Several years before my MIL was admitted to a nursing home, she was drinking Boost daily. Not in place of all other food, but for solid food, she was mostly eating cookies, pastries, cake, and other junk food by that point. For a few years prior to that she was eating some little frozen diet meals, but not only was her sense of taste almost totally gone (except for the ability to taste sweet), she had also declared that she just didn't like vegetables any more, so she stopped eating those.

At one point during those years she told DH and me that we should drink Boost too, because "it's really good for you!" I'm sure she was just going by what her DR told her to convince her to drink those since her appetite was so low and she couldn't taste anything that wasn't sweet.


Of course I seriously doubt she'd ever given a thought in her life to nutrition as such. (southern cook - plenty of meats of all kinds, eggs, butter, and bacon. Not a lot of fruit, but plenty of veggies from the garden and of course biscuits and cornbread - a relatively balanced diet for the south during her lifetime)

I have no idea what she was eating when she went into the nursing home - I suspect she was mostly just drinking boost by that point, although she might have also eaten whatever dessert they brought with her meals.