Care home food

My hospital stay was a few years ago. The food was awful. One day I ordered cornflakes for breakfast. It was sent up with the milk already on it. A soggy mess. Why would they do that?

Best wishes Bijou for a relief from your pain and some better food. I volunteer at a large NHS hospital and hear a lot of comments from patients about food. I totally agree it should be healthy where possible, but it is very hard to cater for everyone. Maybe your rehab care home is smaller and it should be easier to prepare something more individual. Certainly there is no excuse for lack of fresh fruit, particularly in July. Do you have anyone who can bring fruit in for you? I do think when you are not feeling well its particularly important to have tempting, healthy food to brighten the days. Having said all that, at least three quarters of the patients I see, of all ages, voluntarily choose sweeties, crisps, chocolate and biscuits over fruit and healthy options. The argument is that their life is currently unpleasant and it cheers them up. Recently we replaced all our fried crisps with baked ones on health grounds, resulting in negative comments from almost everyone and a refusal to part with 79p for 'horrible' crisps.

Oh dear - sorry, typo!!

Bijou

Oh dear Bigjou, I'm sorry to hear that you are not being cared for properly - surely the idea of a care home is that you should receive the care you need? ie your medication on time and good food to enable you to get better asap.

Do you have any family or friends who could bring you some nicer food in - my friend did this when I was in hospital and the food was appalling. It was just ready-prepared tubs of fruit etc, but very welcome indeed.

And they need to give you your meds regularly.

Best wishes

Bijou please challenge your caregivers in the home. If your medication has been prescribed four hourly then insist upon it - you should not have to ask, but if the carers are not doing their job properly they need to be challenged. You most definitely should not be allowed to suffer needlessly. In the home I visit pain relief is always regarded as a priority; as it should be!

Some years ago my uncle was admitted to hospital suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, despite the effort of every one around him, to encourage him to eat and drink. When I visited him the following day, as I walked into the ward the nurse by his bed said to me in an aggressive tone. 'He won't eat anything'.

Beside him on the bed table was a large plate of steak
pie, boiled carrots and boiled potatoes, with a dark brown gravy on it that could have been picked up in one piece, and rhubarb pie and custard, with a similar consistency to the gravy. I turned round to the nurse and said ' If I was in his situation, I wouldn't eat it either'. The look of shock on her face was a pleasure to see.

Next time I visited he had been moved to the mental health ward, where they were encouraging him, successfully, to drink those high protein/calorie drinks, even if only in tiny sips.

In any case, traditional food doesn't have to be stodgy. The sponge puddings at my mother's CH certainly weren't. However in general they do have do be easy to eat.

There was a trad roast option at my mother's CH every Sunday lunch. I was once cutting up her roast pork for her - i've never known any meat so tender! It cut like butter. I asked the chef later how he managed it - a steam oven.
The kitchen also provided home made fairy cakes, with variations, every tea time.
Personally I thought the food was excellent.

Because a lot of them needed encouragement to drink enough, they were all offered several small glasses of weak squash every day. I once heard a visitor piously complaining that it was wrong to give them squash - plain water would be healthier.
She didn't seem to grasp the fact that many of them - my mother included - just wouldn't drink plain water.

Oh dear Bijou, I hope you get home soon, back to the food you want to eat. You are not a moaner, just feeling a bit helpless I think, having to take what you are given, so to speak. Very frustrating for you! Would a home made cake and a cup of tea help?

There are lots of causes of constipation - diet being one of them. There is also lack of mobility, dehydration and, as has been said, opiate drugs.

P.S. the food in the hospital was very good. Healthy and plenty of choice.

The problem is that I have always prepared my own food right up to the day I went into hospital. Healthy food. Salads, fresh fruit. Oily fish. No fried food, sausages, sweet cakes., cream. Etc. I know a lot of older people like stodgy food and many people I know a lot younger than me suffer from diabetes and other complaints. My only problem has been osteoarthritis and lastly this anal cancer. The reason I am in this care home is the pain from slight fracture at the base of spine caused by radiotheraphy. They wait until I am in agony before giving relief instead of every four hours as prescribed by the hospital.
Sorry if you think I am a moaner but I know my own body.

I'm smiling as I read some of these posts and thinking of the residents I work with. Many of them are forgetful and have dementia in some measure and there are always one or two who are not so agile or sharp of mind, but overall they are still the people they have always been; funny, sharp witted, caustic, kind, opinionated, shy, confident........in short, just like you and me. Perhaps the care home I visit is exceptional, though I doubt it, but I see residents treated with respect and receiving a service that is the best it could possibly be. None of the staff would be happy to serve inadequate food and most certainly the residents would not stand for it.
I understand and accept that hospitals are an entirely different matter.

Once, when I had to stay over in hospital after the anaesthetic for a 'day care' procedure had made me sick, I was presented with what they claimed was cauliflower-pasta bake and I could not tell which was cauliflower and which was pasta. Not that it mattered, the whole thing was disgusting. That was the veggie option!

Good to hear from you Bijou but sorry to hear about the meals.
Could you ask a friend or relative to bring in some fresh fruit or salad for you?
If that's allowed.

I find it quite patronising to say that all of us elderly people prefer stodge.
I'm sure that like everyone we like a mixture of food, I wouldn't want salad every day but then I wouldn't want chips on a daily basis either.
I agree with you Witzend people are entitled to make their own choices even if we don't think they are the right ones.

"Let them eat whatever they prefer" is the significant argument in bijou 's OP. Because the policy is to provide soft stodge, her requirements aren't being met and she's entitled to object!

Sorry to hear you aren’t happy with the food bijou Is it worth asking for something a little more to your taste?
Good luck and hope you are back home soon.

Constipation is rarely caused by diet

Can’t believe someone actually posted that comment!

I also agree that if they want to 'eat cake' then let them.. Older people in a care setting have very little to look forward to but their food, so let them eat what ever they prefer.

JustaLaugh, I quite agree that elderly people should be able to eat what they like. My mother's care home provided a lot of very well cooked 'traditional' food - because that was what most of them liked - and more importantly, would actually eat.

Though I did have a bit of an issue one day with one of the staff - the only one I never took to - who was offering my mother a choice of sandwiches - white or brown bread - and then told her when she chose white that she should have brown, 'because it's healthier'.

As I told the staff member - more politely than I'm putting it here! - at over 90 my mother was entitled to eat whatever the hell she liked.

If it’s stodgy then it’s soft and easy to chew, so no need to mash it up for the older residents who have problem remembering to put their dentures in.

It may be rare sparkly but I am sure that a stodgy carb-laden diet with no fresh fruit and veg contributed to the problem. Once home, same pain med's but decent healthy food and the problem disappeared!

The food is the one thing that puts me in dread of ever going into care.

I have been responsible for two relatives in care and the quality of the cooking and preparation of food was excellent in both their care homes, but the range of foods was so limited. Just good steady middle-of- the-road Englishy cuisine, with the occasional very mild curry or spaghetti bolognaise. All the bread was factory made.

I love food. I am constantly trying new recipes, new combinations of foods, I am fussy about the origins of any meat I eat and I buy a lot of my food from farm shops. I just dread the restricted menus of a care home.

But - do the residents like it? Elderly people usually like "stodgy" food such as puddings and cake. I have to say that when a person reaches a certain age/state, I think they've earned the right to have whatever they like. Many elderly people take Calcichew or some type of vitamin supplement.

I'm the Manager of a day centre for elderly people, and we provide a freshly-cooked lunch and dessert, but they only seem to want sausage and mash, pie and chips, fish and chips, and other types of comfort food (we ASK them what they would like each week). It's the same with raffle prizes - I was buying punnets of strawberries, bunches of bananas, even tins of fruit and soup. They complained and said they only want sweets and chocolate!

My dad was in a fabulous small care home for a while where everything was home cooked - down to the biscuits. Pets were allowed too. It was a real home and dad thoroughly enjoyed being there and it was obvious that other residents did too. Then the council did an inspection and found the doorways did not meet the width standard and the owner manager had had enough of interference from previous visits and gave it up. We were all very sad needless to say. He was moved to a 'proper' much larger care home and died not long after.