‘Don’t let anything limit you’: Blind athlete with Down syndrome publishes un-cookbook

Adam finds out how a legally blind swimmer with Down syndrome is making waves in the kitchen after overcoming adversity in the ocean.

LANGFORD, B.C. — When she first decided to try open ocean swimming, Meliah Motchman had to face a fear.

“Seaweed,” Meliah laughs.

Having seaweed unexpectedly wrap around your leg can be startling, her coach Susan Simmons says, especially seeing as Meliah is legally blind.

“You’re in the ocean and you can’t see the shore very well,” Susan adds. “And you don’t know what’s below.”

But Meliah overcame her challenge, and got so good at her sport that she regularly swims more than four hours straight as part of the Spirit Orcas swim team for adults with disabilities.

“That feels amazing,” Meliah smiles.

A couple years ago, Meliah’s accomplishments were recognized by the World Open Water Swim Association after she was nominated for the Performance of the Year award.

“She’s the first known person with Down syndrome to swim 10 kilometres in the ocean,” Susan says.

But competing at such a high level requires specific fuelling, which proved to be a challenge with Meliah’s limited vision.

“She has to make her own meals,” Susan says. “Using the stove is not safe.”

Meliah was eating a lot of microwaveable processed meals until Susan invited her to attend a “raw cooking class.”

Meliah started reimagining how to prepare her favourite food, and with Susan’s help created a week’s worth of healthy recipes, all prepared without a stove.

“It’s uncooked food in a jar. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Susan says. “They’re very simple.”

Meliah enjoyed it so much —making everything from chili with nut protein, to spaghetti with zucchini noodles — that she published a cookbook, called ‘The Un-Cooking Jar.’

“I’m so happy for a cookbook,” Meliah smiles.

She hopes the recipes will help other people with Down syndrome — whether they’re athletes or not — become more independent and feel more confident.

“I’m so proud of myself and happy,” Meliah says after assembling a breakfast parfait with granola, yogurt, and berries in a jar.

Although there is no seaweed in Meliah’s cookbook, the meals she now makes on her own will ensure that, no matter what challenge she encounters in the water, nothing will stop her from swimming forward.

“Don’t let anything limit you,” Susan smiles. “And know that if you have the right people around you, you can pretty much overcome anything.”