24 - Sunday, May 16, 1993 - North Shore News

Seniors starved for attention

IT’S AN astonishing
statistic in these sup-
posedly enlightened
times.

A quarter of the oid folks in
the United States are reported
to be suffering from malnutri-
tion. And malnutrition is evi-
dent in half of their elderly
who are admitted to hospital
there.

There’s no reason to think
that we’re doing a better job
here in Canada, beyond the
universal assumption that
we’re a bit backward com-
pared to our jazzier cousins to
the south, and therefore
perhaps are still stuck with
old-fashioned ideas of what’s
good nourishment.

We, the older generations at
least, still eat a lot of stuff
that is real, 1 think, the kind
of thing we grew up with, and
we tend to fix it to eat ina
real way.

In other words, we have not
yet taken to packaged fare to
the same extent as our
neighbors. Do you think that’s
true?

When I say packaged, I’m
not thinking only of cake
mixes and cookie mixes and
instant pasta dishes and soup
ingredients. We’ve had those
for years, but now there are all
sorts of prepared frozen meals
or parts of meals; you don’t
have to slice or scrape or chop
or even make a sauce for
them.

It’s fun, once in a while,
when you’re out of ideas or
tired of your own cooking. It’s
also horribly expensive. And
it’s darn seldom you can say
“That’s as good as if I'd made
it myself.’’

If you live alone, it’s some-
times hard to work up any in-
terest in-fixing food. And it’s
equally hard to bring yourself

THE VINTAGE YEARS

to look for a decent place to
go out to by yourself.

It’s just too much trouble,
and costs the earth, too, and
too often it all leads to becom-
ing indifferent about food,
which means you're inviting
loss of pep, loss of tone, loss
of sparkle.

Keep Well to the rescue.

One of the aims of the Keep
Well group is better nourish-
ment for us elders. It’s two-
pronged. Recipes-for-one are
part of it, but the extra pur-
pose is to increase our whole
interest in food by persuading
us to share it with a friend.

The program is therefore
aptly named Nutrition Neigh-
bours, the whole thrust being
that making a little party out
of a simple meal means you'll
eat more, probably, and have
pleasure in showing off your
own skills or praising someone
else’s.

The food you enjoy together
does you far more good than a
make-do of scraps eaten
alone.

Someone else’s idea of food
is always interesting, anyway
— that’s why cookbooks do
such a roaring trade. And
that’s what Nutrition Neigh-

_bours have undertaken for

you.

._. TECHNI-CAL

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They’ve got together favorite
recipes from seniors in all their
various hang-outs, here on the
North Shore, and arranged
them attractively, one toa
page, in a neat little book that
lies flat open on your counter.
It costs only $4.95 and snme
are still available at this writ-
ing at Neighbourhood House
— they’re going fast, though,
and it’s hoped there’ll be
funding enough for another
run.

But the recipe with the
prize-winning name didn’t
make it into the book, so [
wheedled the directions for
Earl Smith’s intriguing Baltoon
Wine for all of us:

You need 4 cups Welch’s
grape juice, same of
Oceanspray Cranberry
Cocktail, 3 to 4 cups white
sugar, 4 cups water and 4 tsp.
granulated yeast dissolved ina
little warm water.

Put all that stuff into a
gallon jug and cap it with a
strong balloon which should be
tied down with cord or tape.
Put the contraption in a dark
place until the balloon ex-
plodes. If this nasn’t happened
within 21 days, open (stand
well back, I’d suggest) and
bottle.

Earl says ‘‘This makes a
pleasant medium red table
wine.”’

Isn’t it fun being old and
carefree? But it takes at least
two to tango, and seriously,
scientific study makes a good
case for getting a kick out of
what you eat and sharing it
with another. The same clever
people claim that loneliness is
more likely to kill us than any
of the chronic diseases,

So you know what you have
to do. And with a jug of
Ear!’s wine on the go you
surely won't suffer from
boredom.

LIONS GATE HOSPITAL

A Caring Community
Free Public Forum

MENOPAUSE _

Presented by Continuing Medical Education
Lions Gate Hospital

Wednesday May 19th, 1993
7:30 pm at the Centennial Theatre

A panel of leading experts will be discussing the
psychological aspects of the change, plus recent
advances in treatment. Panelists include:

Dr. Penny Ballem, Dir., Women's Health Centre
Dr. Vera Frinton, Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Dr. Suzanne Montemuro, Farnily Physician
Lafern Page, M.A., Counselling Psychology