Meet Chef Cynthia Vaughn: she works in the kitchen of a Lifespace Continued Care Retirement Community in Texas and has one seriously gifted skill set. You see, some residents within retirement communities require a Dysphagia diet which requires food to be pureed to a specific texture for safe consumption. In short, people who need a Dysphagia Diet are mainly eating pureed foods, and in Retirement Communities, everyone eats together in a restaurant-style dining area.

It was this restaurant-style dining that got Chef Vaughn started on her mission of creating pureed sculptures for residents on Dysphagia Diets. She had heard of a friend’s father who was put on a Dysphagia diet. He was embarrassed to eat with his friends in the dining hall because his food didn’t look as appetizing as everyone else’s; after all, he was receiving pureed food scooped into dishes, while his friends had a “normal” plate of their favorite meal. So, this resident started eating alone in his room and had very little appetite, he was unhappy and started to lose weight, which caused staff and family concern. When she saw this situation, Chef Vaughn knew just what to do. She started with the real food that was going to be served that day, she pureed it to Dysphagia standards, and then started shaping the food to look like the real thing – chicken was shaped back into the form of a chicken leg, waffles were blended up then shaped into the classic square and drizzled with syrup and cinnamon. And so it went for every menu item – beef stew, donuts, veggies, you name it – anything offered on the menu was fair game. She got creative and used molds, and shaped the dishes by hand, whatever it took to make the pureed items look just as good as the dish offered to regular diets. Chef Vaughn turned her pureed food into a type of sculpture that was hot and flavorful for each resident on a Dysphagia diet.