Table 3.
Costs of food at all levels.
| Personal/individual costs | Examples |
|---|---|
| Luxury or ‘treat’ food | Pavlova, shrimp cocktail, sushi, crayfish |
| ‘Healthy’ food | More fresh fruit and vegetables for person with illness, green milk (skim) more expensive than blue (full fat), vitamin water (helped nausea) |
| Effects of illness and treatment on appetite | Increased appetite (e.g. because of steroids) |
| Decreased appetite/nausea: costly ‘liquid food’ or high protein drinks/meal replacements | |
| Interpersonal costs | |
| Visitors | Tea/milk, biscuits for ‘daily visitors’; providing meals for many |
| Food for family coming to visit/care | Having to make meals for Dad now that Mum’s sick; family members coming to stay |
| Effect of palliative care journey on carers’ eating | Partner’s not eating, why should I? (YT); money spent on petrol/parking for hospital so less money for food bill; unhealthy hospital café food or rushed takeaway food |
| Minimal way to express care for sick person | Prompts siblings to at least drop off some food to Mum. (FM) |
| Sociocultural costs | |
| Food characterised as ‘cultural’ | ‘Island food’ – taro, yams. (KU) |
| ‘Food from the sea’ – sent daughter to go diving for kina; traditional food like ‘rotten corn’. (MR) | |
| Sociocultural expectations of providing food at funeral | Couldn’t afford to cater for funeral food ‘takeaways down the road if you want it’. (YT); flat out organising everything including food for funeral when you’re exhausted. (GB); part of leftover funeral debt is cost of catering |
| Structural impacts on food | |
| Food grants | So-called ‘food grants’ (emergency support) for those on state-allocated sickness/unemployment benefits were hard to get, with narrow criteria/inflexibility re-support allocation |
| Hospital cafes – private businesses | Lack of healthy food options, little suitable for vegetarians/other health needs. (MS) |
| High cost of food for ‘trapped’ people – 24 h/day at hospital; no other food purchase options near hospice or hospital | |
| Poor communication systems | Not warned of discharge so no food in Mum’s house. (FM) |
| Hospital food systems for patients | Being sent the wrong meal or no meal – no way to know how to find hospital kitchen or request correct food. (CW) |