As a somewhat feral child I was blessed to eat, or not eat, whatever my parents served for dinner, supplanted by whatever I could grow or catch myself.
My normal healthy state is "skinny." A bad flu or lung infection would turn me into skeleton boy, keeping me out of school sometimes for a week or two or three. Later I was skeleton man, sometimes slogging in to work only to be sent home again by my supervisors. My skills must have been valuable enough to tolerate my absences.
Once upon a time my parents were traveling in Mexico, leaving me in their house to look after my mom's mom, and my dad's dad, my two remaining grandparents, and the craziest of all my immediate family then. (Only the good die young.)
Wouldn't you know, I was just recovering from the flu and it turned into pneumonia. So my wife's seen me as skeleton man, and she also saw these two grandparents in their highest form.
My grandpa would get up at two in the morning, fry a pound of bacon, throw a few eggs into the mess, consume it all with a pot of coffee, and than scan the radio bands with the volume turned up loud enough to wake the dead. He was blind and somewhat deaf at that point. (When he could see he'd be up late at night with his telescopes, or in his workshop.)
My grandma, the one who had to be removed from the home she owned as a danger to herself and others, the one who'd get kicked out of even nice, tolerant, understanding, expensive nursing homes, would lock herself into her room with her evil cat, the "master" bedroom of the house, and they'd both hiss whenever anyone dared to check in on them. My mom had asked if I could make sure grandma bathed at least once that month, but it was not to be.
In college I would make buttermilk from surplus government powdered milk, cultured in surplus glass quart milk bottles on top of the water heater in the bathroom closet. And rice, lots of rice. And various plants I'd grow or find, which is probably why I'm not dead.
My diet is still bad. I know how I should eat, but I don't.
= new reply since forum marked as read