Has anyone’s elderly parent become obsessed with a certain food?

My mother ate the same food every day of her life for about 20 years.

When she woke up every morning, she drank a large cup of strong coffee with a dollop of heavy cream and two teaspoons full of sugar.

For breakfast she ate a small ground round burger fried in butter, a boiled potato mashed with butter, and a cup of applesauce.

For the feast of the day she ate cookies, and sometimes ice cream.

She was vigorous and active, and until having a stroke after about 15 yers of eating this way, mentally as sharp as a tack.
After the stroke, she returned to her original diet, and lived independently for another 5 years before a badly broken hip resulted in residential placement for another 5 good years before she died at 95.

As I saw it, each day she was consuming protein, a veggie, fruit and some calcium. She cooked every meal she ate by herself.

I was glad that she was able to live by herself, do her own banking until she was 89, and boss me around as she had my whole life.

Her peculiar eating habits worked for her and weren’t my business, and since I knew I’d never be able to change her, they didn’t drive me crazy.

My former husband's Granny ate Campbell's Cheddar Cheese soup daily for the last 15 years of her life. Another elderly uncle only ate hot dogs towards the end of his life.

There comes a point where we have to just let them eat what they want.

At some point there is comfort in knowing what food is on the plate.
There is no decision to make and you know it is "safe"
As my Husbands dementia progressed the only restaurant he was comfortable at was a buffet type. He did not have to "read" a menu, he did not have to make a decision as to what he wanted. He could look and foods that he recognized ended up on his plate.

So, I am thinking, after reading what elderly parents ate, living well into their 90's +............

Some of those dietary choices sound good!
🍕🍔🍟🍧🍨🍩🎂🍰🍪🍫🍬🍭🌭🌮🍿🥐🥞🥓🥓🥨🥠🥧🥤🥯️🧁️ Lol.

My grandpa ate a baked potato 5 nights a week and condensed chicken noodle soup the other 2, he had bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and toast 7 days a week for the last 10 years of his life.

Nothing could entice him to eat anything else.

I am watching a PBS documentary on Julia Child. Fascinating woman! She really was. Yes, an extraordinary cook but she was truly a remarkable woman.

She was as unpretentious as can be. She definitely was ahead of her time as a woman, going to culinary school and learning french cooking, going onto have a television show and so on.

I adore her passion! Her husband was her soulmate. She overcame breasts cancer. He had heart disease and landed in a nursing home for four years.

Her husband was cremated. Very touching, seeing how she threw his ashes into the waves and hear her saying goodbye to him. She had quite a love story with him. Quite a love for cooking too.

You know, she loved that the French consider eating well their birthright. So, in that same vein, let the elderly eat as they wish!

I think there are cycles of things...first, she liked egg sandwiches, then half of an egg sandwich. Now, it grits...that is the go to breakfast.

the other is gnocchi (pasta), she eats that several times a week.

Plus, always likes a sweet to finish the meal.

I think it comes down to what’s easy for her to eat.

Yea, and I quit worrying about...that they are eating and hopefully drinking is a good thing. If they'll take a multi-vitamin...good thing. It's more damaging imo to our health to stress about it. Ice cream is nutritious! Not so much the cream of mushroom soup...and pie...but heck, when we get to that age don't you want the right to eat what you want? My mom was fixated on ice cream for a long while. Now she's into olives. Black olives, green olives. OLIVES. Salty snacks/chips. SWEETS...candy. BUT she will also eat grapes. ANd then she spits the skins into the kitchen sink. :-) Yes, just lovely.

I am sort of a madwoman making dinners that will be tasty and healthful for my folks (92 and 90) and I'm constantly buying them treats to keep their weight up (especially my dad who has Parkinson's). Seems that I'm the one gaining weight from the treats and the food. My mom is a picky eater, but I think if I gave my father pasta with tomato sauce every night, he'd live on that. At the end of the day, as long as your dad is eating, it's good.

Yes, both parents (mid 90s). They were really into oatmeal cookies, hard boiled or scrambled eggs, oatmeal, bananas, soup, nuts, ice cream, grilled chicken, See's Candies, Ensure, tapioca pudding, pasta, green salad and fruit salad.

Of course, their diets were more varied in general, but these were THE items.

I miss my folks so much.