update on food...

[smudge54]

Hi

I did Mums food shop yesterday bought 5 meals to put in freezer to join the 1 she had there making 6 in total. she had one yesterday and one today, so therefore leaving 4..... on ho there was only 1 there today. Rang carers to see if they could shed some light on this and on remembered mums bin bag being fairly heavy and could i go and check her wheelie bin yes there they were all 3 missing meals defrosted still in their boxes.

I asked there advise and they came up with same as me....a lock on the freezer or meals on wheels, but with them you cannot guarantee what time they will come and alot of people like Mum like to eat at set times. She is unable to use microwave and meals on wheels once heated up cannot be reheated.

Any one else dealt with this??

 

[smudge54]

me again.

any good or bad experinces with meals on wheels?

 

[Lulabelle]

My mum has been having meals on wheels for about 3 months now and she is actually eating and enjoying them which amazes me as she has always been such a fussy eater. She doesn't always eat the pudding but, hey, at least she eats the main meal. They have a good variety and mum likes the ladies who deliver so it's all good so far.
I did buy her a new, very simple microwave just recently although I don't think she will need to use it (apart from the Saturday meal which is delivered frozen on the Friday - my brother takes her out to lunch on a Sunday) but the old one she had was an ancient dinosaur which was far too complicated to use and took up so much space on her kitchen worksurface.
I recommend you give it a try at least - it could just solve your problems, well, this one anyway.... Let's hope eh.
Lulabelle

 

[Christin]

Hello Smudge, I am sorry to read your post, this must be such a worry.

I am not sure how many times a carer calls for you mum, but is it possible to arrange for someone to be with her at her normal meal time, who could heat the meal and sit and eat with her. I'm sorry if this is a daft idea, I'm only thinking that this is what we had to do with my FIL. He had to eat with us, on his own he would forget, even if we left food out for him. Sometimes, on his own, he would feed the birds with sandwiches, or put them in the bin.

I'm sure others will be along soon, not all members are logged on at any one time.

Very best wishes to you x

 

[Michelle103]

Meels on wheels

Hello there i,m new to this but y Mother in law throws food away. We have tried different things. Our local village cafe delivers meals to my Mother in law 3 times per week at the same. Only once so far i have caught her throwing one away this was when i was working. I called after work to find the meal outside her back door. I know not every one has a cafe were they live but maybe you have. Just a thought. We have only been doing this for the last 6 weeks or so.

 

[Onlyme]

MIL thought that if she had more than one she had to give it away or get rid of it. We would buy meals for the carers to heat up, leave 2 in the fridge for the next two days and freeze any that might go out of date in a short time. The carer would come in to heat up lunch and find everything either thrown out or put in the freezer and rock solid.

 

[jackie ja]

At one time my mum was an excellent cook, now she is not even capable of using a microwave. Cooking was a major area of her life as its sad that she can no longer have that pleasure. In fact this was the area that first pointed us to the fact that she had memory problems.< microwave started up empty, rings on hob left on, oven left on with food burnt to a cinder, failing to boil water when making cups of tea/coffee>. Someone now has to prepare all her meals for her, its not an issue because she needs regular medication which she in unable administer to herself. I will try to get her to do some of the tasks but recently she doesn't even want to participate.

She will want the same meal day after day, and while we try to get her to have a balance diet it's not easy. Her switch from wanting one thing to wanting something else is like and on/off switch so there is no way of realistically planning and food does get wasted. She will look in her fridge and if there is something she decides she does like its straight in the kitchen bin.

Things we know she likes she will say she always hated, yet a week later this food will be her favourite. The kitchen bin has to be searched before it goes in the dustbin as apart from the wasted food everything from important post (Postbox now outside out of reach), glasses, hearing aids, watches, ornaments etc are likely to be in it.

This is a cruel disease which robs individuals of the most basic pleasures in life, hopefully a cure will be found soon.

 

[Big Effort]

Glad we are on the topic of food. Just this morning I posted about Dementied Breakfasts or similar title.

Mum was a food journalist, and like Jackie, it was her odd behaviour around food that forced me to face we weren't dealing with old age and a bit of forgetfulness here, but whole concepts that were vanishing. First coffee became "that stuff I drink", then she couldn't make tea for herself (too complicated). When this lark started, she would see, say parmesan or mozzarella, and ask us what on earth that was - not normal speak for a foodie.

Three years on, and I prepare all her meals. There are few foodstuffs she recognises. Fellow members suggested I simplify her meals, just one thing on her plate at a time, to see if she will settle down and eat that. Worked at breakfast. At lunch she was already asking to have a variety of stuff again. Right now she is shouting her head off because she wants a shower, and I refuse to give her one, or so she believes. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I have offered three times to help her shower. 'No thanks, it's too late!'.

Back to you Smudge. A couple of thoughts based upon my experiences of Mum. One Mum has no concept of time. So she eats (grazes) when hungry (which used to be almost all the time, without putting on weight I may add). I give her meals at meal times, and she eats those too. It is clear to me that time is the issue here, not eating habits, just she doesn't know what time it is, or when to eat.

Microwaves. One of the first skills Mum lost was the ability to use any technical gadget. As a journalist she lost the ability to do anything on her computer pretty rapidly. Now a seat belt is a struggle. Last month she lost the ability to use her phone. So even a simple microwave would be out of the question.

Meals on wheels would have worked a treat for Mum (except she had me), and would work because someone else is delivering the meal and determining the meal time. What would never have worked would have been prepackaged frozen meals, and then the whole microwave procedure.

Here she comes.... so ending now!

 

[PeggySmith]

I think it's always going to be an issue. MIL was a traditional cook and her Sunday "high teas" are a legend within the family. Sadly, she can no longer manage to cook anything and her tastes change from minute to minute - usually involving something she shouldn't really have.

She has her main meal at lunchtime and we have a carer coming in for half an hour. We have persuaded her to buy some "well known" frozen ready meals but she is really, really resistant to them. SIL is a professional cook and, when she has time, makes up packs of meat and gravy to go in the freezer. MIL can still prep veg with supervision so when I go round mid morning to make sure she has a drink and do her exercises with I help her with veg. I acquired a small steamer so potatoes and carrots go in the bottom and cabbage or broccoli in the top. I only do this twice a week as it's very time consuming. The carer microwaves the meat and cooks the veg. Once a week I get her cod bites and chips from the local (and very good) chippie and we each cook 1 meal a week and deliver it. BUT twice a week she has to have a ready meal

It's flipping hard work and I've noticed over the last week that the green veg go into the bin!