Access For Sight Impaired Consumers

Cooking, Baking & All Things Kitchen

Many accessible products and devices to aid you in the kitchen are available through several vendors such as American Printing House, the CNIB Store, Independant Living Aids and Maxi-Aids to name but a few. Please refer to our "Consumer Products" category for a complete listing and to access these vendors' links.

Chocolate and Zucchini is a blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier, a 24 25 26 27 28 29 30-year-old Parisian woman who lives in Montmartre and shares her passion for all things food-related -- thoughts, recipes, musings, cookbook acquisitions, quirky ingredients, nifty tools, restaurant experiences, ideas, and inspirations. Although her site is not specifically written for chefs and cooks who are blind or sight impaired, she has written an interesting article about the practicalities of cooking without vision. We are pleased to share her October 14, 2008 interview entitled "The Blind Cook: a Q&A" featuring David E. Price, a former geologist and now computer programmer who goes to graduate school in Salt Lake City, and is an enthusiastic cook.

Cooking In The Dark - enables you to listen to archived cooking shows. You don't need sight to cook dinner tonight!

directions for me is your one stop source for accessible packaging information. Directions provides the information that’s on consumer packages or labels in a simple online format for anyone who has trouble reading the small print including people who are blind or sight-impaired.

This site provides a consistent, quality source of complete packaging information for everything from preparation or cooking instructions to ingredient lists to Nutrition and Drug Facts labels for many common grocery, health and beauty and general merchandise products. In addition, it also provides, potentially life-saving, allergy and drug interaction warnings.

For those watching their carbohydrates (carbs), fat, sodium or cholesterol intake, Directions provides a user-friendly way to get access to this information. Gaining comprehensive access will foster self sufficiency and allow you to lead a more healthy and independent life.

directions for me was designed to be completely accessible with text-to-speech screen readersmagnifiers and braille displays as well as web-enabled cell phones. This information is presented in a uniform, easy-to-use format and eliminates features that hinder accessibility. Regardless of the product or brand, all packaging information is formatted and displayed the same way. Users will be able to access this data exactly the same way, every time and will no longer have to search a variety of sites with different formats and varying levels of accessibility. The site remains current by utilizing a database that is continually added to and updated.

"Past Seminars" from Hadley School for the Blind offers a number of audio broadcasts including:
1. Crockpots: Slow and Easy Cooking
2. Easy Mexican Sizzling "Off the Plate" Dishes
3. A Round Table Discussion All About Cooking
4. Holiday Baking: Stirring it up in the Kitchen
5. Talking Turkey: Blind and Low Vision Cooks Share Tips, Techniques and Accessible Resources
6. Backyard Entertaining
7. Kids in the Kitchen.
Visit the "Past Seminars" from Hadley School for the Blind and click on the above mentioned links.

The Kitchen Resource Centre is but one of the services offerd by Accessible Devices.

Low Vision Chef sells products that help you adapt in the kitchen to the loss of vision. Using bright color, lighting, offset color, unique and broad head tools, along with color combinations which act as a vision aid to the visually impaired cook, there is no reason why you cannot cook up a storm in your kitchen. This site was designed after watching the author's wife, a career chef work threw learning to cook with low vision the past 9 years. He took those vision aids of background colors, tools, lighting, and some tips, and put them in this site to help you get cooking again.

Vision World Foundation is the parent company of "Cooking without Looking", which is the first TV show ever produced especially for blind or sight impaired people.

Thrree hosts, Celia Chacon, Tom Fox and Annette Watkins, are blind or sight impaired themselves, and moderate the 30-minute show which airs twice monthly on WXEL-TV42 PBS in Palm Beach, Florida. This link will enable you to view past shows as well as obtain access to many of the recipes they prepare on the show.

Newsreel Magazine by and for the Blind is pleased to offer "The Kitchen Korner", a wonderful accessible cookbook written by Maggie Nettles

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