Video link: Eating well with a poor appetite
Hello, my name is Rachel, and I’m a dietitian working in the Northern Trust. A nutritious diet is essential for good health and strength.
This can be challenging when you have a poor appetite or you’ve lost weight without trying. Making sure you’re getting enough protein and energy is especially important at this time, as losing weight often means losing muscle, making it more difficult to do everyday things. Getting enough vitamin D is also important as it helps keep your muscles and bones strong.
So, if you’re off your food, or your clothes and jewelry are feeling looser than normal, this video will guide you through some simple steps to help improve your nutrition. This guidance can also be followed by those who have diabetes experiencing a poor appetite. The first step is to eat little and often.
Aim to have three small meals and two to three snacks a day. This means trying to have something every two to three hours.
The second step to improving your nutrition is to make sure each mouthful is as nourishing as possible. You can do this by fortifying your food with extra protein and energy by adding everyday food items to your meals and snacks. It’s very easy to do, and you probably have some of these ingredients at home already.
The key ingredients are cheese, milk, dried skim milk powder, butter, nut butters, and cream. The first three ingredients, cheese, milk, and dried skim milk powder, are rich in protein, calcium, and energy, which are vital for muscle and bone health.
Try cheese as a snack on crackers or plain biscuits. Add some flavor if you like with chutney or brown sauce or even jam. Cheese can be grated on top of baked beans, tinned spaghetti, shepherd’s pie, and pasta dishes. Soft cheese can be used to stir into soups and sauces or mixed into fillings for baked potatoes and sandwiches. There are also vegetarian and vegan varieties of cheese, which are available in large supermarkets.
Milk is the next key ingredient, which can be used to boost your nutrition. Milk is rich in energy, protein, and so many important nutrients. Aim to have a full pint of whole milk, which has the blue label, each day.
It’s easier to do than you think. Add milk to your porridge or cereals and have drinks such as milky coffee, hot chocolate, Horlicks, or Ovaltine, or just enjoy a glass of milk with your meal or snack. The next ingredient rich in protein is one which you may not have in your cupboard, but you can buy it in your local supermarket. It’s dried skim milk powder. A simple addition of dried skim milk powder turns whole milk into a much higher protein, higher energy drink. This won’t change the taste or texture of the whole milk, so it can be used in the exact same way.
We will show you how to make this fortified milk later in the video.
Moving on to the next ingredients.
An easy way to add extra energy to your food is to use butter or margarine and use them generously.
Add to your potatoes and vegetables, spread thickly onto breads, scones, cakes, crackers, and plain biscuits, and melt into scrambled egg and omelets.
Nut butters such as peanut butter or almond butter are another easy way to add extra energy and protein. Try spreading nut butter on toast, crackers, or plain biscuits for a quick snack.
It also tastes good with banana, apple slices, or a little honey. Nut butters can be mixed in porridge, smoothies, or yogurt, or stirred into noodles and pasta for extra nourishment. Smooth nut butters work well in sandwiches, wraps, or jacket potatoes and can also be added to soups or sauces.
Cream, particularly double cream or full-fat Greek yogurt, can be added to both sweet and savory foods to make them more nutritious.
You can keep a pot in the fridge for everyday use. Add a dollop to your dessert, cake, or scone, and try stirring it into porridge, cereal, puddings, soups, and sauces. For those of you who are unable to take dairy foods, alternatives such as soya or nut products can be used in the same way. Here are a few easy meal ideas you can make using the ingredients we discussed.
For breakfast, you could have porridge or Ready Brek made with milk, or eggs scrambled, boiled, fried, or poached and served on bread, toast, pancakes, or a muffin. Or toast with butter and sliced cheese or peanut butter, or fruit, fresh, frozen, or tinned with full-fat Greek yogurt.
For light meals, you could have a sandwich with a protein filling such as cheese, chicken, corned beef, ham, or tuna, or a slice of quiche or pizza, adding extra cheese if you can, or a baked potato with a topping of tuna, cheese, or beans and add butter or mayonnaise for extra energy. Other ideas include soup with added cream served with bread or toast with lots of butter, or baked beans or tinned spaghetti served on toast with added cheese for a bit of extra protein.
For snacks and puddings, try to choose milky-based puddings where you can, such as a full-fat custard pot with cake or apple tart, rice pudding from a tin or a pot with added cream and fruit if you like, semolina, a mousse pot or thickened creamy yogurt, for example Greek-style yogurt has lots of extra protein, stewed fruit with cream or custard, crackers and cheese, a scone, pancake, fruit, or malt loaf, or a slice of potato bread topped with butter, jam, honey, or cheese, a packet of nuts or trail mix, mini sausage rolls, quiche, Scotch eggs, or spring rolls. Now let me show you how to make the fortified milk we talked about earlier.
You will need dried skim milk powder, one pint of whole milk, a measuring jug, a tablespoon, and a fork or a hand blender if you have one.
Add four heaped tablespoons of skimmed milk powder to a jug. Add a small amount of milk and mix with a fork or hand blender to make a smooth paste. Then add in the remainder of the milk and stir well. Aim to use this pint of nourishing milk throughout the day.
Keep it in the fridge and use it up within 24 hours. You can see how easy it is to get more from your food and fluids by trying to have something nourishing every two to three hours, adding cheese, milk, butter, nut butters, and cream to foods where you can, aiming to use a full pint of whole milk over the course of the day and fortifying with dried skim milk powder if possible.
These simple techniques will help to support your nutritional needs until your appetite improves and should help to stop you losing muscle.
If you find fortifying your diet with these suggestions difficult or your appetite does not improve or you lose more weight, please discuss with your doctor.
If you would like further information and have access to the internet, you can get the following leaflets and advice on the dietetic page of the Northern Trust’s website. If not, you can ask your healthcare provider to print out what you want. Thank you for watching this video on eating well with a poor appetite.
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