The picture below is of my beautiful mother eating a salad :):). The effort involved is clearly seen. She is totally pissed off with me because I forcibly feed her vegetables. To all my school friends and other friends out there, who are all ardent supporters of my mother see this for yourself.
Left to herself, my mother will eat idli, dosa, curd rice, sambar rice (only dal sambar) and mixture (namkeen) as an accompaniment. Amma gets very irritated with me as I fill her plate with vegetables during lunch, but I continue to do it as her favourite food is not nutritious enough. Please don’t assume that it is a one day fight – it happens everyday :). The only saving grace is Amma doesn’t like anything sweet. So she won’t eat any chocolate or other sweets except very rarely.
Am sure many of your parents refuse to eat nutritious food and insist on eating sweets and namkeen. Please don’t give in. Its very important that our parents eat well. Make them eat fruits and vegetables first, so that their intake of sweets and/or namkeen reduces. Actually do it to your children and to yourself too. Sweets and Namkeen provide no nutrition – they are just for taste and they leave behind a trail of health issues. My dad did the same with Amma, he would insist on a vegetable being made everyday and he got Mom hooked on to walking. The minute Amma would eat an extra helping of some namkeen, Appa would say “now, lets go for another round of walking”. Thats what has kept her healthy. Please encourage your aged parents to walk regularly and eat nutritious food – that is the only “combo” offer that works.
The Salad that Amma is eating is a Cucumber-Beetroot salad with a hung curd dressing. She tried telling me that she doesn’t like the red colour :):)… but she ate it up with dosa. Don’t ask me about that combination. I think eating the dosa helps minimise her angst about eating the salad. Hahaha.
Am truly having fun growing up Mom. Appa, am sure you are enjoying it too.
#Parents #MomsInParticular