Do you prepare healthy meals and the person you are caring for eats something else?

I see lot's of good suggestions. I am also cooking for my family, not just mom. I try to adapt to food that she likes, but to no avail.

Jude, oh God, that bacon and potato dish sounds good, we'll everything you've mentioned on this blog sounds good! You cook like my Mom did, she was from Wales, and was a fabulous cook. Me, I hate cooking for my husband and FIL, as everything must be bland, and they never like to try new foods or Anything Ethnic, while I Love Everything, and got the Thunder thighs to prove it!
Shepard's pie, rice pudding, yummy, I do like to cook savory, but these two stubborn Norwegian's are no fun to cook for, so most meals are now cooked by hubby. Please do keep telling us your meal plans, as my mouth is watering and it has given me some ideas as well. My Mom never cooked from a recipe, so from some of the notes she left, it is sometimes hard to decifer exactly the right measurements, it was all in her head. The Cooked more with my elder sister, so she's really good, so when I'm especially craving Mom's cooking, I beg her to make it and she always will. When I was in England and Wales, we went to a few car boot sales. And there was a family in a caravan there who sold Welsh cakes or Bake stones, depending on where you live, and they were so good with a cuppa, just like my Mom's. Anyways, I used to dream about winning the lottery and with my sisters, starting up one of those welsh cake carts to sell to the people down at the beach front, I would have loved that I think, but now I'm too old and too tired to fulfill that dream, well, I've had the currents in my cupboard to make them for a couple of weeks now, so I think I'll throw a batch on the griddle today, even my Norwegian's will eat those, and fast! TaDa Stacey B

If you want to make your life easier and give lots of options to Mum that won't have you slaving over a hot stove get yourself some freezable plates with lids (they are quite small so really suit the elderly who generally don't eat as much, although I know some do) Then when you make the family a meal and they don't want it plate it up and freeze it (Not if it is salad obviously!!!!) So now you have a meal for another day. Keep doing that every time you make a meal and it won't be long before you have a choice of meals - if she is eating what you cook try making one plate extra so if you don't fancy cooking or she does want something else you have it ready. I do this a lot with the sunday roast for it freezes really well - I often just freeze the sliced meat in gravy for another day too. That way you can ring the changes with different veg or thicken the gravy and put the meat in a wrap - mum has a penchant for roast pork and apple sauce sandwiches so I do those sometimes too - I have to scrape off the gravy but the meat stays very moist.

Or you could mince left over meat from a roast meal and make rissoles with it or shepherds pie/cottage pie

Mum has also taken to potatoes something or other - have no idea what its called but she loves it. I chop rashers of bacon and fry them lightly with onions and place 1/3 of them on the bottom of a dish than top that with 1/3 of some blanched cabbage add some black pepper not too much then top that with thin slices of potato and a good splash of cream and milk repeat twice and top with cheese and chips (your chips that is we call them crisps) and bake - its not remotely healthy but she loves it and it is food after all and as long as she doesn't have it too often I think its ok BUT IT DOESNT FREEZE

I have to say that I guess I am different because I love to cook - it is a release for me. SO I cook and I make up freezable pots able them and date them and pop them in the freezer. Some need to defrost - some don't before cooking but Mum ends up having a massive choice ALL the time. Im thinking positively while she is in hospital and as I loathe cooking for one I have been cooking for 3 and freezing 2. It truly doesn't take long to build a real menu of stuff that she can just choose from in the morning. The only thing I have stopped freezing is liver because I can cook it from fresh almost as quickly and it doesn't quite have the same texture when its been frozen IMHO.

The thing that really really annoys me and I know it is stupid is that while Mum will eat every last mouthful of food someone else prepares she will always leave 1 teaspoon of anything I prepare and quite openly admits to my daughter that she does it because she knows it annoys me.

You cannot imagine (or probably understand) how angry that makes me - to the point I think hell to it I will buy ready meals - but she knows that won't happen because I don't like ready meals (I don't know whats in them for a start all those e numbers and stuff that I have never seen on a supermarket shelf!)

she is an adult . if she wants something else dont get stressed over it. I have ben caring for my step mother for 3 years and find it a lot less stressful

There's two issues at least here. One is the health of the elder, the other is the expectations the caregiver has for her self and her family. The caregiver expects the family to eat her well-prepared food that took her time, money and effort. The elder wants to retain control at one of the most basic levels...what goes in her mouth. The caregiver needs to ease off and just take care of herself. Voice of unfortunate experience talking here.

According to latest research, fried foods do not "cause cholesterol", and also, older women need the cholesterol and fats.

Thank you bluecube! You said just what I needed to hear. Thank you thank you thank you!

We also have to remember that their olfactory sense has gone out the window....along with their other senses! If they can't smell the good food, then that's a part of why they're not hungry.

I can empathize with you. My mother's 91 and she hardly ever eats when I cook supper. I used to get upset over it because she would complain that she doesn't have the strength to cook anymore and she wants me to cook more often. She also loves to tell others, especially family and her close friends, that I don't cook for her. Yeah, I'm not cooking every single day. But I do cook meals that mom won't eat but a tiny taste/sample of. Many times I make enough for leftovers/freezer. Why should I cook daily if she's going to cook her own meals right after I cook a meal for the both of us?

I use a slow cooker crock pot to make great casseroles, pot pies, stews, steaks, bake potatoes, and many other meals with foods that she can eat per her elder dietary challenges. She loves baked potatoes. BUT, I've discovered, she won't eat them when they come out of the crock pot. Every time I cook she has to make these snide comments about me cooking the food wrong, it needs to be done in a skillet, or in the oven, or microwave, or this is wrong and that's done wrong, this is too spicy, or, too much lemon. She'll 'sample my cooking' but ends up making sandwiches or fry up a meal she will eat 'because she made it'. I have high cholesterol, so no fried foods, I will 'bake/broil' mine in the pot or oven/stove if the crock pot doesn't seem feasible to use for anything. She has to also watch her intake of vegetables because they make her gassy and with a hiatal hernia those veggies can aggravate her.

She has full blown heart disease, a permanent hiatal hernia high, blood pressure and high cholesterol, and is on many medications. She insists on FRYING many of her meals. Logically with her cholesterol and heart disease she should be avoiding fried foods. But she's 91, she's lived a full life and at this point she reminds me that no amount of 'dietary changes is going to make her live another 50 years'. She has a point. It's when we are younger pre-70 years of age that we should be 'watching what we are eating so that we can hope to live to see 100.

She complains to others that I do not do things, even though I am doing such things. What she is really doing is a control, power struggle game with the combination of a mental depression and angst over not being able to do and function around the house as well as she did when she was 60. it's depressing. She's angry, so she lashes out at the one closest to her either by talking up a storm of bitter tales to the neighbors, friends, family members to make me out to look like I'm practically committing 'elder abuse/neglect'. Yet, I believe(and hope) the majority of those people can 'see right through her bitter tales, angst, & narcissism(she's loaded with this).

I can't clean house right either..all because I am not cleaning exactly as she would clean or using the very products she would. I don't even weed the garden every other day. just once a week or every two weeks, if that. She screams at me cause she sees 1 tiny weed that needs pulled out. Again, it's not the weed that is truly bothering her but the fact that she no longer has the strength to go weed her gardens anymore and she tries to use such angst aggressive behavior to get me to go out and do it right then and at that moment because she 'wants it done now'. when i first moved in i was on egg shells and jumped when she said to do something. I soon was so over stressed that i finally stopped doing that and began to say, I'll put it on a list and get to it when i have the time and strength myself. I had to because I'm not a healthy person in my middle aged years. I have fibromyalgia and have developed photosensitivity to sunlight. Mom now makes a list of things she would like done, be they small or large projects. A few things i refuse to do and have insisted to have my siblings come help. They protest in coming home because they think they should not have to do any work for mom since I am hear and can do it. True, but don't I deserve a break from doing 'everything'...that isn't really everything since mom is still mobile and can still do plenty as long as she paces herself daily with small routine projects. Such as, straightening her bedroom and her bathroom, dusting the kitchen wood floor(she insists doing it cause, again, the narcissism shows up about the way I clean floors and bathrooms.).

I am still learning and keep reminding myself that I will never be able to please her so I let it go and just let her do. Ever since I was a little girl she would dust and sweep the rooms even after I dusted and swept them. Things have not, nor will not change in regards to my mothers perfection addiction.

Bottom line is let your mother's vents and rants about your imperfections roll off you because she's at a stage of life that is very difficult to accept, adjust. One day you too may be blessed to reach 80-95/100. Remember the lessons you are now learning from your elderly parent and make note not to react that same way towards your own children as they will likely be taking care of you soon enough. I hope my incite into this matter helps you comprehend things and understand that you are doing the best you can and doing it well.

Bright Blessing to you and don't forget to take time for yourself and unwind/relax. You got this.

I'm wondering why you're preparing meals for your Mom if she is able to shop for Ramen noodles and get her own items for a meals. Aren't you just torturing yourself? My husband was in respite care recently where I joined him for meals sometimes. One patient was always first in the wheelchair line to get into the dining hall. Then she would wheel her chair up to the table and reverse her chair so her back was to the food. The staff would sweetly ask her again again if she wanted to take a bit, but she always refused. A second lady confided to me in her room that the food was bad and she was hungry. (I thought the food was very good, nutritious, attractive and abundant.) In the dining room I saw they had brought her about 8 different items to eat, but she complained about them all except a couple bites of sweet potatoes. When mealtime was over, all that food was untouched, and she was telling people she was hungry. She looked like she weighed about 90 pounds. All that bad behavior would drive me crazy as a caregiver. I noticed the AL staff was unemotional, kind and patient through all this.

Thank you all for your different perspectives on the matter. :)

Jocelyne: Your answer was right on point! Thank you!

LOL, really, with Dementia they get like children. You really don't want to be a slave to them. Like my husband says "she won't remember it tomorrow".

Today I told my mother we were having lasagna and salad for dinner. She wriggled her nose and said salad give her indigestion and she didn't like lasagna. I knew she used to like lasagna and, as far as I could tell, never had trouble with salads. So I told her that it was what we were having and that if she wanted anything else, it was okay with me if she made it.

She ate lasagna and salad and seemed totally content with it. I think she just needs to protest.

I think the first answer is Brilliant. Genius. Right on. My mom is 93, and that answer has just helped me relax totally about my mom's diet. Thank You, BlueCube!

Does she hold grudges against you and thus won't eat your food (kind of a childish behaviour), which is what they sometimes they revert to?

My dad is an old-fashioned meat and potatoes kind of guy. I remember Mom putting light Miracle Whip in a regular Miracle Whip jar because he wouldn't eat things that said "light." She ate healthy, he drank and smoked. She died at 61,of a fall caused traumatic brain injury, and he's alive at 83, though not too healthy. We cook healthy meals, but he eats little of that type of food. Rather than have him not eat, we cook what he likes, though trying to cook in a healthier style. We often eat different meals than him, with some overlap. He won't eat most veggies, salads and anything considered "healthy." It's not worth the battle and we do sneak in some healthy foods, like fish and asparagus, sweet potatoes, cooked spinach, etc. He loved butter and garlic so cooking some veggies in them helps.

Being old enough (74) to see this from the other side, a few comments: I eat very few veggies because they don't digest well for me and I don't need the results of that. I don't eat hardly any carbs because I keep my blood sugar under control without meds or insulin. I do an egg for breakfast, a fair amount of chicken, fish, and sausage-y things because they are easy to chew. (Beef isn't.) I do like soups an stews, don't add salt to things but don't make a fuss about salt. If something has to be sweetened, I prefer stevia (sucralose can mess up my digestion). Lots of yogurt and cheese, one of my favorite light meals is a bowl of original, unflavored, full-fat yogurt with cinnamon swirled into it, and maybe blueberries. Avocados are good. Nut butters, right off the spoon, watch the sugar content! I mix coconut oil and unsweetened powdered chocolate into almond butter, usually with cashew, sunflower or tahini mixed in. I don't worry about fats, because from what I've researched, fat in the diet is not related to fat in the arteries, and most oils and cholesterol meds are not good (had horrible side effects from statins). I'm 80 # under my top weight from 15 years ago and my weight and blood sugar are stable. I still work full time. I eat what my daughters cook for the most part, but avoid the rice, beans, chips, etc. Really thin flour tortillas make good sandwiches with less "bread". Most of us should be watching the carbs because the effects of high blood sugar are bad, and maintaining it with diet is safer than meds (this way it doesn't go too low too often.)

I find dementia/alzheimers people tend to sweets and carbs. I don't cook often. When I do, Mom eats what is there. She is fed more here than when she was on her own. That was our wake up call. She had dyhydrated herself and not eating. Even now, if Ididn't give her the food, she probably wouldn't eat. She thinks I feed her too much. She has cereal and toast at breakfast. Soup and roll or crackers for lunch and fruit if she wants. Then we usually eat out. She usually doesn't eat much. If she complains about a roll being too much, I tell her to just eat what inside.
I wouldn't worry about what they eat as long as they are. Maybe a vitamin justto make sure. Our parents don't have that much going on in their lives so let them eat what they want. If they were in a facility, they would eat what they wanted. They are not monitored unless on a special diet.

Well, it sounds terrible doesn't it? To admit that they might not live much longer so why bother with trying to feed them healthy? The emotions that I go through are so difficult. He is my dad. I love him. My husband and I are the only ones he has who do anything for him. But, his mind is very bad and like Bluecube said everyone else is dead. All dad's brothers and sisters (6), his two sons and his wife and mother in law. So, I feel it's up to me to do the right thing. Normally that would be to feed a person healthy so they can BE healthy but he is already unhealthy and at the end of life. So, why not just let him enjoy eating what he wants. Thanks Bluecube for your response.

Thanks for all of the input, guys.

Mids we have more than four meals here in UK if one were to be really pedantic. We have breakfast, Elevenses - which is usually coffee with a biscuit or something similar, luncheon which is a light snack, then afternoon tea at 3 that a cuppa and a cake or biscuit, then high tea somewhere around 4-5 which would be a salad or a cucumber sandwich (with crusts cut off of course - said in my best posh voice) then dinner which would in past time and still is to some extent the main meal of the day for many somewhen around 7-8 then supper which again would usually be a milky drink of some sort plus a light snack.

Now I follow this pattern with Mum and she doesn't even know it and that way I get lots of little meals into her. PS The rule of thumb for us should be Eat Breakfast Like a King, Lunch Like a Prince, and Dinner Like a Pauper which effectively means that from a standing start you needs lots of fuel in the body first thing and then you should reduce the amount as the day goes on but you all knew that anyway

As you can see - this is a common challenge. And what is it about sandwiches? That became one of my mom's favorites. I stopped stressing over it and fixed 'healthy' sandwiches. I mean - there's bread, meat, cheese... add tomato slices, sprouts and you've pretty much hit the food groups. A little soup on the side was good too - and easy. As she aged she opted for simple foods. If I prepared something too nice - she wouldn't touch it. Go figure.

Do they know what caused your mom's intestinal blockage? Is there some kind of liquid or pill she can take to keep her bowels active? Can you discuss it with her doctor and get some recommendation on how to keep her regular. Will she eat some prunes each day?

You say your mom suffers from dementia. I"m not sure what stage she is in, but I know that dementia patients are prone to have eating issues. For a while my cousin would not eat very much at all. In the next stage she would only eat sweets and junk. Now she heartily eats anything put before her, because she doesn't know the difference and likes all food. (She's in Memory Care.) So, your mom's food preferences may change on their own.

My focus in on keeping my cousin, who has advanced dementia, as happy as possible. She cannot recover from this disease. To me, the most important thing is for her to enjoy anything that she can enjoy within reason.

I think you may be frustrating yourself needlessly if you believe you can convince her to eat according to your desires. When reasoning and brain function are affected, your pleas, recommendations, and suggestions are not likely to help.

I would find a way to keep her unclogged with some supplement and allow her to eat her favorites. Maybe, I'm in the minority on this, but unless it's detrimental to her immediate health, I 'm not sure why eating a healthy diet is that important under the circumstances. It sounds like your work very hard to provide her with nice meals, but I don't think her refusal to eat them in any way reflects on you. Sometimes people who don't have dementia lose interest for healthful dishes. After a certain age, I think it's up to them.

Salisbury, you are right, and I am no longer going to lose a moment being frustrated. I will just 'suck it up' and go on about my day.
Bluecube, I agree with your food philosophy for the elderly, 'don't fret so'. Wise advice, very wise.

Eats something else? Yes!!! The fresh fruit is spoiling while he goes in search for old, old, almost spoiled food. Old enough that I would throw it away and not eat it.
So much for any benefit derived from his philosophy, 'first in, first out' in food service. Old bread, not even good for people needing a special diet.

Frustrated, so frustrated I was forgetting what I liked to eat. I cook less now.
I read a book titled: "Journal of Best Practices." The author was someone with Asperger's. He wrote that he appreciated it when his wife put his plate on the table with a cover, without nagging him to come to the table and eat.
Lonely and frustrated. I am someone who believes the family that eats together, stays together.

Bluecube, I like your perspective. Well said.

Jude--I wish you were cooking for me. Sheesh. I don't take that kind of care of my hubby!! You are amazing!! Also, out of sheer curiosity--is "tea" considered a small meal? Or a snack? We don't do that here in the states and it has always been a question in my mind. I know this makes me look ignorant, but I have never understood the concept of throwing together 4 meals a day...!