High calorie meal/shake recommendations

[Flora73]

My Mum is very poorly with progressive lung disease caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis. We are trying to build up her calorie intake to try and get her home. Are there any recommendations? She can’t intake much volume so we need maximum calorie and nutrition with the lowest volume.

thank you!

I bought some meal replacement drinks for mum in the pharmacy - quite expensive for a small pot, but she drank them ok. Then we found out they had them in the hospital anyway, but no-one was sufficiently concerned about her food intake to prescribe them.

Trying to remember the name now. Possibly something like Ensure?

Ensure and Fortisip both come in quite small portions, and tend to be the ones docs prescribe.

If she's able to eat as well as drink, Huel bars would add some variety of flavour and texture.

Ensure is what the dietitian has prescribed DM. I have seen it on sale in Sainsbury’s if you want to try it. It didn’t take long for DMs referral to go through. Just can’t remember if it was the specialist or GP who referred her.
Edited to add that she is struggling to eat at all due to cancer and dementia.

Get her referred to a dietitian. They can prescribe supplement drinks, soups and desserts.

In the meantime mix milk powder in with full fat milk for milky drinks and sauces. Use butter instead of margarine and cream as much as possible. No diet or low sugar drinks, yoghurts etc - go for the full sugar / fat varieties.

Go for little and often snacks rather than full meals - nuts, cheese etc are great.

Thank you all for replying. She struggles to eat or drink anything really. Tiny sips of water and a few orange segments plus a kids fromage frais was all she ate today. It’s bloody hard.

Fortified compact give the most calories per ml and are the most palatable. Ask your GP to prescribe.

We used Aymes Milkshakes, you can choose different calorie strengths, i think from memory they were around 150 ml to 200ml and went from about 300kcal to 480kcal. We used the premade ones , but they do do powder you mix yourself ( we got some of these and used in summer mixed in to flavor ice cream.
They also do soups.
We used Express Chemist as found them to be cheaper than the likes of amazon.

I feel for you, i felt like i was going crazy trying to get mum to eat, and worried about everything. One thing the doctor said is sometimes you need to prioritize calories rather than vegetables ect, so one thing mum could take a fancy for was a chocolate mini roll heated in the microwave with a few tablespoons of custard in it

With my mum I used to buy SlimFast cafe latte milkshakes and add double cream and/or ice cream and serve in a nice glass with a straw etc.

She liked the flavour even though she hated the taste of all the other meal replacements we tried. It also made her feel like she’d gone to a cafe for a treat rather than it was illness related thing.

Huel - my dh likes these, and available in most supermarkets.

Ensure compact are great. Very expensive but it's a total meal in 125mls. And tasty.

If they can take soup then something like chicken and veg with barley, but blended really smooth/thin.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the responses. They won’t let her home until she’s eating more. Today she has had half a pot of jelly.

How about chia pudding?

This is the recipe I use for chocolate peanut butter chia pudding. It's delicious as well as being filling and nutritious. It makes two largish portions but could easily be scaled down.

Ingredients:
1 cup dairy free milk of your choice 240 ml
¼ cup chia seeds
40 grams 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons peanut butter or almond butter
1-2 tablespoon sweetener of your choice, maple syrup, honey, agave etc

Nutrition information:
Calories: 264 Saturated Fat: 2g Sodium: 241mg Carbohydrates: 23g Fiber: 11g Sugar: 7g Protein: 9g

You just combine everything with a whisk and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

I recently made a curry for a friend who needed calories and had low appetite. I made it with lots of coconut cream and it worked out pretty calorific per small portion.

for my gran, we offered her very small portions often. Sometimes she only ate a spoon or two… so we made sure to get full fat everything.

of she is struggling with getting enough liquids jelly is brilliant. I made my gran many tiny trifles with jelly, full cream custard and whipped full fat cream… she had a sweet tooth and these went down a treat!

My 18yo dd has these prescribed as she has a bowel condition. Sometimes she is tube fed but when she isn't she has to have supplements.
She been through them all, some are not so nice but she prefers the thicker pudding type ones, Ensure Plus Creme. They would be maybe a little larger than a kids fromage frais so might be a replacement for that?
She will also have Fortisip in vanilla or chocolate flavour as she found the fruit ones tasted weird. She has to have two portions a day so I'm pleased we have found something.
If a dietician can prescribe them the cost won't be so bad.
Good luck x