What choices are given to the residents of care homes (EHPAD)? Based on an ethnographic approach centered on food, this article once again raises the question of the participation of dependent elderly living in care homes. It analyzes the participation both as recommended in public health policies, and as materialized in care homes. It shows how the fight against undernutrition makes it difficult to understand the refusal of food as a deliberate and participatory act on the part of residents.