Quick and Healthy Foods for Picky Eaters

One thing I have found which encourages my elderly clients to eat, is to serve very attractive food. Sounds like a "duh", but really... look at the plate! I take sliced turkey and put some shredded cheese and a little sour cream and salsa inside, roll it up, and put 3 - 4 of these "logs" in a circle on a little plate. In between I do matchstick cuts of fresh cucumber and carrot, with a couple of olives in the middle. This looks so pretty and not overwhelming in quantity, that it is well received. I have also made a sandwich and cut it into 1 inch pieces, placing a decorative toothpick into each piece. With that, freshly sliced tomato and onion arranged lying on top of each other. For very arthritic hands, skip the toothpick! When one of my clients said he was going to stop eating and let himself die, I said that wasn't on the agenda for that day, and got a bowl of canned, tropical fruit ready. He ate the whole thing and asked for seconds. Later he said, from the other room "I didn't mean it."

There are some very good suggestions in this article, and also in Ruth's comment. Not all apply in all situations, of course, but the list is good to consider. Nuts not are a good choice for people who have trouble chewing. My mother can chew them but she simply would not eat them unsalted. Sometimes you have to judge which is worse, not eating, or eating something salty? The same with canned fruit with syrup. Frankly, if my mother weighed 85 pounds and wouldn't eat anything but canned fruit, I'd enourage use of the heavy syrup varieties. Since my husband eats well we use light syrup; I know he'll get additional calories from other healthy foods.

My mother,90, still lives alone. The only cooking she does is with the microwave. We've arranged for her to get meals on wheels, which she likes, and helps ensure she eats several healthy meals a week. I don't think we could count on that without the delivery service.

When hubby is not feeling like eating I can almost always interest him in a milkshake. To the ice cream and milk I add a Carnation Instant Breakfast packet, sometimes a banana and peanut butter, or whatever fresh berries we have on hand, or canned peaches. I'll bet my mother would like this, too, but living alone she is not apt to prepare it for herself.

Mom loves devilled eggs, so us daughters tend to bring a few when we visit.

Cold shrimp dipped in seafood cocktail sauce is something both my husband and mother find easy and appealing to eat.

V8 juice (which comes in a low sodium version) is another thing hubby will sometimes welcome even if he isn't eating anything but crackers with peanut butter.

My 91 yo MIL has Alzheimer and is Very picky about her food - Breakfast = toast (no jelly or jam which she used till she was in hospital in February), canned fruit & Chocolate Milk from a carton (a must have, not made w/ Hershey's syrup) this is alternated w/ scrambled eggs & toast or blueberry pancakes (no blueberries - no pancakes) drowned in syrup (must put syrup on plate before pancakes go on plate then more on top. She has come back 2-3 times for more syrup because "they are dry". A bottle of syrup lasts us 2-3 breakfasts). No cereal, No breakfast meats!
Lunch is the same way = grilled cheese (which she would eat everyday if we let her), Tomato soup only, peanut butter & sweet pickle sandwich, Tuna Sandwich. or cottage cheese & fruit. Would rather have KFC, Pizza or Chinese food over something homemade. Even if we use her recipes she doesn't like it & claims she has never had it before. However, a night can not go by without a dish of ice cream & Hot Green Tea (tired iced to get her to drink more water - no go on that)

@nsiverson: Major hugs! I thought my mother was a picky eater, but you have much more to cope with!

My picky eater has two diet-related issues that we MUST deal with: constipation caused by pain medication and bladder infections that can no longer be treated with antibiotics (seriously). Water and fiber are musts in her diet, and it is a daily struggle to get her to consume them in adequate quantities. Strategies have included tough love ("It's your choice. Drink the water and have no pain, or don't drink it and start hurting"), bargaining ("Let's eat these veggies now. If you poop, I can make you a corndog for supper"), and "presentation." Mama has always been high maintenance and obsessed with appearances (think Hyacinth Bucket), so whether things are "pretty" matters a lot.

On one of our outings, I took her to a dollar store, where her shopping instincts kicked in. I pushed her around the store in her wheel chair while she held the basket and pointed to two "pretty" plates and a "pretty" bowl. These are now standard items, used first for breakfast cereal and meals.

I took the hint and bought some pretty dishes (a Corelle pattern called Watercolors that has coordinating but not matching plates, which gives more variety to the settings) that I use next in the rotation. I also dug out some plastic bowls that I once used for candy at seminars: bright yellow plastic with a happy face on the side. Those are cereal bowls now. Her cookies and treats (she seems to crave sugar) are in the Happy Bucket (another bright yellow item with the same happy face on the side).

Note that the bargaining can be two-ways. She may not remember that I am her daughter rather than her mother or, some days, a total stranger, but she does remember how to bargain: "I had a BM. Now I can have something good to eat!"

Mmm. Cornbread and milk! ;)

Pretty does count, even for guys who are not conscious of it. I think of nicely presented food, but you are right, Paka, about interesting bowls, plates, cups, etc. Pudding in small footed sherbet glasses is somehow more appealing than pudding scooped out of a big bowl.

None of those suggestions will work for my mother who prefers the foods of her youth. These are very ethnic foods not all of which are necessarily the healthiest of choices. But if it's a choice of eat herring is cream sauce (which she LOVES dearly) or two bites of cottage cheese (which she is, at best, merely tolerant of) I'm going to give her what she likes.