Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

That old people deserve nice food.

153 replies

sweethope · 09/09/2018 23:13

This photo was took by a relative of someone in a care home for the elderly of a meal given today.. Aibu to say old people much better than that.

That old people deserve nice food.
OP posts:
avamiah · 10/09/2018 00:18

Lockheart,
I agree with you.
My mum is 81, 82 next month and she has been living with me since she broke her hip 7 years ago .
I cook my mum everything from cheese on toast to grilled seabass with veg and mashed potatoes but sometimes she doesn’t feel like much and she asks me to make her a hard boiled egg( peeled ) and a slice of white toast .
If I posted a picture of that it would look pretty bland but she likes it and eats it and that’s the main thing .

avamiah · 10/09/2018 00:20

BackforGood,
👍👍

Pigeonpost · 10/09/2018 00:27

Totally agree and the home my grandmother is in serves the most amazing food. Trouble is, she won't eat it. She's got most of her marbles but is just fussy and likes what she likes and wouldn't give a shiny shit whether what she's eating is nutritionally balanced or not. Nor would I at 92! Obviously I don't know the precise circumstances that photo was taken in and I accept that not all residential homes are equal in the kitchen department but you just can't draw an accurate conclusion from a one-off photo like that.

Lockheart · 10/09/2018 00:28

avamiah

Exactly - sometimes you have to work within people's limits. And sometimes those limits can be very narrow. My grandma loves fish and chips / cut up sausages and chips. Chips don't need a lot of teeth to handle and they're full of carbohydrates and fat for energy, and have some fibre too. Not as messy as mashed potato either; she can feed herself chips even though she can't use cutlery. Might not be the healthiest diet in the world, but at 94 with myriad health problems I think regular chips are the least of her worries.

The home she's in is lovely and does offer her other things, but she will rarely eat them, even with assistance.

Honestly the only thing my grandma will eat without complaint or hesitation (and apparently without limit) is liqueur chocolates. And given her grasp on reality is already tenuous, feeding her a plate of those every day is not advisable! Grin She'd love it though.

9amtrain · 10/09/2018 00:35

With garden peas and grilled tomatoes? Yum !

There are no peas or tomatoes, so your point is what?

avamiah · 10/09/2018 00:37

Lockheart,
Yes my mum loves fish and chips as well but with mushy peas.
And OP’s picture of ham and chips, well my mum would love that but with a fried egg on.lol

boydoggies · 10/09/2018 00:37

That portion would be plenty big enough for my 96year old nan. Plus, she prefers custard creams and Tia Maria! No judgement from me based on a single picture.

avamiah · 10/09/2018 00:39

boydoggies,
😊😊👍

Stillme1 · 10/09/2018 00:43

I had an elderly relative in the long stay elderly ward of a hospital. This person was fully aware, no problems with brain power. I arrived for a visit and there was a plate of food on the table which had not been eaten. The staff claimed that the elderly relative ordered that meal. There are few things the old person will not eat but this was a plate of the most hated meal ever. I did ask why this meal was given to the patient and it was repeated that this was the meal ordered. I KNOW for absolute certainty that this meal would never be ordered. It made me wonder what the staff think they are doing. Are they trying to confuse a patient or do they think they can treat all the patients as if they don't know their own mind?
Luckily I was there to speak up and not accept the lies told.

sweethope · 10/09/2018 00:50

Look how unappetising those chips look. If a cafe served chips like that there'd be complaints I bet.

OP posts:
NewtScamandersNaughtyNiffler · 10/09/2018 00:53

Another one adding to the "we don't know the full picture" side.

I work in a care home. Quite a few of my residents decline vegetables every single meal time. Including the gentleman who recently turned 102.

avamiah · 10/09/2018 00:58

sweethope,
We are not talking about a cafe.

ReanimatedSGB · 10/09/2018 01:01

Meh. Without any back story, this could be some wanker trying to make a fuss about nothing. Some older people would enjoy that but be appalled if offered a plate of kale and quinoa. Some wouldn't fancy it. Not possible to know - and it's not like someone's raging that Great Great Grandma was served a plate of ratshit and spew.

avamiah · 10/09/2018 01:09

ReanimatedSGB,
What exactly is kale ??

claireblueskies · 10/09/2018 01:19

@avamiah Kale is to hipsters what spinach is to Popeye.

theworldistoosmall · 10/09/2018 01:26

I love crunchy crispy chips. I would be asking the cafe people if they could always serve me them. Oh wait I have found a place that do them like that for me. (I know it’s not a cafe in the op, responding to the person who mentioned it)

avamiah · 10/09/2018 01:31

claireblueskies,
Haha , thanks, I had spinach last night, “sag prawn”,with chilli and garlic .

sweethope · 10/09/2018 01:42

Like I said, a cafe wouldn't get away with chips like that, nether should a care home. Both getting paid for a service. There's clearly a lack of care/indifference.

OP posts:
buttermilkwaffles · 10/09/2018 01:46

There would be a fucking riot if they served that in prison!!

I watched a documentary comparing prisons in Norway and the US. In the US prison the meal was soup, hotdog, coleslaw. Most prisoners refused the soup and the coleslaw, so their evening meal was just a hotdog (just a roll and a sausage, no condiments or onions or any extras).

Documentary is here if anyone is interested:

Aintnothingbutaheartache · 10/09/2018 01:48

That is an absolute effing disgrace! That shouldn’t be served to anyone.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners · 10/09/2018 01:49

The food at our local hospital is actually quite good, when DH was an inpatient recently they were trialling their autumn menu and I got to be a guinea pig in return for giving feedback. The shepherd's pie was really good in particular.

I agree with the OP though, it makes me sad. I used to work for an elder care charity who sent their head chefs to train at the Dorchester and had an excellent standard of food for the residents. When my great aunt was in a care home at the end of her life, she refused all hot food unless it was prepared by my mum and brought in, because the quality was so poor. She existed on complan, cake and yogurts if my mum couldn't take her a meal.

mylaptopismylapdog · 10/09/2018 02:06

Not on at all, older people need food that makes them want to eat it needs to look good and be tasty. Oliveander84 you sound like my Mum who was a nurse during WW2 and a very good cook. You may have no patience but your instincts seem spot on.

mylaptopismylapdog · 10/09/2018 02:39

Should have added my Mum later worked as a cook in a care home where her food was really appreciated by the clients.

Buswankeress · 10/09/2018 04:47

I'm not going to judge on the strength of one picture what's going on, I've worked in residential, nursing and EMI homes and have had residents that would have the same meal day in, day out, even Christmas day. One was a sausage, spoon of mash and a spoon of gravy - no veg, and she has that every day. Did it look appetising? Nope, was it nutritionally balanced? Nope, did she have the right to do that? Absolutely! It's what she wanted, and it's what she got. We got shit off her family, the doctor and the home manager because of it - they all wanted her to have a better diet, so did we, but she didn't want to. I'm not going to force the issue. And the home that was in did very good food, all freshly bought and cooked with the residents involved as much as they wanted to be, I used to eat better there than in some cafés!

But I think many people are missing the bigger picture as they do with anything to do with care homes. They're run as a business, to make a profit, and some are more bothered about profit than anything else. They take in a fortune in fees, most staff are min wage with no benefit package. And in any business to make profit, you streamline costs, and that includes food.

Did you know that most care homes fund raise so their residents can have activities? It's not 'included' in the price they pay for the home, the lucky homes have an employed activities coordinator, who fund raises and plans activities full time. The unlucky ones have care staff trying to find 5 minutes to walk someone round the garden or paint someone's nails. I was really shocked in my first home when even basic stuff wasn't covered without fund raising, and us as staff were expected to volunteer time on trips and the like so they could go ahead.

I personally think that any business offering care to vulnerable people should have profit capped somehow, so that they are forced into putting the money where it should be, caring for the people who are paying and not in the business mans pocket.

5Yearplan4000 · 10/09/2018 05:03

Hospital and care home food in the uk is almost uniformly an absolute disgrace - there’s no other way to describe it - I’ve literally seen dog food which is more appetising - and it shames a supposedly wealthy country like ours that this is seen in any way appropriate. Treating food as an afterthought rather than as a fundamental to care, or sickness rehabilitation, is absolutely crazy. Is this our culture, resources or the way we organise ourselves. Whichever it is, something is badly wrong when people go into homes for respite care or hospitals for treatment and rehab and come out half starved.