After sleeping, the activity which occupies most of our lifetime is cooking and eating. In homes such as ours what to serve and how much is decided by the Lady of the house. What we gratefully receive is not always what we desire and in the quantity we need. Helping yourself at the dining table in homes where families still eat together is the healthy and satisfying way.
In a departure from Oliver Twist, my refrain is ” Give Me Less”. When you eat the body signals how much and when but often we eat more than needed and that works against our body. Sages have said ” Eat a third of your stomach volume and leave a third for water and air”- this says it all. An adult may need 2000-3000 Cal? per day and a sportsman in excess of that but when the active life ceases our needs fall. We do not realise as we head into middle and then old age.
The aging process is just the opposite of growing up. It takes a baby 10-14 years to develop into an adult body and another 4-5 years to mature. Likewise from about 60 we go into a retrograde phase till we reach the same state and condition of a baby. The exceptions follow this too albeit a bit later. When this is happening our body begins to shrivel and the organs become smaller and/or weaker in their capacity for work( I read that the exceptions are the nose and the ears which continue to grow, being the reason why elders have such big ears and noses!)
Since the life style of elders is sedentary the body needs a very controlled amount of sustenance. The body emits at this stage all kinds of sounds in protest but people suppress these by medicines and do not regulate their diet. In homes the elderly are generally let go on their own at a time when they require as careful a balanced and timely diet as babies do. This requires tact, understanding, respect and affection from adults in the home without upsetting the elders- they still have most of their developed senses intact. Just like babies the elders need small amounts of food in 5-6 instalments so that their frail systems can accept, digest and tolerate the intake. This caring of elders is a huge responsibility equal to baby care by the adults in the family and at times even by the teens. The young would do well to realise that one day they too would be elders. The caring of elders gives a big psychological satisfaction and the benefit of ready repositories of experience and advise. The one thing that elders look forward to is variety in food in small packets; their face lights up when a small snack comes their way at a time when they long for it but often do not ask for it for fear of offending the house! In some homes the tendency is to dole out huge portions at mealtimes in one go even to elders, compelling them to say ” Give Me Less” for they abhor wasting food. Give me less has another connotation: Small amounts of food many times during the day. If you are not able to do this, allow the elders a free hand to help themselves from ready to eat stuff which you must provision.
takeitfrommetoo 