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Gimme FIVE
The Disabled Living Foundation is well known for recommending daily living equipment, based on independent evaluation of individuals’ needs. It recently launched a new kitchen and household products section on its living made easy website and highlighted a selection of products to give a flavour of the wide range of gadgets available to help people in the kitchen. Ian Macrae checks some of them out
Two of the latest recommendations of the Disabled Living Foundation for kitchen appliances are generic: talking microwaves and timers with big numbers.
Talking microwaves tend to come from the specialist market, but ten years or so ago a very good one was made by LG and featured Braille on some buttons. It also happened to be very long-lived but, as so often the case, the manufacturers stopped making it due to low demand.
Even now, it might be worth checking eBay, or a local or online electrical chain to see if there are any still around.
Big number timers are also widely available from online and high street shops and supermarkets.
OXO GOOD GRIPS JUG
A measuring jug that lets you gauge how far it’s been filled by looking down into it from above. The front face of the Oxo Good Grips measuring jug is angled slightly outwards so you can read the markings inside it from above. Sadly the markings are too small to be of use to anyone with impaired sight, but if bending down to peer at stuff is an issue, this could be what you need.
£5.99 from lakeland.co.uk, or other online kitchen stockists and high street stores.
PEN FRIEND
Ever done that thing where you randomly pull pots of stuff out of the freezer, peer at the iced-over contents and sniff desperately for clues as to what they are?
The “Pen Friend” puts an end to all that. Shaped a bit like a pop singer’s microphone, it comes with lots of variously sized and shaped labels. Each one has a digital code embedded in it. Press the record button on the gadget, hold it to a label stuck on to a food container and say what’s in it. To retrieve the information, hold the point of the Pen Friend to the label to hear your voice identify the contents of the pot. No more surprise dinners.
£54.99 from rnib.org.uk.
FIX IT FOOD BOARD
It may look like a medieval torture instrument attached to a small bed of nails. In fact it’s the Swedish “Fix It Food Preparation Board”. With suction feet to stop it sliding about, the board has a moveable vice and a set of spikes (a small bed of nails) for fixing food in place. It’s a bit too faffy for me, but extremely useful if you have any issues with dexterity or a missing arm.
From £41, from Co-operative Xest, Nottingham Rehab Supplies, Nordic Care Services Ltd and House of Mobility Europe, among others.