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I have been going out of my way to accommodate my 84yr old mother food requests. I am understanding about taste buds issues of the elderly. My mom will ask for food to waste it. Then turns around within 20 min asking for something else. She remembers wasting the other food. She also refuses to eat leftovers. We can't afford it and I'm over it after 2yrs of it.

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'Wasting food' usually means leaving dished food on the plate. If you use serving dishes, and only put a small spoonful at a time on her plate, she can't 'waste' so much. What's left in the serving dishes is clean, untouched, and can be dished up next time. It's not 'left-overs', it's what's available. You aren't running a short order cook shop. Don't produce food you know she dislikes, but forget the 'special requests'.

I've been doing this for 30 years, with children and adults. It saves a lot of food and a lot of annoyance.
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Cally2024 Sep 18, 2024
I don't give her food she dislikes and I already give her appropriate portions
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Just read your replies, truly baffled why you care if mom threatens to tell others on you, doesn’t want the food you provide, and why you’re trying to endlessly reason with a person who cannot be reasoned with. This is like some strange cat and mouse game for you and mom. The only solution is for you to stop playing the game. She will not starve, and others will understand you’re not the bad guy (but really, who cares if they don’t?) This would have exhausted my efforts a long time ago
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Cally, your mom is yanking your chain. She can only do that because you put the collar on yourself and put the chain in her hand.
Honestly, who cares what she tells other people?
My great grandpa told anyone who would listen that my grandma never fed him. This, about a woman who never let a human being or animal leave her presence without PIE!
We all knew he was “full of beans”.
Look at other options for her care. You might not have the will to stand up to her and that’s ok; mother/daughter relationships are super complicated. Going around and around like this isn’t healthy. I would be willing to bet that she will not be nearly as difficult in a different setting with someone else.
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Today's Menu;

Take it or Leave it!
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Cally2024 Sep 18, 2024
She does threaten to tell people I'm not giving her enough food and I'm being mean to her. I'm not being mean to her. I don't want to get into trouble just because I can't be her food gopher and can't afford for her waste
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Sounds like from your reply mom is losing some reasoning skills. It’s kind of you to want to accommodate her, but it also needs limits for you. You’re a care giver, not a short order cook, no sense in constantly trying to find what food she’s in the mood to eat. Offer what you think she’d enjoy, if it’s rejected make an easy snack available near her and get on with your day. The appeasing will soon exhaust you and the budget both.
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Cally2024 Sep 18, 2024
Ohh believe me I know I feel that short order cook thing. She threatens to tell people I'm not giving her enough food and I'm being mean to her. I sit the snacks or fruit in by her she says she needs real food. That or she only wants to eat that candy they call old time Christmas candy. I cut het off of that and portion it out.
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Cally, if she is hungry, she will eat. It won’t matter if it is spoiled, or if it has no taste, or if she doesn’t like how it looks. When she turns food down, she is not hungry. She is bored, and for some reason she has found this way to control you. Just stop. It will only take a day, at the most two, for her to learn that she eats what you give her, either immediately or when she really does get hungry. It won't do her any harm.
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Cally2024 Sep 18, 2024
I have tried that to an extent. She threatens to tell people I'm depriving her of food and im being mean to her. She says "your not giving me enough food." "Im hungry " She may really feel that way because she wastes instead of eating and wants stiff every 20min-hr. I say ok let me get (whatever she asked for earlier) and she says "I don't believe I want thet right now. I'll eat it later" or "it doesn't have any taste to it" I have explained to her I can't fix your taste buds it's not the food. We cannot afford for you to waste food. She says I don't eat stuff I don't want to. I'm like well I know you didn't grow up rich and I know we weren't poor but we weren't rich either do I don't know where you're getting this from. I'm like you didn't let us kids or the grandkids waste. It changes nothing
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Cally, does your mom live with you? And how would she know if something is ‘left-over’? Can you pack her refused food up and freeze it until the next time she asks for it?

Better yet, maybe give her a nightly menu with one simple option, for instance,
Tonight’s menu:
(Whatever you’ve planned for your family), or
Grilled cheese and tomato soup
Period.
You can dress it up however you want, i.e. Four cheese panini with tomato basil bisque!
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Beatty Sep 14, 2024
Your meal or the ONE alternative: bread and water.

My Grandparents cure-all for fussy eaters.
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I agree that you give her a choice and after that, she can access whatever "easy" food is available, or snacks - nothing that requires even microwaving. My MIL and SFIL used to have apple slices and popcorn for dinner every Sunday night. Now you can buy popped popcorn in bags at the grocery store. Yogurt, etc. At 84 I wouldn't fret about "nutritious" meals for her too much. I used to tell my family "The kitchen is closed!", meaning I'm done helping you find, prep or cook food. Then walk out of the kitchen and get on with the rest of your day.
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Before my 100-yr old Italian-American Aunt with advanced dementia passed away, she had coffee with either corn muffins or bran muffins every morning. For years. For lunch she had half a can of Campbells Chicken and Rice (or Stars) soup with an egg in it. Every day for years. At night she ate whatever meal the family caregiver prepared. If she refused it, she got the other half of the can of soup. She was extremely healthy for her age. I'm mentioning her Italian heritage because of the psychotic level of attention we tend to give to food in general. At 65 I'm finally (mostly) over that myself. My point being that a focus on food and quality and variety at your Mom's age is overrated.
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You need to stop thinking of her as an elderly parent and instead as a spoiled toddler. That’s essentially what she is. If she doesn’t eat what’s provided, she can go hungry.
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asfastas1can Sep 20, 2024
It may sound harsh, but you are correct. We have had to put our foot down on my 95-year-old mother's requests, some of them obviously outrageous. We are not wealthy, but we do our best to accommodate her wishes, but now it has to be within reason. Remember, spoiled toddlers eventually grow and learn, but our elderly parents are no longer growing up and they are regressing in their critical thinking and definitely no longer learning when they reach this point.
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