Does anyone sell healthy, OS style ready meals?

Sarahsaver

If she is underweight can you not get the GP to prescribe fortisip?

billy858

I have worked as a carer for 13 years. Thank goodness we have no restrictions on microwave ready meals only, although we do have limited time for any cooking. Wiltshire farm foods are very popular with clients. Could a good friend not pop in for you if it is only for a few days? Or is it possible to make your own cottage pies, fish pies etc (meals with veggies already inside) and freeze them yourself?

morag1202

Farway wrote: »

No, but they were recommended by mum's local authority, possibly because of Wiltshire connection?

The only reason we never used them was mum also refused to have a larger freezer [which we would have provided]

Your mum sounds a lot like mine!

Sarahsaver, fortisip is a good idea, thanks. However, mum bitterly resents having to take aricept and her antidepressant and only ever drinks black coffee so doubt if she would unless someone stood over her

Billy, the carers here are not allowed to reheat my home made ready meals for her and there is sadly no one I can ask to go in each day. She is still in denial that she needs any help at all and hates the idea of her friends knowing she is "going mad".

Frugalista

My Mum has just been in hospital for a heart bypass and was worried how her OH would manage to feed himself (he has Parkinsons).

They got the Wiltshire Farm Foods meals in for him and have found them to be very good - so much so, that they have decided to continue to get them whilst Mum recovers at home (and is unable to cook).

They had a whole bunch of brochures to choose the different meals from and have found the portion sizes to be perfectly adequate (both of them are "chunky" people with good appetites). She also said the puddings were very reasonable too. Perhaps you should take another look at them. HTH

morganlefay

My Mum had a friend who had Wiltshire Farm meals and I think they seemed OK (tho some of the suggestions for M&S on here might have been a bit more special.) I suspect Wiltshire Farm are more used to old ladies with bad memories tho, so might be more practical. Also, my Ma had dementia in the end and wasn't very keen on eating at all, but developed a massively sweet tooth. So we used to bake her really rich cakes - lots of eggs, butter icing (the sort of thing which I'd love to eat but daren't because of the weight) she also loved ice cream. I always felt that if she ate a big piece of cake and then an icecream it made her happy and she was certainly getting some nourishment. Apart from getting - ahem - bunged up - why would an old lady need to eat her greens, really ? And our concern was to give her some pleasure in life. Tho I suspect OP's rellie isn't as ill as my mum became. What I'm trying to say is that different rules about food might apply to frail old ladies, perhaps. For them, even chocolates and biscuits may be very nourishing in ways they certainly aren't for the rest of us.

juliapenguin

My Mum has used Wiltshire Farm Foods and they seemed very nice - they also do very nice small portion cakes - my Mum had some lovely custard eclair things in the freezer which defrosted quickly and were delicious. The full meals are very good, I think, and the portion sizes would be fine if the carer heated up a pudding or got a cake out of the freezer too. My Mum is VERY particular and was a fantastic cook until recently, so if she says they are ok, I think they must be.

morag1202

Frugalista wrote: »

They had a whole bunch of brochures to choose the different meals from and have found the portion sizes to be perfectly adequate (both of them are "chunky" people with good appetites). She also said the puddings were very reasonable too. Perhaps you should take another look at them. HTH

It certainly does help Many thanks and also to Moranlefay and juliapenguin. :A

I have sent off for the brochures and will show them to her.

Once again, a big thank you to all who have contrbuted :money:

rosieben

Another vote for Wiltshire - my godmother has them and really enjoys them; she's very frail now the delivery person puts them straight into her freezer for her. She's been having them for about a year and never had cause to complain yet.

JoJoB

Another vote for M&S - they have ready meals for 1 that are a good size for an older person and have varieties that older people will like (traditional stuff like bangers and mash, liver with bacon, cottage pie etc). They also do small size microwave deserts like spotted !!!!!! and sticky toffee pudding which might be useful if you want to increase your mum's calorie intake.

Skint_Catt

I tried to use Wiltshire Farm foods but they can't deliver outside of working hours so I wasn't able to recieve them. I think my OH got a few for my FIL and he quite enjoyed them - he doesn't eat a great deal though, so hard to tell if they'd be good enough. I would phone them and talk to them and maybe they could provide one or two to try before you go? I wouldn't go by the pictures as some of them might be of the calorie controlled portions!

If you do a search for special diets and put in search for meals with more than 600 kcals it does bring up about 20 or so - would this be enough? There are puds too!