Obsession with buying food

MrsMoose

Registered User
Oct 1, 2014
169
0
Unfortunately my father in law is fixated on feta cheese. We have tried diverting him to Cheddar, but with no success. Feta goes off particularly quickly. He'll often open the packet, eat a small slice then leave it in the fridge till it goes rank. (Though of course he claims it is perfectly good still...)
 

JayGun

Registered User
Jun 24, 2013
291
0
Funny but my mum used to be like this but for the last couple of weeks has been quite the opposite. Now I can't get her to buy food when I take her shopping she'll pick up a couple of items (usually biscuits, ready made triffle and chocolate!) and say she's got more than enough in the fridge ("I've got eggs and bacon" - she hasn't!) and refuses to get anything else. As a result, I'm now buying food for her everyday and "finding it" in her fridge when I visit at mealtimes. Mind you, we still have 5 block of cheese mouldering nicely in her fridge. :eek:

This is my MIL apart from the cheese.
 

Kevinl

Registered User
Aug 24, 2013
5,937
0
Salford
Taking Mum's cupboard doors off was a revelation to me...and to her. She didn't turn a hair at being able to see directly in all the cupboards at once and was actually comforted to know how well stocked up she was. Doesn't work for the fridge through. :/

If that is too much to consider, maybe some of the contacts of the cupboards could be left out on the counters...?

You beat me to it, I did the same thing took the doors off the high level cupboards where my mum kept her food so she could see it all, it made it look like a corner shop but it worked. I do remember counting 17 cans of tuna and enough cans of stewed beef to make a new cow with. I got her to used things out of the freezer then put some loaves of bread in place of the chickens and pies and things, as long as the freezer was full of something she was happy.
K
 

jugglingmum

Registered User
Jan 5, 2014
7,076
0
Chester
So much on this thread resonates. It explains some things I unearthed clearing my mum's house, and I've found reading it really helpful to just know others have struggled with this too.

Some of the things mentioned I sort of do - in her fridge I know if food is not at the front of shelf she just doesn't see it. Think I need to review how all of her food is stored.

When clearing her house I have found enough loo roll to fill the bath fully heaped up! (We just chucked it there as a sorting method.) There were lots and lots of things she had compulsively shopped for, food and other things - although I think she kept losing things explained some purchases.

Biscuits and chocolate feature very highly in the scale of food I have found.
 

FozzyC

Registered User
Aug 3, 2014
53
0
Staffordshire
Oh so familiar!

I've got butcher on side, had a private word. Now all dad buys is labelled with the date in permanent marker. Dad buys sausage weekly so with five undated packs in freezer how are we, or indeed he, supposed to know what's fresh? Helpfully the butcher now tries to trim back what dad buys saying there'll be some nicer stuff in next week.

We actually counted fifty eggs in the fridge. He has a thing for blocks of cheese, sliced ham, black pudding and pork scratchings, in industrial quantity!

I used to throw stuff in their bin but dad's suspicious of me and I've actually found food that's been fished out of the wheelie bin and put in the freezer! There was beef kidney in freezer from 2013 so I asked mom and she said throw it, two days later and dad has fetched the kidney and some brown grotty runner beans out of bin and froze them....yuk! I'm getting sneakier. If I take anything out now I fill gap with cans of lager or whatever, I throw waste over the gate and put in my car as I leave so it cannot be retrieved from the bin. I buy fresher substitutes and swap them so he doesn't see anything missing. It's definitely a learning curve!
 

Chook

Registered User
Jun 14, 2013
238
0
Westcountry
I was going to say what DazeInOurLives said, about taking the cupboard doors off. They begin to forget what are behind closed doors so things that are in the cupboards or wardrobes get forgotten.

We took all of mum's cupboard doors off and that helped a bit. There are these kind of fridges out there http://www.pinterest.com/pin/398357529512780439/, I'm not sure if that would help? Or would it confuse because it doesn't look like a fridge?

My mum would wait until she got hungry and then go out to the shops, buy the same things, stop in the coffee shop for a bun and then come home. So the shopping was a response to hunger. Do you think she would accept Wiltshire Foods coming around daily? So she didn't have to worry?

Good luck, it's such a worry isn't it.

Chook x
 

sunny beach hut

Registered User
Jul 1, 2014
14
0
Sorry everyone it's taken a while to reply to your kind advice and comments. Having trouble on my phone replying indivi so hope you all see this. I'll try your advice and will keep looking on here!
 

Champers

Registered User
Jan 3, 2019
239
0
I was interested to come across this old thread. Having just about sorted MIL and a care home, my own mother with early onset Alzheimer’s, is starting to be more of an issue.

I’ve just taken yet another regular anxious phone call from her telling me she MUST go shopping as she hasn’t got anything to eat in the house. I live a couple of hours away but visit regularly. She has meals on wheels daily plus I arrange to have her basic fresh food delivered by her milkman. I used to do a weekly supermarket order but ended up binning most of it when I visited as she hadn’t eaten it. She’s obsessed with needing to go but I know she has more than enough in the house. She tells me daily that she is going to walk to the shops, luckily they are some distance away, but she has no cash or cards as she kept putting them “somewhere safe” and as I have an LPA, I took charge of them. To deflect, I’ve suggested she checks her cupboards, makes a list and next time I’m up I’ll take her, which seemed to pacify her but it’s incredibly wearing thinking of reasons to dissuade her. I could scream!

I see that someone on this thread talked about taking the cupboard doors off so their PWD could see exactly what food they actually had!

Anyone else experienced this and got any successful tips? Many thanks.
 

Trekker

Registered User
Jun 18, 2019
211
0
London
Hi everyone - I'm new to talking point and hope one of you may be able to either give advice or commiserate!
My mum is in the early stages of alzheimer's (diagnosed approx 7 months ago). She lives alone and has an obsession thinking she doesn't have enough food in the house. This is despite her having cupboards and freezer/fridge full of food. THis causes friends and relatives problems when she calls them saying she doesn't have food.
My reminders to her when I speak to her are met with resistance. I gently ask her to look in the fridge or cupboards but she won't listen. Is this usual or does anyone have advice please.
It may sound trivial having seen some other problems on here but it causes friction between us and I don't want that.
This is a big problem with my mum and has been for years. She is convinced she shops and cooks from scratch- she can’t and hasn’t for a long time- and gets very annoyed that I bring food. Also v annoyed I no longer take her shopping.this doesn’t work for many reasons- she only wants to buy raw meat, doesn’t like me directing her to appropriate things ( apparently I want to control her household), can’t walk round supermarket, gets fed up if in wheelchair, screams abuse at me as we walk round etc. she also puts everything from fridge, including puddings, into freezer and then says fridge is empty.
 

Donkeyshere

Registered User
May 25, 2016
530
0
outside UK
My Mum in law has an obsession not with food but our cat! She live in an annex with us and insists that she gets up to let the cat in and out about 20 times a day as it cant possibly jump over the gate to get in (funny it can when the dog chases it!) She panics when it stays out at night and insists its in our house before she goes to bed. Having said that the cat doesn't care and at least she has company as apparently, we no longer talk to her! Had to have words with her though as she kept buying cat treats and we couldn't work out why it was putting on weight when it had its normal food - funny that as she was quite sure she did give him treats (yet she had 10 bag in the cupboard!) Going back to the food, keep an eye on the microwave, we do a check once a week as we often find bowls of things "growing" dubious amounts of fur!
 

Rosettastone57

Registered User
Oct 27, 2016
1,837
0
I was interested to come across this old thread. Having just about sorted MIL and a care home, my own mother with early onset Alzheimer’s, is starting to be more of an issue.

I’ve just taken yet another regular anxious phone call from her telling me she MUST go shopping as she hasn’t got anything to eat in the house. I live a couple of hours away but visit regularly. She has meals on wheels daily plus I arrange to have her basic fresh food delivered by her milkman. I used to do a weekly supermarket order but ended up binning most of it when I visited as she hadn’t eaten it. She’s obsessed with needing to go but I know she has more than enough in the house. She tells me daily that she is going to walk to the shops, luckily they are some distance away, but she has no cash or cards as she kept putting them “somewhere safe” and as I have an LPA, I took charge of them. To deflect, I’ve suggested she checks her cupboards, makes a list and next time I’m up I’ll take her, which seemed to pacify her but it’s incredibly wearing thinking of reasons to dissuade her. I could scream!

I see that someone on this thread talked about taking the cupboard doors off so their PWD could see exactly what food they actually had!

Anyone else experienced this and got any successful tips? Many thanks.
This thread reminded me of my mother-in-law's obsession with buying cooked meat from her local supermarket. In her early stages of dementia, I used to take her shopping. When we got to the delicatessen counter, she would insist that the assistant sliced the ham in a certain way. The assistant was always bemused, but if mother-in-law thought it hadn't been done as she asked, she would refuse to take it and put it in the basket. Eventually she lost mobility, so I took over,not before time
 

Champers

Registered User
Jan 3, 2019
239
0
My Mum in law has an obsession not with food but our cat! She live in an annex with us and insists that she gets up to let the cat in and out about 20 times a day as it cant possibly jump over the gate to get in (funny it can when the dog chases it!) She panics when it stays out at night and insists its in our house before she goes to bed. Having said that the cat doesn't care and at least she has company as apparently, we no longer talk to her! Had to have words with her though as she kept buying cat treats and we couldn't work out why it was putting on weight when it had its normal food - funny that as she was quite sure she did give him treats (yet she had 10 bag in the cupboard!) Going back to the food, keep an eye on the microwave, we do a check once a week as we often find bowls of things "growing" dubious amounts of fur!

Actually, that’s quite interesting. Mother does have a cat which, to be fair, she looks after very well and it seems to give her focus. However, one of her shopping obsessions is cat food. Whenever I go to visit, I always bring one of those big boxes of 40 sachets which last ages. When I was there last week, she still had an unopened box plus some remaining, so in total around 100 sachets!

When I took the regular frantic call today about needing to go shopping, the first thing was that she had nothing in the house for the cat to eat! When I gently reminded her about the boxes I’d seen, she said she thought I’d bought them for my cats. When I live a couple of hours away, I’m not quite sure why I would have brought my cats’ food to store at her house?

And marmalade. four jars of marmalade in the fridge, six jars of marmalade in the kitchen, six jars in the dining room sideboard. Apart from cat food, it’s her second most requested shopping item.
 

CardiffGirlInEssex

Registered User
Oct 6, 2018
356
0
It’s a relief in a way to read these experiences. My mother has been buying all kinds of stuff for some years, having fallen for the “you have definitely won a big cash prize “ scams operated by a number of wicked companies. That has now eased off, Dad filters the mail quite effectively and the installation of a call screening phone means all the computerised reminder calls don’t come through any more. But she has spent £’000s over the last five or six years. She had mountains of completely unsuitable mail order clothes, a few weeks ago she wanted to go through them all and get rid of all the ones she didn’t like. I did this with her, took loads to the charity shop, she still had a cupboard full of unworn clothes. My parting words on that visit were, “you don’t need to buy any new trousers or jeans, you’ve got enough new pairs in there to wear a new one every day for a week.” What did I find last week? Another new mail order delivery, black trousers because she doesn’t have anything to wear. Apart of course from the four unworn pairs hanging in the cupboard!! Also she stockpiles bath towels, and is constantly complaining that my dad is ‘running down the food stocks’ despite two freezers full of food, a big fridge also usually full (yes I do check it and remove out of date things), and a cupboard groaning with tins of veg, soup etc. It seems this is more common than I thought.
 

Baker17

Registered User
Mar 9, 2016
3,363
0
My mother was obsessed with buying toilet rolls, in fact after she died my dad never needed to buy any for years, nothing could stop her all my persuasion was to no avail so just had to go along with, one thing though at least they don’t come with a use by date!
 

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