Mechanical Soft Food Diet Sample Menu
Cereal softened in milk. Diced, soft pancakes with syrup and butter. Scrambled eggs. A soft butter roll cut into small pieces.
A mechanical soft diet is a type of texture-modified diet for people who have difficulty chewing and swallowing. Foods may be pureed, ground, finely chopped, or blended to make eating safer.
Pasta and pasta dishes such as spaghetti and macaroni and cheese are allowed on mechanical soft diets.
A mechanical soft diet consists of any foods that can be blended, mashed, pureed, or chopped using a kitchen tool such as a knife, a grinder, a blender, or a food processor. These processes break down the structure of foods to make them soft and easy to eat without biting or chewing.
The foods in this diet are easy to eat and do not need a lot of chewing to swallow safely. This diet is helpful if you are missing teeth or have just had surgery and cannot chew hard foods. This diet does include soft breads and rice, so it is important that you can move food in your mouth and can swallow safely.
Fresh Cooked Vegetables. Fruit Smoothies/Protein Shakes. Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat. Eggs (scrambled, soft boiled, omelets, egg salad)
Hot cereals like farina, oatmeal, and grits work well for a mechanical soft diet as long as you don't add nuts, berries, or other toppings. Try tossing in mushy fruit like bananas instead. Soft bread can be used to make sandwiches with egg, chicken, or tuna salad.
Soft Sandwiches
Tuna Salad. Egg Salad. Thinly Sliced Deli Meat. & Cheese. Creamy Peanut Butter & Jelly.
The mechanical soft diet is appropriate for patients who are recovering from head, neck, or mouth surgery, who have dysphagia (difficulty swallowing), narrowing of the esophagus (food tube), or who are too ill or weak to chew.
The following foods are commonly restricted on soft diets (7, 8 ): Vegetables: raw vegetables, deep-fried vegetables, vegetables with seeds or rinds. Fruits: fresh fruits (with some exceptions like avocados and bananas), fruits with peels and seeds, dried fruits, highly acidic fruits like lemons and limes.
A soft diet is prescribed for people with digestive problems. The diet consists of foods that are tender, mildly seasoned, and easy to digest. While on this diet, you should not eat fried or spicy foods, or raw fruits and vegetables.
You can eat almost any meat on a mechanical soft diet. You will, however, want to avoid bacon as it does not grind easily along with most lunchmeats. If you want meat that has an outside skin to it, such as bratwurst or hot dogs, remove the skin before grinding the meat.
While on the soft food diet, try to eat meals that include: Soft, tender meat, poultry, and fish. Poached, scrambled, or boiled eggs.
Smooth soups, or those with very soft chunks. Mashed potatoes, or a soft baked potato without the skin. Cooked fruits, like applesauce. Ripe fruits, like bananas or peaches without the skin.
People on a soft diet should not have:
Biscuits (unless dunked in tea to soften), nuts, toast, raw apple, hard and/or crunchy foods, foods that crumble easily, raw vegetables, breads with mixed textures bread rolls with crunchy outside and soft inside), crackers/rice cakes.
The best sources are milk, meats, fish, eggs, cheese, peanut butter, and dried beans and peas. Blenderized Food which is soft or cooked until tender and blended in a blender or a food processor. Pureed The thick, smooth consistency of food which has been blenderized.
Which foods should I include? Breads, cereals, rice, and pasta: Breads, muffins, pancakes, or waffles moistened with syrup, jelly, margarine or butter. Moist dry or cooked cereal.
Eating foods rich in protein is important for healing and repairing tissues. Protein also helps your body make new blood cells, which are necessary for wound healing. Good sources of protein include lean meats, poultry, fish, tofu, eggs, legumes, and nuts.
Pasta/Rice Soft pasta dishes such as lasagne, macaroni cheese, ravioli or spaghetti bolognese either home-made or bought ready prepared. Vegetables Fresh, frozen or tinned vegetables, cooked until soft. Mash with a fork or potato masher to make them easier to swallow.
Mechanical soft food diet foods to avoid at this level include dry bread, toast, crackers, coarse cereal like shredded wheat, foods with nuts, fruits that are hard to chew (such as apples), seeds, chunky peanut butter, and meats that are tough and dry.
More importantly, we're on about soft foods at the moment, and between baked potatoes, boiled potatoes, and mashed potatoes, there's a lot of soft food ideas to choose from. Of course, nothing can really compare to mashed potatoes when it comes to food that is both soft and comforting.
Cruciferous Vegetables
Vegetables that belong to the cabbage family such as cauliflower, Brussels, broccoli, and sprouts should never be consumed raw. These vegetables contain sugar that is difficult to digest.