David - you are ‘not’ on your own - please don’t feel that way. Look at the amazing responses you’ve received on here. Everyone is concerned about you, and your hiccup of health problems. Physical human company - yes that I do understand - but you are surrounded on here by your friends who are supporting you, and you have some excellent and lovely helpful neighbours. Plus you have the best non-human company - Jules and Hades - and for ‘their’ sakes you need to listen to the common-sense (kick up the back-side !) comments on here. Lack of the sense of taste has led you to stop eating properly - and that can very soon have knock-on - and strange - effects. Listen to your friends on here - eat your breakfast, get your B12 vitamins - and do not be slow to get proper medical advice asap.
You’ll soon start to feel better - treat yourself to some chocolate - dark chocolate supposed to be good for you !!
‘Is there a way of hiding the taste while eating it’
David, in the olden days, after a swimming lesson with the local school, we used to have marmite (or bovril) as a hot drink. And these days I sometimes put a spoonful of Marmite in a beef casserole as a sort of meat stock. I also have it (Stuart hates it - he calls it ‘muck’) on toast or in a cheese sandwich. The thing is don’t have too much of it - spread it thinly on the toast or with the cheese.
Well I’ve put it on the list, but if I get some it will be spread pretty thinly, perhaps that was my mistake the last time, I spread it like marmalade.
As to dark chocolate @Concorde , I leapt at the chance because I love it when they said it was very good for heart recovery but soon found it way too bitter, just another example of how that event changed so much of what was acceptable to my taste buds.
I’m currently on 4/day (bit tedious) in hospital but my muscle mass was seriously damaged by sepsis. Currently trying to walk about 250 m/ day and increasing. Fucking difficult and frustrating, but as Steve Redgrave said, “one more step, one more step”
Dark chocolate goes well in a beef stew, as does Marmite.
I do one with beef cheeks (joues: lots of collagen), passata and red wine, a bit of cinnamon and rosemary. In the pressure cooker (Instant Pot), all the flavours mix together and it ends up really rich-tasting. I’ve also used the slow cooker to do that.
I tried jarret last time, and used the slow cooker. It was a bit patchy: some bits really well cooked, some not so. Bunged it into the pressure cooker and it sorted things out.
Yes, my late wife Fran was more or less bedridden and she was on as many as she could manage. Itake it you mean 250 metres a day, not miles though.
Anyway, all the best with your recovery.
I don’t have a pressure cooker but I do have a slow one and from time to time do a big pot of Beef Bourgignon into which I put everything I can get my hands on. I really look forward to it as it makes 3 or 4 meals for just me and not one after the other because it keeps in the fridge when cooled, but the last one wasn’t so good because the meat had a helluver lot of gristle in it so I am being a bit wary now.
The type of beef sold in France for bourguignon I do find a bit gristley. We tend to use paleron or jarret instead (blade or shin in the UK), but the paleron can come with the blade attached so ask the butcher to remove it if so. Slow cooker is wonderful for bourguignon
Edit: Duck hearts are a very good addition to a bourguignon as well and they’re also high in B vitamins
I ask for Boeuf Bourgignon, trusting the butcher to know what I want and, up till now, it has always been excellent, but this time was a real fail. There is a visiting mobile butcher on a Sunday so might give him a try next time.
But one thing has just hit me in a flash, for no other reason that I am having fish this evening the thought of battered cod came into my mind and that I supposed it would involve flour. FLOUR, of course, I completely forgot to put that in the BB last time, no wonder it was so thin and uninteresting.
You can ask for joue de boeuf instead, so full of vit D 12 it’ll be coming out your ears good amount of selenium too, very tender, no gristle, do as you would for B bourginon.
Wonderful news, I’m so relieved they are looking after you so well. Fingers crossed with a bit more food in you things will start looking up.
If you like battered fish the fish and chip style fish you can now get frozen is pretty good and that would be an easy meal for you in your air fryer with some chips and peas.
Pity you don’t live a bit nearer to me David. I made battered fish (cod) and home made chips with mushy peas yesterday and we will be having this again on Christmas Day (don’t like turkey). But I’ve seen the frozen packets of fish and chips in the supermarkets and they look quite inviting. Cooking them in the air fryer as @toryroo suggests is a super idea.
Anyway, sleep well my friend. We all send our very best wishes to you and hope you’ll be feeling ‘tickety boo’ real soon. R x
That’s what we have now so I will look with interest on Monday but taking time to get my head round that new place.
Just as an aside on the thing that has happened to my appetite. I had just a small bowl of porridge this morning at 11, a small can of fortimel at about 2 pm with a digestive biscuit. That’s all, so you would expect me to be raving hungry by now but instead I am not looking forward to this at all. I will tackle it but the fact I feel this way is very disturbing.
It is disturbing, hence why you need to talk to your doctor, would M-P go with you? Would you consider meals on wheels, even if just for a few a week to take off the pressure and have s few things on hand that are appetising when you don’t feel up to cooking?
I feel also that perhaps you’ve got in a bit of a state about it, if it is making you anxious then it becomes a vicious circle. Try to relax about food, it will feel like forcing for a few days but you may find after a few days of eating better you may actually get your appetite back.
That’s good as I don’t think David has a lot of freezer space. My 6 or 8 packs wouldn’t work!
David, I used to suffer from real bad panic attacks. I would get myself in a state just thinking about when the next one would come. And someone gave me the advice about breathing in deeply. They said breath in to the slow count of 4, hold your breath to the slow count of 4, then break out again to the slow count of 4. Do this 10 times. I found it worked. Give it a try when you take your walk around the garden. In fact, do it any time you feel like it.
good amount of selenium too, very tender, no gristle, do as you would for B bourginon.
