it’s an unfamiliar shop, is tricky when you can’t see very well. Being able to navigate, not just around a supermarket where I can’t read, you know, the signs above the aisles, I can’t see what they say, but also it’s trying to navigate around other people who got trolleys, who are in a rush, who can have to be quite impatient, and I can feel like a bit of an obstacle to people.

Toby 

It can be like, really complicated sometimes, when they move things around. You get you used to one place, like one area.

Jo 

And when they change the seasonal displays in big supermarkets,

Toby 

There’s no warning. I do sort of look for myself first, and then I do ask someone if I can’t find it

Jo 

It will be really helpful. And I’ve seen elderly people, particularly in huge supermarkets, or people who can’t walk big distances, find it so exasperating and tiring that in the end, they just give up and don’t buy what they came in for.

Sam 

Crowds, bright lights, loud music, and people playing stuff out loud from their phones, means I am often anxious, overwhelmed and on the verge of losing it in shops and supermarkets. I often can’t bear being there

Jo 

Eating places if they want to be more accessible, need to look at the sensory experiences more, improve ventilation, better acoustics or sound dampening, and also thinking about how they present their menus.

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