Preparing and cooking a meal.

Hi Rob1,
All descriptors need 4 criteria - all have to apply.
1. safety
2. reasonable time
3. repeatedly across the whole day, as many times as is reasonably required (each activity will have its own repetition requirement
4. acceptable standard


If I explain the criteria and the 'cooking' descriptor hopefully you will see where your disabilities fit. Remember that the 4 criteria will apply to all the descriptors including mobility.

Preparing Food requires preparing and cooking a simple one course meal for one using fresh ingredients. There is no requirement to bend down eg to use an oven, and the cooking can be done on a hob. If you can't use/don't have a hob, you can score points if you use a microwave, but that still has to be a meal made from fresh ingredients. Ready meals won't count.

So, let's now consider the 4 criteria. Think about how you cook?

Safety - is there a substantial risk to yourself or others? - burning pans etc- risk of fire suggests safety is not reached - this can also (for cooking purposes) cutting yourself, burning yourself, and generally risk of falls. Falls could occur due to balance issues, but might also occur if you are very messy in the kitchen and cause clip hazards.

Repetition - you need to show that you can do the activity every time required across the day, unless there is a small insignificant part of the day where you fail. How many meals a day - it could be say 2-4 times that you would cook hot food. Breakfast might be cold eg cereal, rather than something hot. That leaves lunch, supper. If you have dietary issues there might be other times when it might be reasonable for you to cook. (Just for reference, toilet needs might be eg 5-10 times per day, more if you are incontinent, but communication could be 24/7, reading might required at any time during normal waking hours.)
Even though you might only want to cook 3 times per day, you would need to be able to do all of those. (A failure to communicate for say 2 minutes across a whole day is likely to be insignificant, whereas failing one of your cooking slots is a third of your cooking, even though it may only comprise 15-30 minutes.) If you like to have a cooked breakfast, cooked lunch and cooked supper, this is not unreasonable, even if some people only have 1 or 2 cooked meals a day, and hence you would need to succeed at all 3 cooking slots. Pain or fatigue might prevent repetition. Or it could be a migraine, or anxiety. It maybe that a cumulation of doing other activities eg work, or other PIP tasks have a knock on effect that you can't do tasks later in the day. If you take too long to do one or more tasks earlier in the day, you might not have enough day left to complete any more.

reasonable time - you need to take no more than twice that of a non-disabled person. So, if your friend who has no health problems can cook something and it takes 10 minutes to peel 3 medium potatoes and 1 carrot and chop an onion, which are the basic ingredients for your supper, but for whatever health reason it takes you 22 minutes - you are too slow and would fail the time test. I think with actual cooking you need to be a bit circumspect - some people might cook meat on a low heat for longer, others high heat shorter time, so you need to look at the non variables eg peeling and chopping. That said if you haven't finished creating your total simple one course meal in any kind of reasonable time, then that would also be worth mentioning.

acceptable standard - really messy kitchen leaving knives and slip hazards in an unsafe way, burning food and or pans or yourself, undercooked food, dry unpalatable food, over salty food etc - all of these are likely to comprise unacceptable. Whilst it might not apply to you, significant pain conducting an activity could also be unacceptable. Basically if someone was watching how you do something would they be saying 'for goodness sake, don't do it like that, what a mess, turn off the gas, don't let it burn etc' You mention letting food go cold through distraction, that might be unacceptable too.

As with all PIP activities, you need to consider the majority of days - if every day is the same this won't be a problem.
Have a look at each descriptor in the section -
So... for preparing food
1. Do I cook/prepare food? - Your description suggests you don't cook using fresh ingredients (remember ready meals, tins and boil in the bag won't count.)
2. Would I be able to cook safely, repeatedly etc (all 4 criteria) using some gadget (aid/appliance) - for some people who can't stand long a perching stool can enable them to be near the cooker. A knife with an adapted grip might help someone with arthritis. A kitchen timer might help someone who gets distracted. - these could all comprise Descriptor 1b -
if that solves your cooking issues for the majority of days- then you would get 2 points.
3. Using a microwave - if you can't use the stove top - but you still need to peel and chop and not burn food etc - that is still 2 points 1c
4. Maybe you need someone to encourage you to cook, or to explain the cooking processes - I have mentioned peeling and chopping, but another part of cooking is assessing if food is cooked, understanding cooking times, and to be able to get everything on the plate all at the same time in an edible manner. Perhaps if someone explained each step - but let you actually perform all the actions this would allow you to cook safely etc - that is also 2 points 1d
5. If you have poor grip or poor eyesight etc then physical help in the kitchen might be required. As long as you can do the most part of the cooking but with some intervention now and again you can score 4 points under 1e.
Then there is 1f -
6. You really can't prepare food, and you certainly can't cook it. You are unsafe, out of time, not acceptable and perhaps unable to repeat. No amount of gadgets, prompting or encouragement or even physical help is going to get you to fulfil the 4 criteria to produce an edible hot meal from fresh ingredients. Yup you can't cook.

1f requires you not to be able to prepare and cook - ie you can't do both tasks to the 4 required criteria for the majority of days. Remember that if you have help and the so-called assistant does basically everything they are the chef, and you can't cook!

Ready meals, toast, snacks, soup from a tin is NOT a fresh meal. As with all descriptors, it is the help you need rather than what you get.
My sense is that the kind of help that you need to be able to prep and cook a meal to the required standard requires another as chef. If that is the case then you could score 8 points under 1f. However, follow my analysis and check!
You can use the same sort of analysis for each descriptor. If more than 1 descriptor in a section applies equally, you should score the highest value.

I hope this helps.
LL26

PS if you are writing the form, explain what help you need, and why, what happens when it all goes wrong. The paragraph describing your cooking is good - include a few more examples of what happens explain why you can't even use the microwave.