Brown, Green & White

Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."


I don't know about you, but to me delicious food is one of the greatest blessings in life. Diet experts often try to talk people into looking at it as just nutrition. "There's more to life than food" they say "change the way you think about food and only eat when you are hungry". I wonder what would happen if we all simply gave elderly people a choice.?
What if we all just said "choose between this healthy unseasoned low fat menu and you will live longer and feel better or you can just eat all your favorites just like you like them and be happy and enjoy your food now." If you were 80-100 years old and in a nursing facility, what would you choose?
One of Mom's table mates acts as if she is at a restaurant for every meal. She's a tough old bird, lived in Pittsburg, worked in a factory for years. Every time food is served to her, she immediately shakes her head no and groans a loud groan of discontent. Then she picks up her fork and pokes at her food as if it is a live frog ready for dissecting. "What the hell is this?" she questions. "Is that what they call chicken? There's hardly any meat on it. It's been cooked too long. It's all hard, I can't even stick my fork in it!" She moves on to her salad which always has healthy dark Romain lettuce mixed in, picking up the dark purple crinkled leaf and scrunching her nose at it, she adds" Who eats black lettuce? I've never seen such a thing. Lettuce is supposed to be green!" She then declares, "This isn't what I paid for!"
My mother has trouble swallowing as a result of her stroke. There have been times when she has had her menu changed to the dreaded pureed food. Most people who live or work in nursing homes know that they never want to have to eat the pureed menu. It's basically just a little glob of pureed meat, next to a glob of pureed green vegetable and third glob of pureed potatoes. Mom calls it "Brown green and white."
Lucky for her, she is now eating the "mechanical" diet, meaning ground up meats with gravy on them. As far as the brown, green and white goes, Mom shakes her head and moans,"No one could ever get any enjoyment out of that!"