To Whole Grain or Not To

With each batch of food I prepare for mom, I struggle with the issue of whether to use whole grains or not. Mom loves her white grains! White rice, white flour, white pasta, all very unhealthy for her. Some of my friends and relatives have scoffed at my concern and say, "She's eighty-six years old--give her the white rice!"

But we know that when she eats the carb-rich foods, it's very hard on her body. Her blood sugar increases when she eats these foods. Especially now that she's a senior, her body is more sensitive to these foods. Here's the adage you can't go wrong following:

Don't eat anything white.

Today, I included brown rice with the chicken dish I prepared. I don't have any white rice in my pantry. And it just seems wrong to buy it for mom. The reason I'm cooking for her is to help improve her health with nutritious foods she can't get by buying frozen foods or expensive meal plans.

I feel the same about pasta. I don't particularly like whole wheat pasta so I just stay away from it altogether. When I need to use flour, I usually use whole wheat pastry flour (it is lighter than all purpose whole wheat flour).

I guess I'm deciding that I will not provide a carb with a meal if it isn't a whole grain carb.

Drop Off Successful!

I finished a new batch of food for mom and dropped it off succesfully downtown. We now have enough supplies to do two complete cycles of drop offs comfortably.

This means that when I drop off an ice chest filled with individual meals in containers, I am given an empty ice chest with all the empty containers inside. I will wash everything up and then we will be ready for the next batch.

The final menu was as follows.

* Sweet and Sour cabbage soup

* Three cheese spinach frittata

* Chicken salad

* Meat Loaf with red wine gravy/roasted veggies/garlic brussel sprouts with cranberries

* Roasted Chicken with apples and onions/Brown rice pilaf/cauliflower n cheese sauce

* Pecan and ww panko crusted Tillapia/Maple-sage-grand marnier acorn squash/garlic lemon spinach

* Pan seared scallops with white wine sauce/sweet potatoes/parsleyed parsnips

I will probably be thinking and planning for the next batch shortly after Thanksgiving.

Food Categories

When planning my menus, I think in terms of categories of food I need to create. Right now, I try to include the following categories:

* Breakfast
* Main  meals
* Soups
* Lunch salads

Mom eats her main meal of the day between noon and 1 pm. She's up by 6 each day, so 1 pm is more than about half-way through her day! She eats breakfast an hour or so after getting up. Outside of her dinners, she needs to snack on healthy entrees that are smaller than a full three-course meal.

Soups are a great small meal for her. So are salads such as tuna salad, egg salad, crab salad. If she has salads and frittatas available in her refrigerator, that is what she will grab for.

It's a little harder to provide enough of these items because they taste better when eaten fresh. They shouldn't be frozen. Also, mom's freezer is like the dead zone: it's so filled with...stuff, she has trouble finding things in there!

Time to Plan

It's time to think about the next menu for mom. She will be needing food by next week sometime. In planning, I have to think about the future and what mom may have going (i.e, visitors, holidays).

In two weeks, it will be Thanksgiving and mom will have a house filled with visitors. Her visitors don't have the same nutritional needs that she has, so they may be eating foods she should not eat. If there isn't food for her already prepared and easy to grab for, she will eat whatever her guests are eating. Historically that has been a challenge for her.

I am thinking this time I will provide a full menu as I normally do, so that mom has ready-to-eat gourmet food throughout the holiday. Also, I want to make sure she has a full supply of food for the week following Thanksgiving so that she won't be tempted to eat any of those left overs that may linger in her kitchen.

Experiment
I had a new soup the other evening at a restaurant. It's called apple rutabaga soup. It's To Die For! I can't find a recipe that duplicates exactly the flavors that were in my soup, so this weekend I'm going to experiment with several recipes and see what I can come up with for mom. Mom LOVES rutabagas! And 'tis the season right now.