Would You Like Some Chocolate Milk With That?

Dad loves his chocolate milk! Ever since losing his saliva glands due to cancer in to roof of his mouth it has been his drink of choice. The thickness of the chocolate milk makes it easier to swallow. He also likes oatmeal for breakfast, and about a year ago he started adding his chocolate milk to his oatmeal.

Since having dad live with us we have figured out a few things, one is that he doesn’t eat much, and another is that he likes softer foods. I’m not sure if it’s because at Jamestown most of the food was soft and mushy so he got used to it, or if it’s because of his dentures. Anyway, we have learned to adjust our cooking habits. We try and feed dad four smaller meals every day, and at dinner if we are having steak or something crunchy we prepare some other soft food for dad. One thing we found that he enjoys is different rice and vegetable meals or soups…he recently started adding a bit of his chocolate milk to these also.

Sunday evening we were having taco salads for dinner. When I served dad I omitted the lettuce, so he had crunched up Fritos, meat, and cheese in his bowl…to which he added chocolate milk, a lot of chocolate milk. After about 15 minutes, he got up from the table and started toward the kitchen. Tanner saw what he was doing, and told him he needed to show his bowl to me so I could see how much he’d eaten…not that this has happened before or anything. When dad brought me his bowl at first it was hard to tell how much he’d eaten because there was SO much chocolate milk. Then I took his fork and tipped the bowl sideways a bit, and I started checking to see how much “taco salad” was left in the bowl. As I was doing this, I was explaining that it was hard to tell, but it looked like he hadn’t eaten very much and asked him if he thought he could eat a few more bites. Dad took the bowl and said he’d try. I then asked if he thought a spoon might help.

I brought dad a spoon and he ended up eating most of his dinner. As he was finishing it up, he would tell me every few minutes what a bad idea it was to add chocolate milk to his dinner…I guess chocolate milk flavored taco salad isn’t so tasty!