Almost every family has a favorite recipe that has stood the test of time — a popular dish with a story of its own that draws rave reviews from the generations.

The local Home Instead Senior Care office is encouraging family caregivers to dig into the family recipe box to find that dish, and prepare and share a meal with their senior loved one.

Then enter that recipe and the story about what makes the dish so special in the Craving Companionship Recipe Contest, which started July 15 and runs through Sept. 15. The contest is part of the Craving Companionship program at www.mealsandcompanionship.com, launched to help seniors stay connected socially and eat more nutritiously. Home Instead Senior Care network research has discovered that seniors’ biggest mealtime challenge is lack of companionship.

“Many seniors need help planning and preparing nutritious meals,” said Tom Suharik, owner of the Home Instead Senior Care office serving Yolo and upper Solano counties, in a news release. “But that’s only part of the story. Research reveals that seniors who live alone want good-tasting, nutritious food and stimulating conversation when they share home-cooked meals with family and friends.”

The program offers family caregivers tips and practical advice to encourage companionship and easy, healthy meals. For more details about the contest including guidelines and prizes, visit www.mealsandcompanionship.com. Selected recipes and stories will be posted online as well as in the Homemade Memories Cookbook that will be available for purchase in time for the 2011 holiday season. Proceeds will go to the nonprofit Home Instead Senior Care Foundation to benefit North American seniors.

Craving Companionship is geared to helping families support a nutritiously vulnerable population — older adults who live alone. In the United States, approximately 40 percent of the population age 75 and older — 6.7 million people — lives alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Craving Companionship program and contest are incentives for families to find time to help their loved ones prepare the foods they’ve always loved and enjoy those dishes with them.

“Who likes to eat alone? Nobody,” said Sandy Markwood, CEO of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, an expert source for the Craving Companionship program whose members coordinate the popular home-delivered meals program, also known as Meals On Wheels.

“We share the Home Instead Senior Care mission to help older adults live with confidence at home for as long as possible by providing the support they need. Because when a senior is isolated, it’s indicative of bigger challenges that person could be facing.”

Two of five seniors who live alone, or 44 percent, have at least four warning signs of poor nutritional health, which were previously identified and published by the Nutrition Screening Initiative.

According to Home Instead Senior Care network research, the most common of these warning signs and their incidence rates are:

* Eating alone most of the time (76 percent)

* Taking three or more different medications a day (71 percent)

* Eating few fruits, vegetables or milk products (46 percent)

* Having an illness/condition that prompted a change in diet (31 percent)

* Not always being physically able to shop, cook or feed themselves (25 percent)

“Home Instead Senior Care research shows that 59 percent of seniors who live alone say they eat more nutritiously when family and friends are around,” Suharik said in the news release. “They really enjoy having that connection with someone, whether it’s a family caregiver or a professional CAREGiver.”

For its research, the Home Instead Senior Care network completed 600 telephone interviews with seniors age 75 and older in the U.S. who live alone in their own homes or apartments. The sampling error is plus or minus 4 percent with a 95 percent confidence level.

Founded in 1994 in Omaha, Neb., by Lori and Paul Hogan, the Home Instead Senior Care network is the world’s largest provider of non-medical, in-home care services for seniors, with more than 900 independently owned and operated franchises providing in excess of 45 million hours of care throughout the United States and many other countries.

Home Instead Senior Care franchises employ more than 65,000 CAREGivers worldwide who provide basic support services — activities of daily living, personal care, medication reminders, meal preparation, light housekeeping, errands, incidental transportation and shopping — which enable seniors to live safely and comfortably in their own homes for as long as possible.

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