When you can’t chew, you should eat creamy, pasty, or liquid foods that can be eaten with a straw or without forcing chewing, such as porridge, fruit smoothie, and soup in the blender.
This type of food is indicated for oral surgeries, toothache, lack of teeth, inflammation of the gums and canker sores. In the elderly, eating creamy, easy-to-chew foods facilitates nutrition and prevents malnutrition, also helping to prevent suffocation and complications such as pneumonia. In these cases, it is ideal for older people to be accompanied by a nutritionist, who will prescribe an adequate diet according to their health status and, if necessary, dietary supplements that help strengthen the patient.
When you can’t chew, foods that can be used in your diet to maintain good nutrition include:
It is important to remember that older people who drown frequently should avoid drinking fluids, especially when they are lying down, as this increases suffocation. The easiest foods to swallow are creamy, textured pudding and mashed potatoes. Difficulty swallowing is called dysphagia and can cause serious problems such as pneumonia. See symptoms of this disease in: Difficulty swallowing.
During the difficult period of chewing and swallowing, you should avoid hard, crunchy and dry foods, such as:
In addition to avoiding these foods, you should eat slowly to prevent food from injuriting mouth sores or cause suffocation.
The following table shows an example of a 3-day menu with foods that do not need to be chewed and are easy to swallow.
Cooked minced meat 4 cabbage. Cooked rice jelly soup
Avocado shake
1 yogurt 1 slice pudding
1 glass of milk with coffee 5 Mary cookies moistened
Mixed chicken soup 1 glass of steel juice
Mixed breadcrumb bean soup moistened with 1 grated pear soup
In case of significant weight loss due to food difficulties, a doctor or nutritionist should be consulted to assess health status and adapt the diet.