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About: My Amazing and Adorable Papa

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What do Your Parents Eat?

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Isabel asked me if my Papa's diet was very Dutch. He cooks for himself and this is what I said:

"HAH, Isabel. Yes, my Papa's diet is very Dutch. Bread, cheese, potatoes, strong coffee, a glass of wine, cake and biscuits each day. He also eats lots of Indonesian food (the Dutch National food), fish, chicken, soup and veggies too. He'll only eat salad if it has mayonnaise on it – otherwise he thinks it's rabbit food".

If my Mum were still alive, they would eat a greater assortment of food because she loved to cook - and my Dad loves to eat. So when he's with my brother or me - we both adore food and cooking - he eats anything that we give him as long as it's not a healthy green salad.

My Dad is in good heath at age 84. *KNOCK ON WOOD*. The very last thing I am going to do is change his diet. Clearly, it works!

Over to you. What do your parents eat?

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45 replies

Latest reply was from AviaMariah

Jules

Veteran

My parents keep a pretty strange larder of raw ingredients and items picked up at bulk and specialty stores: whole spices representing many cuisines, miso, tortillas, various cheeses, whole wheat flour and pastry flour but not all purpose...
They both cook a lot, but also eat out quite frequently. There's very little in the way of snacks or any ready to eat food at their house, which was difficult when my kids were little and dinner was taking hours longer than promised! Both of them appreciate a wide variety of cuisines and don't have much taste for junk or heavily processed food. My Mom is type who lives out of her car so she also has raw almonds and dried fruit in there, plus some kind of chickpea snack (but a very dry and flavourless one), last time I foraged.

They are 72 and I am grateful for the wonderful variety of food they exposed me to growing up both at home and at restaurants. They didn't grow up eating that way, but I guess were a product of a time and place that really broadened their horizons.

Gaylene

Veteran

Maybe my son should respond to this one?

Seriously, it sometimes is annoying to have your children monitor your food choices--even when it's done with the best of intentions. As my grandmother once said, "I may be old, but I'm still in charge of ME!" You are a wise daughter, Angie, to pick your battles.

Your question, though, reminds me of the time the nutritionist at the care home sought me out to tell me my 89-year-old mum wasn't eating her vegetables, insisted on eating her dessert first, and loved to snack on salty crackers and chocolate between meals. My first thought was "Good for her!" Growing old means relinquishing control over many parts of your life, but I truly think what one eats as an ADULT is always a personal choice. Drawing one's last breath with the taste of chocolate on the tongue, instead of overcooked broccoli, can't be a bad thing in my books.

Sara L.

Veteran

My dad was a meat and potatoes guy when I was growing up (although he always ate a small portion of vegetables and never complained about them - it wasn't until I was older that I realized how much he disliked vegetables). However, he went on a heart healthy diet a few years ago that was basically vegetarian with some alcohol allowed. He's relaxed a little bit and eats some meat now, but still eats lots of vegetables, beans, and rice. My mom goes along with him although occasionally will call me up to go to lunch "to rescue her from her meatless existance". My parents travel internationally several times a year so are fairly adventurous eaters although my mom doesn't cook that way.

Anonymous

Lets see...typical British fare really. Neither has ever eaten anything like curries or stuff remotely spicey, so it's Roast chicken dinner, fish and chips, spaghetti bolognese, cottage pie, steak and chips with veg, beans on toast, tuna jacket potatoes, salmon and veg with new potatoes, sandwiches, reasonable amounts of fruit and veg, puddings, cakes, tea, coffee. Both have never been big restaurant goers either so prefer to stick to what they know.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

That sounds quite typical, Diane. GREAT. They're doing well, so power to them.

Jules, that's amazing. Wht does your Mum live out of her car?

Sara, can't your Dad eat fish? My Dad is suppose to be on a heart happy diet too - and eats lots of fish.

Gaylene, I am sooo with you. If my Dad feels like skipping real food and having ice-cream instead - why not! I like doing that too, from time to time. And the entire family is big on snacks and the sweet stuff. Somehow, it works, so we aren't fixing it.

Maneera

(website)

Veteran

Hahaha! Loved reading everyone's reply! It's good to know people aren't 'super strict' with their diet across the world.

As a doctor, my dad only supported a VERY HEALTHY diet. To add to that, he is diabetic and controlled his blood sugar levels for many many years, just because he ate healthy. We normally always ate Indian food --- curries and dal and dry vegetable dishes with whole wheat chapattis. We ate all seasonal veg, legumes and meat. And my dad & I love fruits. Rice was rarely cooked (higher starch level) so I never really developed much taste for it. Sweets and cakes were even rarer. We never made them or bought them so papa won't be tempted. We only got sweets for festivals (like a couple times a year) and my sister and I would binge eat until we got sick!!

My parents are still very strict about food and eat 'very light'. So light, that if we take them to a restaurant, their tummy can't handle it. It's pretty sad actually.....I think they have over-coddled their digestive system and now can barely digest anything even remotely indulgent.

It's kind of a lesson for me and my sister. So we eat everything! Though I have zero tolerance for anything that has chillies in it!

Diana

Veteran

My mother is a wonderful cook and mostly does Chinese dishes, although she likes to experiment with many different things. So, my Dad eats what she cooks mostly, although he does have a number of health conditions and medications that limit what types of things he can (or should) eat. They eat lots of fruits and veggies as one of my Mom's other hobbies is gardening.

Despite enjoying cooking, I know for a fact that if she did not have other people to cook healthy food for, my mom would be happy to live on coffee and chocolate. That's still her breakfast of choice and has been since she was in grad school.

rachylou

Veteran

Ohmigosh. Well, my dad cooked French for us. The man sent me to school with pâte en croûte in my Snoopy lunchbox. But in the middle of the night he was all horrible tuck box food - bully beef, Marmite, Wonderbread and mayonnaise. Lol.

My mother cooks fine, but she only does so for health. Since my father passed away, there's simply nothing to eat in her larder. You say you're hungry and she says there's soy cheese and seaweed paper. Quite awful. LOL!

Anonymous

My mother no longer eats the rich high fat foods of her southern childhood but she's retained a deep appreciation of deliciousness.

Her diet is mostly vegetables, lean meat, oatmeal for breakfast and small amounts of full fat dairy but she's always ready to go to the restaurant with my daughters and she loves ham, biscuits and pistachio ice cream.

Sadly, my dad died a few years ago. He loved and ate rich food his whole life but I wouldn't presume to make any conclusions about the effect that had on his lifespan. The balance between conscious healthy eating and the joyful indulgence that makes life enjoyable is very personal.

I do like the sound of your dad's diet though! And it seems to be working!

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Maneera, your Dad retains a wonderful diet despite his diabetes. And I can't believe you can't eat hot food!

Rachy, that's quite the assortment of munchies. Pate to marmite keeps it interesting.

Diana, I want to eat your Mum's cooking.

Isabel, I am sooo with you. You cannot enjoy life unless you indulge at a reasonable rate too. Otherwise what is the point!

Chris987

Veteran

RachyLou I couldn't stop laughing about your dad putting pate en croute into your snoopy lunchbox!!

My mom eats a fairly simple but healthy American diet with a love of sweets but recently has had to restrict raw veg and fruit due to digestive issues. She eats every kind of yogurt and kafir, lean protein, and has become rather an expert at finding small-portion options in frozen veg to cook. She mixes modern and traditional food into her diet...eats both quinoa and potatoes for example. And she always has cookies to offer when people visit, although she has not ever been a baker so she buys them.

My dad's diet, at least what I remember of it, was American meat & potatoes but with a lot of additional veg and fruit and he loved French gourmet cooking (at restaurants) He grew up in California where I think fresh veg and fruit were mainstream foods earlier than they were in other parts of the US. He also loved good wine, we were always allowed to have a little taste if we wanted to. I didn't quite realize how good his taste was in wine until I got to college and started tasting the cheap stuff my wine-newbie classmates were drinking

And let me throw in that my mom had an aunt who lived to be 105 years old. She passed away a few years ago. She had a little real ice cream and a little scotch whiskey every day, and only just barely needed reading glasses at her 100th birthday party The secret to longevity is obviously ice cream and whiskey. I hope I got some of those genes!

rachylou

Veteran

Chris: Whiskey and ice cream. I believe!

My mom used to make better tasting food. When we were little, she cooked rather Nordic food I've come to realise, as I've been reading all the Scandinavian cookbooks coming out. It's gotten me to wondering if this is because she was raised Lutheran.

Diana

Veteran

Chris: My grandma who lived until she was 103 had a glass of good (very expensive) brandy every evening. She was still going for a pretty long walk (including a very serious hill) every day into her mid-90s.

Style Fan

Veteran

Both of my parents were British. My father was Type 1 diabetic and insulin dependent. He liked the typical British fare. Similar to what Diane has described. My mother was mostly the same although she would eat pizza.
DH and I joke about how our parents would love our food. We are both vegetarians and eat radically different than they did.

Anonymous

My parents are a mess. My mother hates to cook, and my stepfather doesn't know how, so they go out a LOT. They do eat a lot of salads. If they aren't going out, they'll sit down with a nice bottle of wine and eat a jar of cashews or a whole plate of crackers and cheese. What are you gonna do? They're in their 80s and still raising hell, so there's not much I can say.

Anonymous

My parents are no longer with me, but they ate a typical meat and potatoes diet. We did have a lot of veggies and fruits when I was growing up, though, as my mom had her own garden and fruit trees in the back yard. She had a great green thumb and knew how to can the produce.

catgirl

Veteran

How timely! I was just considering a post on this topic as an unexpected side effect of my surgery. Because I stayed with my parents for two weeks after surgery, my diet changed completely. They are in their mid/late 70s and very vigorous and active.

First of all, my mom eats tons of fruits and veggies daily, plus wild salmon (because it's so easy to get here). Her goal is to eat every color every day. And they made lots of healthy, home-cooked Indian vegetarian food (dal, etc). They do not drink soda and don't have alcohol in the house. No processed carbs or sugary snacks. If my dad had his way he would eat junk and fried food with a beer daily, but my mother is quite strict about it. She's a doctor and obsessed with what different foods do for the body. And it was all delicious thanks to lots of spices!

So we basically ate a super-food diet consisting of: salmon, avocado, oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, blueberries, cherries, mangoes, kiwi, bananas, apricots, yogurt, cheese, lentils, spinach, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, lots of Indian spices, eggs, wheat toast, almonds and dark chocolate, plus I drank tons of tea and water with lemon juice. This plus walking and resting was so healing that my doctor said I looked 6 weeks healed at my 2 week appointment!

I planned to post about it here because I've made a commitment to stick with this eating plan for the foreseeable future. It's not really a diet, more a way of eating. I don't know if it jives with any of the other food plans out there like paleo or whole foods, but I feel amazing. I don't plan to give up alcohol but getting forcefully weaned from soda and sugar has been great! I'm not going to skip occasional red meat (or BACON!), Thai, Mexican, and other dinners out either... just make as much of a change as I can to what I eat at home.

My boys are total carnivores. I did buy a Spiralizer and both DH and DS have eaten Zoodles twice, so that's a start!

DonnaF

Veteran

You could set a clock based on when my dad ate lunch. His typical lunch was leftover meat and rice, two pieces of fruit, and maybe a small portion of potato chips. Breakfast was oatmeal, coffee, and toast. Dinner was a tossed or fruit salad, meat, rice, and vegetables, all cooked fairly plainly.

After my dad died, my mom bought vegetables and salad fixings or salad because she knew she *should* eat them but almost always let them go bad. She pretty much subsisted on scones, ice cream bars, cheese and crackers, and cookies. Sometimes rice and meat. Thankfully, my mother never tested positive for insulin resistance or diabetes.

Aziraphale

Veteran

This post makes me sad. I don't think my dad's diet is the greatest -- he eats way to much prepackaged crap from Costco -- but like Gaylene suggests, nothing is more irritating than an adult child who tries to boss their parent around, especially when it comes to food, because it's such a role-reversal kind of thing. As parents, we put a lot of energy into getting little kids to eat what we want them to eat. Nagging my dad about his diet would be like treating him like a toddler! So I don't really comment.

And anyway, my dad's still going through the acute grieving phase, so food isn't something he's particularly focused on at the moment. I'm more concerned about his emotional well-being than the state of his liver and arteries.

Whenever we go over there for dinner I make "real" food, and I think he eats better in the summer because he likes the barbecue and uses it more. He also eats out quite often. Luckily he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, and he's not overweight, so he's unlikely to be heading down the diabetes path.

JAileen

Veteran

My mother lives in a retirement home and so doesn't have to cook anymore. When she did cook, when we were growing up, her cooking was very utilitarian. Meat, starch, vegetable for dinner. It wasn't that she wasn't an adventuresome eater, it was that she was bored. At her retirement home the food is actually very good, with lots of vegetables, fresh fruit, salads, etc. I don't use salt when I cook, and so most restaurant food is too salty for me. But the food at her place is not too salty for me.

marianna

Veteran

Russian food! We have a large Russian/Eastern European community in our area and there are some grocery stores that cater to this community. My mom shops at one of the local international grocery stores so she buys many Russian staples and cooks that way. Russian food is heavy... salads with mayo, dark bread, smoked fish, cold cuts, sausages, cheese, boiled potatoes, etc. She also shops at Costco where she supplements with more "American" choices but the primary cuisine in my parent's home is traditional Russian food. Wish my mom ate healthier, alas old habits die hard.

Gaylene

Veteran

One thing I learned from my mom was her desire for certain types of food changed when she reached her mid eighties. Medication, sore gums, stomach issues, disinterest in food preparation, and slower metabolism made certain foods less attractive. Some of her favourite foods like salads dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon, steamed broccoli, grilled salmon, grainy breads, and many spices became less attractive because they tasted "funny" or were hard to digest. On the other hand, salt and sugar made many foods "taste better", For the first time in her life, she started eating oatmeal in the morning and potato chips as a snack.

I guess what I'm saying is diet can change quite dramatically when a person reaches their late eighties. Immediate pleasure and enjoyment can be more of a motivator to sit down at the table than following a "healthy" food plan. As my mum liked to tell she could cope with the notion of dying better than the notion of being told she HAD to eat something just because it was "healthy". Strong coffee, ice cream, chocolate, a glass of wine, good cheese, a slice of ham, and crackers were what she craved!

kerlyn

Veteran

Oh Chris, ice cream and whiskey! That's fantastic!
Una, your healing diet sounds amazing and is the direction I've been pushing the last few months. Well, add in beer and wine.

Fun topic Angie! My folks eat a pretty typical Midwestern diet of meat and potatoes, and casseroles. They like to eat out and do often. I think they sometimes shake their heads at some of the things I have in my fridge, kombucha, say what? I like to think my hubby and I break them out of their comfort zone once in a while.

Ornella

(website)

Veteran

What a great topic.

Speaking of "rabbit food", there is an anecdote from my uncle's visit to doctor many years ago. After seeing his worrying blood test results, the doctor had asked my uncle if he ever ate "anything green at all". "Me? I'm not a rabbit!" he responded indignantly. "Well, you're about to become one or we'll keep seeing each other more often than you wish", answered the doctor, making my uncle change his diet overnight. This has introduced the phrase "rabbit food" to our family's vocabulary

But, back to my dad.

This adoring daughter is very, very happy with my dad's diet and his lifestyle choices in general. His diet is, to a large extent, based on typical for his part of the world food and consists of stews, meat based meals (aka, "the real food") and lots of bread/carbs products, but it is evolving.

His morning ritual, however, is always the same: he starts the day with a glass of warm water, then he eats an orange which he peeled patiently so its peel is carefully cut out in the shape of a flower with 6 almost identical petals (to this day I see that a perfect cross of his engineering skills and his appreciation of pretty and not just functional things), followed by a couple of biscuits, then comes the morning coffee.

He choses wholegrain products whenever he has a choice because it's healthier option although he prefers products made from the white flour. He vividly remembers post-WWWII era and sometimes tells us how back then the white bread tasted like the best cake and to this day he thinks the same about it. Being a mould-breaker (at 75 he still actively competes in sports, to name just one thing) he's adopting many things that were unheard of while he was growing up, such as new spices and oils, or vegetarian options, or basing his meals on "rabbit food", instead of salads being just support acts for "the real food". I love his enthusiasm for learning about changes he can implement to increase quality of his life, particularly food. Actually, I love his enthusiasm for life in general. He's had many hard moments throughout all of his life, yet he keeps going forward stronger, equally principled, honest and true to himself.

Eliza

Veteran

My mother was a good cook, in a manner consistent with her time and place. She upped this a bit with her joyous focus on farm stand vegetables (which may be heritable), ahead of her time focus on crisp veggies, and her refusal to have soda in the house. She was quite interested in a healthy diet for us. She had a passion for a bite of good chocolate as a personal treat. She also developed a taste for some international food in later years, enjoying Thai food in particular.

My father ate what was put in front of him and enjoys virtually everything, though at his core, he remains a meat and potatoes guy. He always preferred ice cream to cake, and still does.

My own family eats no meat, occasional fish and mostly vegetarian. My mother feared for our kids initially, but let that go as they grew.

I am fascinated by how food choices and one's interest in food (or not), impacts family life and focus. I like nothing more than my adult children and their partners around, cooking together and sipping wine, while we chat.

Chris987

Veteran

Love that recovery diet alaskagirl and it is not really a diet...just a bunch of yummy healthy food. I eat almost all of that stuff too and it doesn't feel the least bit restrictive. Adding a few other favorites is a great idea too.

Ornella I've heard those stories too of what people were craving after the rationing and scarcity during wwII. Apparently in the Netherlands especially in the winter of 44 when Amsterdam was under a German blockade they made flour from tulip bulbs.

Anonymous

My parents are British and in their 70's, they eat a bit carb heavy but lots of fruit and cooked veg, no raw veg ever. I never saw a real salad until I was about 16. We had emigrated to Canada when I was small child and I must have been at a friends house. Salad prior to that meant a chunk of iceberg lettuce, half a boiled egg and rich 'Salad Cream' which you can still purchase in Canada. Like sweet thin mayo.

They are adventurous eaters though, trying new recipes, different cultures food but raw greens for supper is unheard of.

And they have wine everyday but at 74 years old, I can't stop that.

They do not eat out, or what they call 'Canadian' food, like burgers, Kraft dinner or hotdogs. They also don't eat much premade food but I don't know if that is age or their upbringing after WWII when food was very scarce in the UK.

Runcarla

Veteran

Gah! Food is a fraught topic in my household! Starvation during WW2 affected eating patterns big time. My parents separated after 20 years of marriage, so both have travelled different routes.

Mom is an emotional eater, and carb and sweet lover. Does not have a good sense of portion control but does eat lots of fruit and veg. Not into exercise AT ALL. At 80 has been diagned diabetic and is on insulin and working with a nutritionist. Portion control is still an issue.

Dad always loved cooking, and also growing food to provision for the family. Had some issues with alcohol. He remarried and spouse a celiac. He eats very carefully but not enough fruit/veg in my opinion. However he does have a terminal cancer and is outliving the odds. Who am I to judge?

Suz

(website)

Veteran

Air?

Not a thing. Not now.

So glad your Papa is thriving on his diet. We are resilient creatures. We do best when we can enjoy our food.

ETA: My mother for a time was a good cook and enjoyed a varied diet rich in vegetables and fruits. My dad's favourite food was probably fresh caught trout (from his own fishing). And lobster. They were both Maritimers. So they loved that.

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