Problems swallowing can disrupt your daily life and make it difficult to get adequate nutrition. If you have problems swallowing and want to ensure you receive adequate nutrition by making eating and drinking as easy as possible, you might want to try out one of these diets:
- The pureed diet – Depending on how severe your problems swallowing are, you may benefit from eating a pureed diet. On this diet, everything you eat should be homogenous, smooth, and pudding-like. Use a food processor or a blender to strain and puree any solid foods. You should also use appropriate liquids when you are smoothing out your foods. For example, use milk and create a puree with vegetables, use gravy or broth with meats, and use juice with desserts and fruit.
- The mechanical soft diet – On this diet, any food consumed by dysphagia patients is blended, ground, or chopped with additional liquids to make the swallowing process easier. Some of the foods allowed on this type of diet include ready-to-eat cereal with extra milk, bread, soft vegetables, ground meat, cottage cheese, custards, and puddings. Patients should avoid dried fruit, raw fruits, seeds, nuts, and tough meats.
- The soft diet – This diet gets rid of any foods that are hard to chew, including chewy, sticky breads, raw vegetables and fruit, and tough meets. Some of the permitted foods on this diet include cooked beans, ice cream, cookies without nuts, eggs, cooked vegetables, tender meats, and hot cereals. On this diet, patients should avoid corn, hard vegetables, hard fruits, skin, and seeds.