Caregiving: Elderly Eating Healthy

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Thanksgiving dinners were yummy, the leftovers were great, but now we’ve gone beyond the point of no return.

Per Mayo Clinic, 3-4 days is the longest we should be eating leftovers. After that, they need to be trashed! And as caregivers for elderly parents and/or other elderly friends and relatives, it is important for us to supervise our loved ones’ refrigerators all year long, not just at holiday time.  This is vital to ensure our beloved elderly eating healthy to stay healthy.

I used to help my sweet neighbor by grocery shopping for her after her husband died. Each week I would buy plenty of meat, vegetables and other healthy food for her. A year or so later, when she became ill, I helped her by doing some tidying in the house. To my dismay I discovered that a majority of that food was still in the refrigerator and freezer. Most of it was inedible. Talk about the opposite example of elderly eating healthy! As you can imagine, I was completely floored that this special person in my life was not eating safely or healthily after all. I learned from that experience to monitor what goes out of the refrigerator as much as what goes in!

Another prime example of a sweet elderly eating healthy – NOT! Years later, I was visiting another neighbor who was also widowed. She invited me to share a special treat she had received. She took me to the refrigerator and proudly showed off a dessert that must have been over two weeks old and looked it! Needless to say, I did not share it with her and, with my encouragement, she did throw it away. This happened, in spite of the fact that she had several family members visiting her and helping her regularly.

I would encourage all of you who have older family members living alone to start regularly checking their refrigerators, and each time discuss gently the need for safe food storage and for your sweet elderly eating healthy. I’ve found in my own experience that this often needs to be reinforced regularly.