Disability & Food: First Survey Results

On February 18, I posted a survey looking for data on the shopping and eating practices of disabled people ... or at any rate, of disabled people who read disability blogs. Today I'm going to share preliminary results from the 52 people who have responded so far. I would like to get more responses before commenting, so I am leaving the survey open for another week.

You can take the survey by clicking here.

If you have already done the survey, please share it with other disabled people you know, on other platforms.

Next weekend, I'll close the survey, post the final results, write a little about why I'm interested in food and disability, and offer some notes ... maybe conclusions, too ... based on the data and comments.

Here are the results so far:

Respondent comments:

What I can and can't eat, and thus how my food must be processed and prepared, is a huge part of my disability. I eat "frozen dinners" and packets of things I can heat in the microwave, but they all have to be prepared in my home from scratch, a few exceptions of specific brands of things in cans or boxes.

Only recently started cooking at home so much--started treatment for my undiagnosed ADHD in November at age 45. Now I can more easily plan to cook and get the right items purchased in advance, and make time to prepare it. I've wasted a lot of emotions and food over the years on good intentions and poor implementation.

Refrigerated, microwaveable meals Microwaveable boxed pantry meals

i mostly eat food that i get from the grocery store and that comes out of the package edible... like bread. or fruit. everything else, i cannot prepare

I get the majority of my groceries via grocery delivery service. I assumed that counts as home delivery but wasn't sure. That being said, while I do my own cooking, my mobility tends to dictate how elaborate my meal will be. Not that my meals are really that elaborate lol but how much spoon / labor will be involved. For an example, my kitchen is not fully wheelchair accessible, and so if I want to reach certain cabinets etc., I need to be able to get up out of my chair. So there are times, I just don't have access to certain foods in my kitchen and will eat whatever I can reach. For this reason, I very very rarely use the stove. Me and the oven are BFFs though lol

Respondent comments:

Staff take him shopping

I live in a city with multiple food coops. I shop there most often, but no one store carries all the foods I need in a week. Food shopping involves stops at two to four stores a trip. I do not drive and public transport is inaccessible to me. I need rides for all of this.

Respondent comments:

not sure where autism goes in here. also chronic illnesses

Chronic pain/traumatic brain injury

Autistic, and irritable Bowel Syndrome and PCOS. Not a fun combo.

Chronic illness- asthma

Medical conditions

Type 1 diabetes