Both parents require pureed foods. I puree the food myself but it is a lot of work. I noticed there is an assortment of healthy pureed baby foods in the supermarket. When I checked online for adults I only found expensive frozen foods.
As the elderly get frail and sensitive to temperature, there digestion will become very sensitive too. Baby foods have much the same ingrediants,.There is junior food which is tasty and just the right consistancy,if still having upsets or disagreements, the 0-6 mnths is pureed or make your own to the right consistancy.
heres another thought from where we are- only cool, thicker things: Carnation instant breakfast powder with fortified milk and ice cream and fruit whipped up in the bullet is a good way to get some calories and protein in. We found that the ensures and boosts were much too rich for someone with an older system. hard to process..created more problems. ... best of luck
I also went through this problem with both parents. After going crazy making the food myself, I asked my parents doctor if it was the only way to go. He told me to buy baby food. Its full of all of the nutriments and vitamins needed and very safe for adults. once I started buying the food I noticed my parents eating more of it. so I went with that. It made things a lot easier and faster. It gave me more time to deal with other issues.
A Nurse told us to let him eat as much ice cream as he wished. Also, have you tried Wheatina? May be a different taste, for a change. You can also use ensure to make fortified milkshakes. I used to add all kinds of things to the vanilla, like bananas or berries. When you make mashed potatoes, you can add minced garlic or shredded cheese before you purée to help the flavor.
Side note on my comment above: Thick-It puréed foods that we saw online are foods such as spaghetti, Chicken a la King, Chicken and dumplings, Salisbury steak etc etc.
Chicken and dumplings at home purée easily, and if you don’t cook, you can buy canned and then purée it.
I haven’t tried this yet, but there’s canned puréed food for patients and the brand is called Thick-It. Wasn’t able to find any at CVS or Walgreens, but they told me at CVS that you can order it at Cvs.com My daughter also found it on Amazon. Seems expensive, probably better to purée yourself, some of the above mentioned items, but if you don’t cook much, this may be a good alternative Ice cream is great, of course, and Italian Ice is also. It comes in small containers, and it’s also good for mixing with crushed medications, if your patient won’t swallow pills, like my mother. Hope this helps someone, as all of the answers given above have truly helped me.
Demstress and any others interested: I promised some information on dysphagia diets. I believe there was in the last week or so a similar post, so if I promised anyone else, right now I can't remember which post contained the commitment.
Hopefully this info will be helpful.
Residential Home Health has created a chart of "Food Groups, Recommended, Avoid, and Allowable if thin liquids are also allowed". I received these lists from the speech therapist of one of the care agencies, and amended it periodically as I experimented, and with ongoing advice from therapists. Some of the suggestions overlap those of other posters, but I'm keeping them b/c most of them were in fact suggested by therapists.
My additions are ONLY that; the basic lists are 3 - 4 pages long and should be obtained directly from a speech therapist, or perhaps Residential Home Health would even supply the lists directly.
Recommendations are separated by level; we were only affected by Levels 2 and then 3. You really need to get the charts to see the distinct differences between mechanical soft and pureed.
LEVEL 2 - MECHANICALLY ALTERED (some observations, additions and tips):
Beverages/ thin liquids: OJ, cider, apple juice, Ensure, Boost.
Breads: waffles with syrup.
Desserts: canned peaches and pears. (skins removed during processing)
Generally:
Fruits with skins or seeds should be avoided unless specifically strained to remove seeds.
Eggs: omelettes are permitted, but be careful with added veggies.
Fish that's cut up or baked is permitted. Breaded fish may cause coughing b/c of the crumbs.
No chicken with rice and no split pea with ham soups unless pureed. Ham can be added but should be pureed finely; ham can still be hard to eat. (And pureeing roast beef is a real challenge.)
No veggies with skins, such as potatoes.
Absolutely no nuts. ____________________________________________________________________________________
Level 3: DYSPHAGIA ADVANCED (again, only additions; basics are in the chart)
Apricot, pear, cranberry, blueberry juices, lemonade not allowed w/o thickeners.
Applesauce can be used to soften and puree a variety of foods. Sometimes I added it to cooked fruits w/o skins. I also used it as a topping to soften cookies to the point that they were literally mushy, kind of like dunking a gingerbread cookie. I found one lemon cookie that "mushed up" very easily.
Puddings, pies w/o crust (contents pureed), cobbler w/pureed fruit but w/o crusts are acceptable.
Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries and blueberries are out; they absolutely would need to be strained to remove the seeds. Stringy fruits such as oranges, tangerines and pineapple are out.
Hot dogs pureed, after removal of skins (that was not fun!) I added cider or OJ to fish and pureed it.
Yogurt w/o nuts or coconut, or fruit that hadn't been pureed.
Hash browns, if pureed. Chicken or other cream soup with pureed veggies. Try adding pureed meat as well.
Cooked corn, beans and peas are iffy b/c of the skins. I pureed them longer but found it really hard to do so w/o removing the skins, which is literally impossible for little tiny veggies. Even "mushing" them didn't remove the skins. Thus, any veggie with skin needs to be tested and d/c/ed if it's too difficult to eat.
Sweet potatoes are in, minus the skins. Cooked carrots are also okay. (I paired them with pureed meats so the vitamin C would complement absorption of iron)
Gravies are good additives to puree meats.
Ice cream and sherbet are out b/c they melt and become liquid, w/o thickening. I got around this by serving about 3 T at a time, then adding from still frozen packages so it was always more solid when eaten. DQ treats are out though; they melt too quickly.
The above are only NOTEs and additions to the printouts, which could probably be obtained through anyone providing speech therapy. ____________________________________________________________________________________
The American Dietetic Assn. also produces a National Dysphagia diet; I only have the printout for level 1; the therapist who provides it should indicate whether nectar-like, honey-like or spoon-thick is the recommended level. ____________________________________________________________________
Gordon Food Service provided a printout listing pureed foods, ranging from apple-cinnamon French Toast to pureed meats. They're available by special order, but generally are 2 dozen cans/ packages per case. They do have a small boneless riblet which made a good substitute for BBQ ribs. __________________________________________________________________________________
Med-Diet Labs, Inc., in Plymouth MN sent me a brochure titled "Coping with Chewing and Swallowing Problems". I had contacted them after locating their web site. They provide thickeners of various levels, plus pureed food ranging from lasagna to French toast.
They also provide adaptable kitchen utensils, such as bendable spoons, weighted no spill cups, etc. Food grade poly molds are available as well, to mold the mush into more attractive shapes.
(This is a task for which Jeanne Gibbs and her cake decorating expertise would be a good consultant!)
There were other websites I found, but I didn't get any brochures or literature from any of them. _____________________________________________________________________________________
I have more notes on a dysphagia diet, tips, precautions (from a speech pathologist: learn the Heimlich Maneuver! ... chin tucks while eating, how to self suction) but they're with my medical notes and not readily available.
Mom loved a smoothie at breakfast or for a snack. She needed the calories, so we used frozen fruit, yogurt, ice cream, and half a packet of carnation instant breakfast. It worked well. Also, made her cream of wheat with milk, not water.
Some wonderful ideas here! Thanks to Demstress for this question, and I hope you’ve been able to use some of the ideas suggested. My parents are living on their own at 93 and my dad has to purée everything for my mom, who has suffered with achalaisia now for many years, to the point where now she cannot eat much of anything unless it’s puréed (but she enjoys indulging in desserts like cheesecake, because, why not?). It is a lot of work for him to prepare all the meals, but mom did the lion’s share of meal planning and prep throughout their 70 years of marriage, so fair enough that the tables have turned and dad is the main chef. He makes up meals for both of them and purées mom’s, often adding V8 juice to the blender to boost the vitamins! Don’t overlook meal supplements like Ensure or Boost, as well. They can be consumed daily, and I think there are also varieties for diabetics. Thank you to those caregivers who sacrifice so much to care for your loved ones. You are inspiring! I’m ready if and when the responsibilities fall to me.
When my babies were young and we had family dinners, our go to kitchen aide was a blender. We blended pasta and meatballs, meatloaf, veggies, etc. It looked awful when I served it to my children but they loved the food. You might want to try that. There is also those super blenders for smoothies which can pulverize anything into liquid and if you go to Youtube, they have a lot of recipes where you can blend just about anything that are loaded with proper nutrition.
So your not a chef. :) You can still do good, healthy food. Tins of chunky soup. Blitzed down and then if you need to thicken, use powdered potato.
If you have tin of mushy peas, some chunky -left over ham, Blitz - voila -Pea and ham soup.
Ready to make porridge (in packets) Mash a banana and add to porridge. Yummy. Scrambled egg (made a little bit runny) cooked in bacon fat - will make for bacon and eggs.
You can add and crushed vitamins or pills to these.
I used a blender or one of the personal blender type things (Ninja or Bullet) I made a lot of soups and portioned them in serving size and froze them so if I wanted a "stuffed cabbage soup" I could thaw that and it would be ready to go, the next day I could thaw a Split Pea with ham soup. Breakfast cereal, 1 Cup of cheerio's blended to a powder and mixed with milk and Thick-it was one breakfast, Cream of wheat with an egg poached on it (sort of like grits and eggs I guess) was an added protein boost for the start of the day. Yogurt with pureed fruit good as a snack or dessert Lots of pudding or I would make his favorite, Key Lime pie but pour the filling into ramekins and bake that. No crust to worry about. 1 pie worth of filling made enough for 6 or 7 ramekins.
Just process whatever you are making for lunch or dinner. Meatloaf, puree that with a bit of gravy or even water or broth. Mashed potatoes, fine as is but make sure they are not so sticky there is a problem swallowing. Most veggies can be pureed as well.
Watch things that are slippery, peaches, nectarines can slide down too easily and can become a choke hazard. Adding a product like Thick-It can sometimes be a guessing game as to how thick something needs to be. (Also if you are using something like Mirilax you can not add Thick-It to it as the Mirilax will thin it out almost instantly. So Mirilax has to be added to something that is already thick like pudding or the thicker soups. And I would never leave a person that has a swallowing problem alone while they are eating.
As a Dietitian, I have used baby foods for the elderly PLUS I made a handout for my head/neck cancer patients called "Baby Food Not Just for Babies Anymore". They are actually perfect for any dysphagia patients. There are so many varieties now.
My mother used Junior's Baby Foods. You can also buy a B&D Food chopper for around $20 and do it yourself. It only holds about a cup of food at a time, but they work very well. My DH had dysphagia and I used Nutritional Shakes (Equate brand Ensure Plus) and he like a softly scrambled egg and I would crumble the meat into it. Or an egg over-easy and the meat on the side - again, I would crumble it. You can also use "greens supplements" and "protein supplements" and add them to the shakes. I did that when he was drinking Hot Cocoa.
I've been looking for the Hormel purees and it looks like they can be bought through amazon or walgreens if you are in the usa. While at first glance the price seemed reasonable - $3.50 per dinner - the nutrition content listed calories at 260. Unless your loved one is eating very little (like my mom) it would take several to make a meal. And it kind of looked like they had just thrown the whole meal in a blender and put it in a bowl, not kept the individual components separate. When you see the amazing things that can be done with molds and presentation that seems... extremely disrespectful to the needs of those who must live this way. By comparison Simply Puree in the UK looks amazing.
As somebody already mentioned, do check out the dysphagia videos on YouTube, they are inspiring!
Hormel has a variety of pureed meals and thickened drinks. You can order them online. I bought the drinks for Dad many times, and he liked them. I did not try the meals.
Great ideas ladies. Demstress, did you ever check out YouTube for pureeing ideas? Give it a shot. There's videos about EVERYTHING! Even hamsters farting! I know, I'm still hoping to mature 😁
BTW, I was feeding my great nephew from a jar of turkey and sweet potato baby food on the weekend and I thought it tasted pretty good, and using the plain strained fruits and veggies as ingredients in other dishes or on their own with added seasonings might be a good way to cut back on some of the prep work.
Good list from shakingdustoff, but if a true puree is needed some of the items might be a little on the chunky side. There is very little that isn't offered as a puree at mom's nursing home even salads, in fact the luncheon cold plates are some of the most interesting in terms of colour and flavour - picture potato salad, pureed egg or ham salad or another deli meat, ambrosia salad or coleslaw (the red cabbage slaw comes out the most amazing shade of purple!). Make a list of easy go to foods that you can make in a hurry or keep on hand and then just try to modify whatever you are having for your own meals or the kinds of foods they would normally eat. Things that are too thin can be brought to the right consistency by adding in commercial dysphagia thickeners, infant cereals, potato flakes, or cooking with flour or another starch. And don't forget the condiments that can make any meal better - jellied cranberries with turkey, gravy with your potatoes, applesauce with chicken, bbq sauce with pork, tartar sauce with fish. Consider a flavourful spaghetti sauce served with polenta or sweet and sour chicken with a very well done savoury rice pudding. Smoothies are good for any meal and can include almost anything. And don't forget fruit desserts can add lots interest to meals - it may look like pudding but pureed apple pie tastes surprisingly like the real thing.
Demstress, I too went through the need to vary the menus. And, honestly, I forgot them after my father died, but I do have notes somewhere and will look them up.
Right now, the only thing I remember is that I had jello molds and cookie cutters which I planned to use to create seasonal jellos with appropriate fruit...something like making jello with dabs of pureed fruit, hardened in either seasonal molds or a tray from which molded forms could be cut out.
Using an ice cream scoop for molded food like potatoes or meat was a technique used at a rehab center. It was much more appealing than pureed food just put in a bowl.
I have a list of potential "enhancements" in my medical notes. I'll see if I can find them.
JimmyDean foods produces precooked sausages that can be heated then pureed. I added those to breakfast meals for protein.
There's one site that did have some good ideas about food presentation. I think I have a brochure; I'll check it out later tonight.
Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. I have a stick blender and the bullet. I puree the foods and put them in individual containers. I have a friend help me so we have enough for a week. I was watching my 9-month-old grandson and he has wonderful pureed meals, and I thought why don't they have something like this for the elderly. My problem is that I run out of ideas and asked my friend if she could help. She has come up with some lovely pureed soups and mixed a bit of pineapple for a sweet taste. If you have suggestions on what combinations to puree I would certainly appreciate it. Parents have dysphasia. Breakfast is the hard one for me. I usually make farina or cream of wheat with bananas or applesauce. But would like more ideas. Bless you all!
Another thought and an issue which I encountered: I bought good plastic microwave safe containers in which to store the food, but we discovered after a few or more microwave heatings that the plastic became scarred and little bits started to peel off.
Contacting Rubbermaid, I learned that "microwave safe" means only about 30 seconds of heat! So their plastic containers definitely are not microwave safe except for that short time. Even though they were BPA free, I didn't want melted plastic near the food.
I tried others; the best I found were the Anchor Hocking dishes, but they were glass and hard for Dad to handle. So we ended up getting paper plates, in which he could microwave the AH dishes, then eat directly from them w/o removing the hot glass dishes.
Demstress, I went through the same thing. Did a lot of online searching, found foods that were more or less appealing in a pureed form, but the cost was outrageous - sometimes $7 or $8 for a 15 or 16 oz. can, plus equally expensive shipping costs.
And, reading the fine print, I found one site with an exclusion for melted foods. I would assume the noncanned foods were shipped in trucks with temperature control, but for a company to provide options if foods arrived melted....well, that eliminated any confidence I might have had.
So, reluctantly, I did as CW did. I pureed the foods at home in batches and brought them to Dad. Sometimes I froze them, but there was so much fluid that when they were thawed, they became even more watery.
I've read that about 15 million people are dealing with dysphagia. Yet there are no really good answers for the family in managing food prep.
I haven't seen anything in supermarkets, but I did learn that Gordon Foods had meals...and right now I believe that they were pureed but just can't remember. I recall they had a nice little boneless rib meal that I was going to buy.
I nixed the baby food b/c it's so costly, too watery looking, and doesn't provide a wholesome, well rounded mail.
Pureeing was easier to tolerate if I did half a dozen dinners at a time, and listened to upbeat music. Still, I wish it didn't have to be done and always felt guilty presenting such unappealing food to Dad for meals.
Have you considered getting something like a Bullet to purée your own food? When I had weight loss surgery 12 years ago, I was on puréed foods for weeks. Before I had the surgery, I bought one of those and a bunch of small storage freezer containers. I puréed and froze enough food for myself for a month. I know my son has one for their baby and it comes with containers for the freezer, but they’re baby-size portions. They got it at Target.
There just isn't a big enough market for it outside of long term care facilities. There was a limited selection available as frozen dinners through my local meals on wheels program, but at $7.50 each I only kept them on hand for those days when modifying a meal was just too much.
Think creatively when planning your meals: things like soups are easily pureed with a stick blender, mashed potatoes, squash and rutabaga are already the right consistency and so are custards, puddings, yogurt. If you want more ideas I have plenty 😜
Thick-It puréed foods that we saw online are foods such as spaghetti, Chicken a la King, Chicken and dumplings, Salisbury steak etc etc.
Chicken and dumplings at home purée easily, and if you don’t cook, you can buy canned and then purée it.
Thick-It. Wasn’t able to find any at CVS or Walgreens, but they told me at CVS that you can order it at Cvs.com
My daughter also found it on Amazon. Seems expensive, probably better to purée yourself, some of the above mentioned items, but if you don’t cook much, this may be a good alternative
Ice cream is great, of course, and Italian Ice is also. It comes in small containers, and it’s also good for mixing with crushed medications, if your patient won’t swallow pills, like my mother.
Hope this helps someone, as all of the answers given above have truly helped me.
Hopefully this info will be helpful.
Residential Home Health has created a chart of "Food Groups, Recommended, Avoid, and Allowable if thin liquids are also allowed". I received these lists from the speech therapist of one of the care agencies, and amended it periodically as I experimented, and with ongoing advice from therapists. Some of the suggestions overlap those of other posters, but I'm keeping them b/c most of them were in fact suggested by therapists.
My additions are ONLY that; the basic lists are 3 - 4 pages long and should be obtained directly from a speech therapist, or perhaps Residential Home Health would even supply the lists directly.
___________________________________________________________
Recommendations are separated by level; we were only affected by Levels 2 and then 3. You really need to get the charts to see the distinct differences between mechanical soft and pureed.
Level 2: Dysphagia Mechanically Altered Characteristics.
Level 3: Dysphagia Advanced.
______________________________________
LEVEL 2 - MECHANICALLY ALTERED (some observations, additions and tips):
Beverages/ thin liquids: OJ, cider, apple juice, Ensure, Boost.
Breads: waffles with syrup.
Desserts: canned peaches and pears. (skins removed during processing)
Generally:
Fruits with skins or seeds should be avoided unless specifically strained to remove seeds.
Eggs: omelettes are permitted, but be careful with added veggies.
Fish that's cut up or baked is permitted. Breaded fish may cause coughing b/c of the crumbs.
No chicken with rice and no split pea with ham soups unless pureed. Ham can be added but should be pureed finely; ham can still be hard to eat. (And pureeing roast beef is a real challenge.)
No veggies with skins, such as potatoes.
Absolutely no nuts.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Level 3: DYSPHAGIA ADVANCED (again, only additions; basics are in the chart)
Apricot, pear, cranberry, blueberry juices, lemonade not allowed w/o thickeners.
Applesauce can be used to soften and puree a variety of foods. Sometimes I added it to cooked fruits w/o skins. I also used it as a topping to soften cookies to the point that they were literally mushy, kind of like dunking a gingerbread cookie. I found one lemon cookie that "mushed up" very easily.
Puddings, pies w/o crust (contents pureed), cobbler w/pureed fruit but w/o crusts are acceptable.
Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries and blueberries are out; they absolutely would need to be strained to remove the seeds. Stringy fruits such as oranges, tangerines and pineapple are out.
Hot dogs pureed, after removal of skins (that was not fun!) I added cider or OJ to fish and pureed it.
Yogurt w/o nuts or coconut, or fruit that hadn't been pureed.
Hash browns, if pureed. Chicken or other cream soup with pureed veggies. Try adding pureed meat as well.
Cooked corn, beans and peas are iffy b/c of the skins. I pureed them longer but found it really hard to do so w/o removing the skins, which is literally impossible for little tiny veggies. Even "mushing" them didn't remove the skins. Thus, any veggie with skin needs to be tested and d/c/ed if it's too difficult to eat.
Sweet potatoes are in, minus the skins. Cooked carrots are also okay. (I paired them with pureed meats so the vitamin C would complement absorption of iron)
Gravies are good additives to puree meats.
Ice cream and sherbet are out b/c they melt and become liquid, w/o thickening. I got around this by serving about 3 T at a time, then adding from still frozen packages so it was always more solid when eaten. DQ treats are out though; they melt too quickly.
The above are only NOTEs and additions to the printouts, which could probably be obtained through anyone providing speech therapy.
____________________________________________________________________________________
The American Dietetic Assn. also produces a National Dysphagia diet; I only have the printout for level 1; the therapist who provides it should indicate whether nectar-like, honey-like or spoon-thick is the recommended level.
____________________________________________________________________
Gordon Food Service provided a printout listing pureed foods, ranging from apple-cinnamon French Toast to pureed meats. They're available by special order, but generally are 2 dozen cans/ packages per case. They do have a small boneless riblet which made a good substitute for BBQ ribs.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Med-Diet Labs, Inc., in Plymouth MN sent me a brochure titled "Coping with Chewing and Swallowing Problems". I had contacted them after locating their web site. They provide thickeners of various levels, plus pureed food ranging from lasagna to French toast.
They also provide adaptable kitchen utensils, such as bendable spoons, weighted no spill cups, etc. Food grade poly molds are available as well, to mold the mush into more attractive shapes.
(This is a task for which Jeanne Gibbs and her cake decorating expertise would be a good consultant!)
There were other websites I found, but I didn't get any brochures or literature from any of them.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
I have more notes on a dysphagia diet, tips, precautions (from a speech pathologist: learn the Heimlich Maneuver! ... chin tucks while eating, how to self suction) but they're with my medical notes and not readily available.
Hope this helps those dealing with dysphagia.
Tins of chunky soup. Blitzed down and then if you need to thicken, use powdered potato.
If you have tin of mushy peas, some chunky -left over ham, Blitz - voila -Pea and ham soup.
Ready to make porridge (in packets) Mash a banana and add to porridge. Yummy.
Scrambled egg (made a little bit runny) cooked in bacon fat - will make for bacon and eggs.
You can add and crushed vitamins or pills to these.
Good luck
I made a lot of soups and portioned them in serving size and froze them so if I wanted a "stuffed cabbage soup" I could thaw that and it would be ready to go, the next day I could thaw a Split Pea with ham soup.
Breakfast cereal, 1 Cup of cheerio's blended to a powder and mixed with milk and Thick-it was one breakfast, Cream of wheat with an egg poached on it (sort of like grits and eggs I guess) was an added protein boost for the start of the day.
Yogurt with pureed fruit good as a snack or dessert
Lots of pudding or I would make his favorite, Key Lime pie but pour the filling into ramekins and bake that. No crust to worry about. 1 pie worth of filling made enough for 6 or 7 ramekins.
Just process whatever you are making for lunch or dinner. Meatloaf, puree that with a bit of gravy or even water or broth. Mashed potatoes, fine as is but make sure they are not so sticky there is a problem swallowing. Most veggies can be pureed as well.
Watch things that are slippery, peaches, nectarines can slide down too easily and can become a choke hazard.
Adding a product like Thick-It can sometimes be a guessing game as to how thick something needs to be. (Also if you are using something like Mirilax you can not add Thick-It to it as the Mirilax will thin it out almost instantly. So Mirilax has to be added to something that is already thick like pudding or the thicker soups.
And I would never leave a person that has a swallowing problem alone while they are eating.
You can also buy a B&D Food chopper for around $20 and do it yourself. It only holds about a cup of food at a time, but they work very well.
My DH had dysphagia and I used Nutritional Shakes (Equate brand Ensure Plus) and he like a softly scrambled egg and I would crumble the meat into it. Or an egg over-easy and the meat on the side - again, I would crumble it.
You can also use "greens supplements" and "protein supplements" and add them to the shakes. I did that when he was drinking Hot Cocoa.
As somebody already mentioned, do check out the dysphagia videos on YouTube, they are inspiring!
Demstress, did you ever check out YouTube for pureeing ideas? Give it a shot. There's videos about EVERYTHING! Even hamsters farting! I know, I'm still hoping to mature 😁
There is very little that isn't offered as a puree at mom's nursing home even salads, in fact the luncheon cold plates are some of the most interesting in terms of colour and flavour - picture potato salad, pureed egg or ham salad or another deli meat, ambrosia salad or coleslaw (the red cabbage slaw comes out the most amazing shade of purple!). Make a list of easy go to foods that you can make in a hurry or keep on hand and then just try to modify whatever you are having for your own meals or the kinds of foods they would normally eat. Things that are too thin can be brought to the right consistency by adding in commercial dysphagia thickeners, infant cereals, potato flakes, or cooking with flour or another starch. And don't forget the condiments that can make any meal better - jellied cranberries with turkey, gravy with your potatoes, applesauce with chicken, bbq sauce with pork, tartar sauce with fish. Consider a flavourful spaghetti sauce served with polenta or sweet and sour chicken with a very well done savoury rice pudding.
Smoothies are good for any meal and can include almost anything.
And don't forget fruit desserts can add lots interest to meals - it may look like pudding but pureed apple pie tastes surprisingly like the real thing.
Right now, the only thing I remember is that I had jello molds and cookie cutters which I planned to use to create seasonal jellos with appropriate fruit...something like making jello with dabs of pureed fruit, hardened in either seasonal molds or a tray from which molded forms could be cut out.
Using an ice cream scoop for molded food like potatoes or meat was a technique used at a rehab center. It was much more appealing than pureed food just put in a bowl.
I have a list of potential "enhancements" in my medical notes. I'll see if I can find them.
JimmyDean foods produces precooked sausages that can be heated then pureed. I added those to breakfast meals for protein.
There's one site that did have some good ideas about food presentation. I think I have a brochure; I'll check it out later tonight.
Contacting Rubbermaid, I learned that "microwave safe" means only about 30 seconds of heat! So their plastic containers definitely are not microwave safe except for that short time. Even though they were BPA free, I didn't want melted plastic near the food.
I tried others; the best I found were the Anchor Hocking dishes, but they were glass and hard for Dad to handle. So we ended up getting paper plates, in which he could microwave the AH dishes, then eat directly from them w/o removing the hot glass dishes.
And, reading the fine print, I found one site with an exclusion for melted foods. I would assume the noncanned foods were shipped in trucks with temperature control, but for a company to provide options if foods arrived melted....well, that eliminated any confidence I might have had.
So, reluctantly, I did as CW did. I pureed the foods at home in batches and brought them to Dad. Sometimes I froze them, but there was so much fluid that when they were thawed, they became even more watery.
I've read that about 15 million people are dealing with dysphagia. Yet there are no really good answers for the family in managing food prep.
I haven't seen anything in supermarkets, but I did learn that Gordon Foods had meals...and right now I believe that they were pureed but just can't remember. I recall they had a nice little boneless rib meal that I was going to buy.
I nixed the baby food b/c it's so costly, too watery looking, and doesn't provide a wholesome, well rounded mail.
Pureeing was easier to tolerate if I did half a dozen dinners at a time, and listened to upbeat music. Still, I wish it didn't have to be done and always felt guilty presenting such unappealing food to Dad for meals.
Think creatively when planning your meals: things like soups are easily pureed with a stick blender, mashed potatoes, squash and rutabaga are already the right consistency and so are custards, puddings, yogurt. If you want more ideas I have plenty 😜