As one of Australia’s most iconic cooks, Maggie Beer is passionate about changing the wellbeing of the elderly through access to food full of flavour and nutrients.

“It should be everyone’s right to have good food, and I believe that no one group of people need it more. My hope is that every meal can give comfort and pleasure, always something to look forward to,” Maggie says on the Maggie Beer Foundation’s website.

Maggie created the Foundation in 2014 as a driving force to improve diet in the aged care sector.

Speaking at ANMF’s (Vic Branch) 2022 Health and Environmental Sustainability conference last month, Maggie said she believed that a beautiful meal was the “quickest route to wellbeing”.

While nutrition was one of the many issues plaguing the aged care sector, Maggie said it was possible to fix.

She said that affecting the quality of food residents were being served was the lack of specialised training for aged care cooks or chefs.

“There is no minimum standard of education, so cooks and chefs are thrown in without support, without training. It’s an incredibly specialised skill.

“We need to raise the bar. We need to elevate the skill and the respect of cooks or chefs. We need to give them the tools they need… Give them fresh food. I know it will work.”

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