8 Answers

country bumpkin

Karma: 1665030

A soft foods diet uses foods that are soft and easy to chew or swallow. The food can be chopped, ground, mashed, pureed, or just cooked in a way to make it soft.
There are lots of reasons that force people to use a soft foods diet. My husband is in the midst of lengthy oral surgery. His dentist advised soft foods after tooth extraction. This picture shows some of the food choices we tried. Foods include oatmeal, applesauce, mashed potatoes and junior foods.

Doctor suggested soft food diet

This is the diet suggested by my husband's dental surgeon for his patients following bone graft or implant surgery.

Breakfast
Apple juice, water, milk,coffee,tea,yougurt,cooked cereals, oatmeal or cream of wheat. Scrambled eggs, cottage cheese,toast, applesauce.

Lunch and Dinner
Home cooked broth, bouillon, soups, ground beef, baked or broiled fish, broiled or stewed chicken (finely chopped). Macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs, bread softened with gravy, baked or mashed potatoes. Asparagus, peas, carrots, lima beans, string beans (all mashed), canned bartlett pears. Jell-O, pound cake. Milk shakes and ice cream.

Our adventures with a soft foods diet.

Trials of soft foods after tooth extraction.

Diets are easier to follow and stick with when interesting food is available. My husband was not happy with the idea of baby food. Baby food is not usually seasoned and he likes seasoning. Yogurt was also suggested, but, my husband won't eat it, ever. So we began experimenting.

First, I cooked a pound of ground beef. It was slowly cooked over medium heat in a frying pan. The meat was constantly turned and broken into tiny pieces ( crumbled). Then, the meat was refrigerated and added to Junior food jars to enhance flavor and give added protein. It was also added to pre-cooked mashed potatoes bought at the grocery store.

My husband likes oatmeal, so that was easy. We bought individual oatmeal packets and some have flavoring like brown sugar and cinnamon, so that gives variety, too. Jars of baby food and junior food worked well, too, in the first week.

Five days after all his lower teeth had been removed, he tried eating flaked fish. I bought a package of frozen fish fillets and microwaved it. It was easy for him to pry off tiny pieces with his fork. I also bought several kinds of canned soup. And scrambled eggs (with shredded cheddar cheese) completed the soft food choices in the beginning.

Eating on Soft Food Diet at a restaurant.

Before my husband's dental surgery, we ate out often. In the past 3 weeks, since the tooth extraction, we have eaten out 3 times. This picture shows you the omelette, fruit and English muffin he ordered for lunch today. The omelette had spinach and finely sliced mushrooms which he was able to eat. The fruit, a cup of mixed fruit - melon and grapes, was not easy to eat. He only managed to eat the inside of the grapes, the melon was just too hard. The English muffin was too hard, too.

The first time we ate out he ordered chili. That worked for him.

Carry out meatball sandwich

Looking for something different to eat when you have no bottom teeth led us to look for a sandwich. This meatball sandwich came from our local Subway sandwich shop. My husband was able to break the meatballs apart with his fork. Then he could scrape off some of the soft inside of the sandwich roll and eat that, too.

If everything goes as planned, my husband should only be on a soft diet for three months. Knowing that is only for a relatively short time, makes it easier. We try to keep it like an adventure by experimenting with some new food each day.

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