Nursing home food is appalling and Maggie Beer’s drive to improve it is admirable | Amanda Blair

The thought of putting parents and even ourselves into a nursing home is confronting. With food like this, it’s no wonder some think death is a better option, Amanda Blair says.

When I was younger, I used to joke with my Mum that if she didn’t comply with my wishes, when she got older I was going to find a nursing home to put her in that served nothing but gruel, over-boiled beans and unidentifiable meat products.

OK, not everybody’s idea of a thigh slap but it worked for us.

Watching Maggie Beer’s Big Mission on Tuesday night on the ABC had me believing that finding a nursing home to fulfil my needs would be easy – they excel at grey coloured food and matching atmosphere.

According to Maggie, 78 per cent of residents in nursing homes are malnourished and 46 per cent are depressed.

Fortunately my mother died after a short illness so we missed out on the aged-care journey, but for many, a single bed in an apricot and beige-coloured room with a commode chair is on the horizon for ourselves or our relos.

Food icon Maggie Beer is leading the charge on the very noble cause of improving food in Australia’s nursing homes. Picture: Supplied

We’re living longer thanks to improved healthcare but not always living better.

I wrestle with the ethical question of keeping people alive via a myriad of invasive interventions and often wonder if the pearly gates are a better option than living with around-the-clock assistance.

The days of the “granny flat” out the back are no more either as a) we need that space for a media room and to house Darren’s Port Adelaide memorabilia ffs and b) some of us would rather shag Donald Trump than live with our parents again.

So places with chipper names like “Sunny Meadows”, “Autumn Leaves” or “On Golden Pond” staffed by people in match-y-match uniforms are left responsible for wiping the brow and the bottoms of our seniors.

I love Maggie and not just because she knows how to pluck a pheasant and stuff a chook.

I love her because she stands for something other than herself.

An example of some of the ‘food’ served up in Australia’s nursing homes.

She’s using her fame and fortune in a powerful and positive way to improve the lives of the Lorettas, Hazels, Thelmas and Berts of the world.

She’s recognised that all is not right in aged care, in-fact it’s in crisis, and at the tender age of 79 is standing up for “the old people” and throwing her considerable knowledge and clout behind improving the food in aged care facilities.

It’s a simple dream but as bold as the earrings she favours.

I was shocked to learn that the food budget in the facility she’s featuring is only $11 per person per day which by my standards would get me a latte and half a sandwich.

The residents pay $59 per day and from that room, nursing, cleaning and food is deducted.

For only an extra $3 per day and lots of education, Maggie reckons she can provide residents with REAL FOOD and REAL TASTE and REAL NUTRITION.

I watched this show with my kids and we gagged when looking at the three meals a day served lukewarm to the residents from a bain-marie, the old ice cream scoop being the utensil du jour for the mashed potatoes.

Everything was as white, bland and wet as the Dallas Cowgirls line-up.

Maggie politely sat at the table and ate what the residents did, gagging herself on the undercooked white fish and like a mature Goldilocks – everything was too cold, salty or artificial, nothing was “just right”.

The residents confided in her that the only thing they look forward to in their dull routine is a meal and that often the food is so distasteful they have difficulty swallowing.

I’m not even in aged care and I’m depressed. It was a sobering watch. No wonder so many people say they’d rather take “the green dream” than end up in care.

This is not what you want on your Google Review is it? Customers would rather die than check-in.

We live in a world of constant outrage, everybody is always angry about something so why have we not gotten angry about this?

Maggie, formidable though she is can’t do this alone.

We need to stand up and force change by demanding more.

Just because demented Aunty Mabel is out of sight, it doesn’t mean her welfare should be out of mind.

After all, it could be you in no time at all …. age doesn’t discriminate.