Help needed

[JAMSAX]

Mum has unspecified dementia and lives in a supportive living environment. We see her a couple of times a week and she comes to us for her dinner one night a week and this is the area I’m struggling with. I work from home full time and make a concerted effort to prepare and cook a nutritious meal and dessert every week but it’s becoming harder to know what to cook that she will eat.

I normally cook meals that she herself would have made (meat and two veg traditional food) but she is now pushing them away, I know she can’t help it but I want to scream that I’ve cooked with love and whilst working so please eat. What other types of food can I try? I don’t want to just give her chips and chicken nuggets which is now what she gets at her supportive living place.
cooking is my love language (that and doing all her admin) but I’m struggling

 

[Mumlikesflowers]

That sounds very demoralising. Why do you think she is doing that? Is it low mood, low appetite, upset stomach, that she ate a ton of chocolate before she got to yours? Does she eat the chicken nuggets and chips? Has she lost weight? Does she need a smaller portion size so as not to feel intimidated? I used to get Mum some M&S mini meals but I think they might have stopped doing them. But you can get kiddie meals in the supermarket. I know you don't want to give ready meals but they would allow you to work out what appeals before you slave away. Or get the Wiltshire Farm Foods catalogue and look at the pictures together and would she say yes I like cottage pie if she saw it in a picture, just as detective work, rather than buying Wiltshire Farm Foods, which I'm sure are great for people living on their own, but not if you're going for a proper effort, with fresh veg 'n all.

 

[JAMSAX]

Mum has M&S ready meals during the week, as part of a varied shop that my husband does with her, the chicken nuggets is a new thing as the ladies she lives with have them and they all eat together.
if we take her out she eats well, if we have fish and chips they are gone, just the last few weeks she just pushes stuff round her plate.
we did ask what she’d like for dinner but she was unable to say and if we show her pictures and prompt we just get, what’s that?

 

[SAP]

If she wants, likes and will eat chicken nuggets and chips then I would stick to that. Dementia changes tastes and long standing food habits. It is still loving to give her what she likes and have a family time that does not waste your time, energy and emotions. Time may come when she can’t eat solid food at all so enjoy this while you can. Sometimes we all have to take the path of least resistance. You are already doing so much and showing a lot of love by visiting her and having her over for family time.

 

[Andbreathe]

Bizzarely, my mum seems to want beans on toast a lot at the moment, but at least they are nutritious.