Of Food and Caregiving (A Rant)

     Food is an extremely vital aspect of almost every human's life.  It's how we manage to function as human beings as it fills us up with the fuel necessary for us to live our daily lives.  It can be a source of great pleasure and the centerpiece of entertaining.  It can unite a disparate crowd or bring together a family.  Food is lifeblood, our source for almost everything that helps us be.  This is especially true if you're a caregiver.  If you're a caregiver, life can be so unrelentingly demanding, stressful, and punishing that often you're stuck with food as your one outlet to a world where you're actually nutured.  Even when you're stuck with eating slightly lukewarm food after serving everyone else first and foremost, food can still be a source of great pleasure.  Food not only fills, it fulfills -- our desire to connect to something that brings us pleasure and delight.

     But sometimes, when you're a caregiver trying to balance a heavy load, food can be its own burden, especially if you're trying to stick to eating healthfully.  This is why it can be common for a caregiver taxed with a lengthy list of demands to resort to consuming whatever is the quickest, most filling, tastiest food to consume.  Most of the time, this is fast food.  When my father was clinging onto the last vestiges of life, my family pretty much subsisted on cheap fast food -- McDonald's in the morning, KFC in the evening, and snacks in the interim.  We were too tired both emotionally and physically to consider the idea of dirtying up a full sink of dishes each day or whipping up a full meal of home-cooked food.  This had negative health repercussions on my mother and I that we both felt for years and years.  It took me such a long time to get back to somewhat good health, but that doesn't mean I've foregone all convenience food.  Far from it -- I relish any opportunity I get to bring something fast and easy to the dinner table, even though I love to cook, purely because it allows me more energy to devote to caregiving and ensures that my food will probably be closer to warm or perhaps even hot than "lukewarm".

     Food is often the last thing people think of when it comes to figuring out ways of helping out someone in the position of caregiving, and to be frank about it, I'm glad that's the case most of the time.  Quite honestly, you don't know how most people will end up cooking or if you'll enjoy what they offer up to you.  I think I'd only appreciate an offer of a ready-made meal from someone if I've been over to that person's house before, had that meal, and relished every morsel.  For example, if one of my cousins were to offer up a container laden with her spicy Japanese curry and another one filled with sticky white rice, I wouldn't be able to quantify my gratitude in words.  Some of my happiest food memories involve going over to her house and eating that very same meal, licking the spoon after my plate was empty and patting my full stomach with a broad smile on my face.  But if it's someone whose recipies are untested by my palate?  Perhaps I should try seeing if I'd enjoy it, but not if it's foisted upon me with the expectation that it be made my household's dinner, and especially not during a particularly taxing period when I'm trying to cope with a great many things.  In those cases, it would be better just to drop off a frozen lasagna or gift certificate to a "casual dining establishment".

     Speaking of frozen meals, there remains one type of frozen pot pie that is my go-to meal for when my mother is in the hospital and I'm having to shuttle from work to the hospital to home, or vice versa.  I'm not going to name brands because I'm not interested in giving free advertising, but it's a meal-sized pot pie that takes approximately one hour to bake in the oven.  That one hour, plus the approximately fifteen minutes beforehand that it takes to preheat my oven to the proper temperature to bake the pot pie, are gifts the unnamed frozen food company gives to me that allow me to come home and do all sorts of other things while waiting for the oven to preheat.  Then when I stick the pot pie in the oven, I get to take a shower, change into a comfortable nightgown, blow dry my hair, and attend to my pet's food needs before dining on a piping hot meal straight from the oven.  Best of all, it ticks all the boxes of taste and comfort that make it feel like a reward for having survived another day of being all things to everyone.

     Ultimately, that's what counts most of all when you're a hungry caregiver.  Some people who've never been put in that position might attempt to moralize and preach to me and tell me my food cravings are immoral and wrong and that I need to savor more healthful fare, and many times I will seek out healthier food that contains multiple servings of fruits and vegetables.  But when you're living a life where you are your last priority, where things have the opportunity to go very wrong very fast, where you're put in a position of having to be extremely responsible, the last thing in the world you want to put into your belly is a bland meal of vegetables.  It may be easy for some people to make "good" food choices because they get to have fun in their lives or they've found other ways of being a glutton (e.g. alcohol or drugs), or they're rich and/or famous and can afford the luxury of personal chefs and trainers.  But I don't have any of those options in my life, so I try to eat well as often as I can, but if I'm choosing to eat something rich, fatty, and nutrient-poor, I don't need a lecture from anyone about how much I'm harming myself or how irresponsible I am.  I am plenty responsible, and my mom's doctors and my superiors at work can all attest to that.  In fact, I'll go further and say that I am more responsible than anyone who permanently diets and exercises but who also spends a lot of time on "selfish" (i.e. self-centered) pursuits such as clubbing, dating, traveling or shopping.  They get to put themselves first in their lives, but I -- I don't.