Sources for commercially prepared and pureed foods?
Does anyone know of a good, reliable company with good, healthy, not preservative laden frozen, pureed meals?
I posted on this issue last year and got good responses for a mechanically soft diet. Now it’s strictly pureed foods and thickened liquids. Mechanical soft is past tense.
I’ve been pureeing Meals on Wheels although some of them just don’t puree well. So I eat those! (Can’t let good food go to waste!) Some meals by Lean Cuisine and Stouffers puree well. Currently I go to my parent’s every 2 -3 days to puree a batch.
But I’m running out of energy, have my own health problems from years of caregiving, and can’t also take care of 2 houses. My own house is crying for attention. So I need a better arrangement until I can get some things in order here. (Pureeing meals and freezing them at home then taking to my parent’s is not an option until I can get a new frig – another task on a long list of projects.)
So I’m hoping to find some good quality, reasonably priced frozen pureed meals that I can just order and have available for my parent to puree.
What I’ve found so far is a fairly decent variety of foods, one local source and a few online sources, but extremely overpriced – I could probably buy half a cow for the cost of 1 15 oz. can of pureed beef and shipping costs which are even more (close to $16 for 1 15 oz. can).
It’s not realistic for my parent to puree with the mini food processor we have now, so I’m also researching more useable methods of pureeing w/o having to handle a sharp blade (as the current mini processor has). Immersion blenders are what I’m thinking of.
Folks here helped a lot with my last post and I appreciate that. I did check out baby foods but they’re actually too thin a consistency. They’d have to be thickened, which could be done, but there’s only a very limited variety from the large grocery store in the area.
Thanks for any suggestions.
My first introduction to swallowing difficulties was when my about to be ex-father in law, who had kidney failure, was hospitalized. He kept saying " i can't eat" and everyone in the family showed up with tongue sandwiches from his favorite deli. He still couldn't eat, though.
At one point, I walked into his hospital room with my daughters ages 16 and 17. He said " you girls are still virgins aren't you?" We all gulped, my girls smiled and said yes and I found my ex husband and told him a psych consult was needed. Psych was consulted and a speech therapist was brought in, did an eval which revealed swallowing difficulties. Neuro was consulted and it was discovered that he'd had a stroke.
This may be one of the reasons that I have a great deal of faith in psychiatrists. They really are trained to rule out all the physical stuff in a way that many other specialists are not.
There are limits to the meats we can use; I've found a barbequed chicken leg too tough, but meat loaf, turkey , Salisbury steak and a BBQ rib patty are easy to puree. One of the speech therapists said to focus on meats that had already been ground or processed. So that would include sausages.
I might try some of the Oscar Meyer or Hormel natural meats w/o preservatives - I'm not sure how easily the sliced meats would be though.
I've also wondered how a basic mix master might work for non meats. Dad could handle that safety, I think.
Did you puree all your mother's foods when she need that kind of diet, or was she in the AL facility then?
Thanks for the time you've spent helping me find solutions.
My brother owns a Vitamix and swears by it. I think it's main benefit (for your parents) would be the fact that the blade doesn't have to be removed for cleaning).
I have a Cuisinart brand immersion blender and I don't think that the blade would puree any meat to the consistency that my mom's diet required when she was at that stage.
I got to see the machine that they use at the NH one Christmas when my brother took some prime rib down to process for mom; it was much more a Vitamix type of machine.
I checked a few models of immersion blenders - this is actually a new concept to me. The blade is actually quite small compared to the one we have - a Kitchen Aid mini food processor with a blade that's about 3" wide.
Have you used Blossom? Were you pleased? Was there any thawing of the foods? One of the sources I checked earlier provided a website caveat that there would be some thawing during the shipping process. That didn't encourage me at all.
I'm not familiar with a super blender, although a few decades ago I had a blender that could process grain. I'll look for it today; I know it's somewhere!
I also found smaller blender cups that could be screwed onto the base in lieu of the higher/taller top; the cups were unscrewed and used as storage, w/o having to scrape out the food. Unfortunately, I can't find the base.
I also have a hand grinder which I used for veggies; I might try that as it's veggies and things like chick legs that are the most problematic.
Thanks for the suggestions. If you've used Blossom and had good success, I'll probably give them a try as I like the variety as well as the natural foods.
An immersion blender is a good idea, but it has a sharp blade as well ( you can't really puree stuff without a sharp blade).
What about one of those super blender things that pulverize wheat kernels and cook soup? Vitamix, I just looked it up. They seem to have fixed blades. Might that be something that your parents could handle? You seem to clean them simply by running them through with soapy water.