Soft food ideas

rmkbrad
rmkbrad Member Posts: 176
Well I am home recovering from neck disection one week out and bracheytherpy radiation 3 weeks out, having a hard time getting enough calories and protein down. Last year when I went though chemo, surgery and radiation I had a peg tube, this time I don't have one. I have been releying mostly on dairy for my calorie and protein intake so far. Yogurt, pudding, milk shakes and some cheese. Looking for some other ideas that do not reley so much on dairy that are soft, I have had some mashed potatoes with gravy and scrambled egg with sour cream I was able to get down.

Thank you,
Brad
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Comments

  • Kimba1505
    Kimba1505 Member Posts: 557
    Soups.
    Mark did soups. Soft wonton soup, I remember she slurped down. Chicken noodle was a good one too.
    Sounds like you are doing well getting stuff down. It gets better.
    Kim
  • susan0803
    susan0803 Member Posts: 90
    Kimba1505 said:

    Soups.
    Mark did soups. Soft wonton soup, I remember she slurped down. Chicken noodle was a good one too.
    Sounds like you are doing well getting stuff down. It gets better.
    Kim

    vita mix
    It was the vitamix for my husband. We could make high protein shakes with tons of veges and fruit in them. He also for some reason was able to eat pesto on soft white bread. Any soup would burn him too much - even post treatment. My husband doesn't eat any dairy products, so we were very limited in his choices.

    Good luck and hope you are onto solid foods soon!
    Suzanne
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    susan0803 said:

    vita mix
    It was the vitamix for my husband. We could make high protein shakes with tons of veges and fruit in them. He also for some reason was able to eat pesto on soft white bread. Any soup would burn him too much - even post treatment. My husband doesn't eat any dairy products, so we were very limited in his choices.

    Good luck and hope you are onto solid foods soon!
    Suzanne

    Soft foods
    Instant grits, pastina, instant oatmeal, soft boiled eggs, puréed cauliflower, mushy peas, hemp protein in fruit and veg shakes. I didn't have the money to purchase a Vitamix, I got a HealthMaster. Someone on this site said that Vitamix will give a discount for cancer survivors. I think an emulsifier is great for any person to get better nutrtion, and for a HNC patient, I think it's invaluable. You can put any soup in there and it will be completely smooth. I have a stricture still and so I still get more than half my daily calories by drinking them. Today my smoothie was two small apples, one huge orange, two carrots and a scoop of protein powder and glutamine. That's all the fruit I need in a day, and half the veggies. I use mine about 4-5 times a week, the days I don't, it's because I am using my juicer. Great for proper nutrition.
  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member

    Soft foods
    Instant grits, pastina, instant oatmeal, soft boiled eggs, puréed cauliflower, mushy peas, hemp protein in fruit and veg shakes. I didn't have the money to purchase a Vitamix, I got a HealthMaster. Someone on this site said that Vitamix will give a discount for cancer survivors. I think an emulsifier is great for any person to get better nutrtion, and for a HNC patient, I think it's invaluable. You can put any soup in there and it will be completely smooth. I have a stricture still and so I still get more than half my daily calories by drinking them. Today my smoothie was two small apples, one huge orange, two carrots and a scoop of protein powder and glutamine. That's all the fruit I need in a day, and half the veggies. I use mine about 4-5 times a week, the days I don't, it's because I am using my juicer. Great for proper nutrition.

    Hi Brad

    I made it on tasteless watered down Grits for many weeks because I to did not have a PEG.

    Wishing you the best in your treatment my friend
    Hondo
  • fisrpotpe
    fisrpotpe Member Posts: 1,349 Member
    More
    I used, chicken noodle soup, very thin mashed potatoes, Sweet potatoes baked and when you think there done bake them longer and longer, steamed carrots to extreme softness and fork them to mashed, corn casserole, very ripe banana's and slightly microwaved. Favorite desert was banana popsicles and frosty's from Wendy's.

    Eat little and eat much more often! All that swallowing takes alot out of you.

    John
  • Hal61
    Hal61 Member Posts: 655
    Glad you're home
    Hi Brad, happy to hear you're back and able to eat something. I'm with Sweetblood, but only a recent convert to smoothies. Google and you'll find a world of recipes. Go heavy on the fruit and lighter on the veggies (leafy like baby spinach), and you can get a higher fruit and fiber diet with only a smoothie a day. I can't afford a Vitamix either, so I've been using my magic bullet, but I want to ungrade, because smoothies are much better if a quality blender is used.

    Eggs were my mainstay, and I still depend on them a lot. When I get hungry for a steak, I eat a steakum. Steakums are those wafer-thin frozen steaks that heve been around forever. They melt in your mouth, and can be cut up in scrambled eggs, or Sweetblood style, fried up wtih mushroom and onion. I also eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, lately with a teaspoon of flax seed meal, available lots of places, and good stuff.

    best, Hal
  • adventurebob
    adventurebob Member Posts: 691
    almond milk
    add 1 cup almonds to 3 cups water and blend until smoothe=32ounces and 960 calories. Or blend 1 can of coconut milk with fruit until smooth=16ounces and 720 calories.
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    Hal61 said:

    Glad you're home
    Hi Brad, happy to hear you're back and able to eat something. I'm with Sweetblood, but only a recent convert to smoothies. Google and you'll find a world of recipes. Go heavy on the fruit and lighter on the veggies (leafy like baby spinach), and you can get a higher fruit and fiber diet with only a smoothie a day. I can't afford a Vitamix either, so I've been using my magic bullet, but I want to ungrade, because smoothies are much better if a quality blender is used.

    Eggs were my mainstay, and I still depend on them a lot. When I get hungry for a steak, I eat a steakum. Steakums are those wafer-thin frozen steaks that heve been around forever. They melt in your mouth, and can be cut up in scrambled eggs, or Sweetblood style, fried up wtih mushroom and onion. I also eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, lately with a teaspoon of flax seed meal, available lots of places, and good stuff.

    best, Hal

    Hal, you're scaring me and sounding like a stalker....
    How did you know I had my eggs with fried mushrooms and onion today??? Lol you're not on my Facebook, but I posted that today. :D

    Next on my list to try out is steel cut oatmeal, but oatmeal made with savory ingredients.

    Forgot to say, I cut back on some dairy also, and I am drinking Silk almond milk daily.
  • donna340
    donna340 Member Posts: 72
    Soft Foods
    Chicken Noodle Soup, Apple Sauce, over cooked Mac & Cheese and real soft served ice cream.
  • fisrpotpe
    fisrpotpe Member Posts: 1,349 Member

    Hal, you're scaring me and sounding like a stalker....
    How did you know I had my eggs with fried mushrooms and onion today??? Lol you're not on my Facebook, but I posted that today. :D

    Next on my list to try out is steel cut oatmeal, but oatmeal made with savory ingredients.

    Forgot to say, I cut back on some dairy also, and I am drinking Silk almond milk daily.

    Facebook
    Love to be anyone's friend on facebook

    John Van Grinsven
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    fisrpotpe said:

    Facebook
    Love to be anyone's friend on facebook

    John Van Grinsven

    John
    There are four people by that name. Can't tell which is you so I am going to PM you my name. There's only one of me. Thank God. :)
  • D Lewis
    D Lewis Member Posts: 1,581 Member
    No help here...
    I'm still relying pretty heavily on dairy foods - good thing I'm not lactose intolerant. In fact, I'm probably as lactose-tolerant as they come. I eat milk, butter, yougurt and cheese on a daily basis still, and I probably eat eggs three or four times a week. Works for me. Otherwise, steamed vegetables and a lot of fish. Can't do much in the way of meats.

    Sending more healing thoughts up over the hill.

    Deb
  • SASH
    SASH Member Posts: 421 Member
    D Lewis said:

    No help here...
    I'm still relying pretty heavily on dairy foods - good thing I'm not lactose intolerant. In fact, I'm probably as lactose-tolerant as they come. I eat milk, butter, yougurt and cheese on a daily basis still, and I probably eat eggs three or four times a week. Works for me. Otherwise, steamed vegetables and a lot of fish. Can't do much in the way of meats.

    Sending more healing thoughts up over the hill.

    Deb

    Soft Foods
    My addition would be whipped potatoes. The ones that are made from dehydrated potatoes. You can make them as thick or thin as needed. I would add seasoning to them as they might be a bit bland.
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    fisrpotpe said:

    More
    I used, chicken noodle soup, very thin mashed potatoes, Sweet potatoes baked and when you think there done bake them longer and longer, steamed carrots to extreme softness and fork them to mashed, corn casserole, very ripe banana's and slightly microwaved. Favorite desert was banana popsicles and frosty's from Wendy's.

    Eat little and eat much more often! All that swallowing takes alot out of you.

    John

    Yes, I cannot believe I
    Yes, I cannot believe I forgot sweet potatoes. I eat them once or twice a week now. They are excellent, about the best vegetable you can eat.

    SWEET POTATO NUTRITION  

    Also just looked up in my food diary for soft foods, sorry if repeating:

    Spaghetti squash
    Creamed corn
    Avocados
    Egg drop soup
    Lentil soup
    Pasta fagioli
    Cooked zucchini and yellow squash
    Cream of wheat
    Canned green beans
    Puréed squash (like butternut or acorn)
  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    Wow!
    Some great ideas for you, Brad. I intend to use some of them myself, even if I am also eating other stuff now.

    It sounds like there is enough variety in what folks have offered that you should never have to be bored by eating the same thing over and over, as I was (I had my PEG tube for four years, but was trying to eat almost from the first day home from the hospital).

    I found, frankly, as others have suggested, that I could not eat as much as I used to, and so had to eat much smaller portions and eat more often. This meant that a can of soup I used to be able to devour in five minutes was now two separate meals, and frequently my fridge would start to look like a sales brochure for Tupperware, stacks of leftovers, as it were.

    So I do have this suggestion, especially since you are eating eggs. Consider the Cream of * soups, cheddar, chicken, broccoli, mushroom. Make the stuff, down half of it, stow the other half, and the next morning, when you make your egg(s), pour in the remainder of the soup, maybe some cheese, since you can eat that (and most of the Cream of * soups are half milk anyway). In this way, you can avoid at least to some degree the huge backlog of leftovers that seemed to accumulate for me, while having a little variety too.

    Really, after awhile this became my biggest problem: too many leftovers and too darned bored to eat the stuff again and again.

    It sounds as though you have no issues with liquids, so be sure to make fruit juices part of your day, which ever ones float your boat.

    I suppose the only other suggestion that comes immediately to mind is to try things you think are beyond you at this point, always with your liquids nearby in case you were right to begin with. I have found that things I never liked before all of this, I now enjoy, for example. There are a mind-boggling number of things you can do with blocks of cream cheese, sauces that are otherworldy and will remind you of what you used to eat without being difficult to swallow (using, say, beef broth for example); I am not a chef but advise you to go online and check out some of what you can do in this regard. And I found that some things I thought I would not be able to eat went down perfectly well (for some reason, among the first things I could swallow after surg and treatments were pretzels, the stick versions...go figure...but I could nibble and gnaw and make them small enough to go down...same with some other hard but brittle things like crackers).

    Again, lots of great ideas here! I intend to break out the food processor at once and start playing with some of the ideas I got from one or two here. I hope you are successfully able to do the same.

    Take care,

    Joe
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228

    Hal, you're scaring me and sounding like a stalker....
    How did you know I had my eggs with fried mushrooms and onion today??? Lol you're not on my Facebook, but I posted that today. :D

    Next on my list to try out is steel cut oatmeal, but oatmeal made with savory ingredients.

    Forgot to say, I cut back on some dairy also, and I am drinking Silk almond milk daily.

    Oohhhhh! I just re-read your post, Hal. I should just leave
    my glasses on. You were talking about the steak'ums. Lol. I thought you were talking about the eggs. Lmao. I guess we did chat about steak'ums the other day. I forgot to put them on my list. Thanks for the reminder. :-)

    Good, I feel better now. I'm down to only one stalker.
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    Hal61 said:

    Glad you're home
    Hi Brad, happy to hear you're back and able to eat something. I'm with Sweetblood, but only a recent convert to smoothies. Google and you'll find a world of recipes. Go heavy on the fruit and lighter on the veggies (leafy like baby spinach), and you can get a higher fruit and fiber diet with only a smoothie a day. I can't afford a Vitamix either, so I've been using my magic bullet, but I want to ungrade, because smoothies are much better if a quality blender is used.

    Eggs were my mainstay, and I still depend on them a lot. When I get hungry for a steak, I eat a steakum. Steakums are those wafer-thin frozen steaks that heve been around forever. They melt in your mouth, and can be cut up in scrambled eggs, or Sweetblood style, fried up wtih mushroom and onion. I also eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, lately with a teaspoon of flax seed meal, available lots of places, and good stuff.

    best, Hal

    Double post
    Double post
  • Scambuster
    Scambuster Member Posts: 973

    Wow!
    Some great ideas for you, Brad. I intend to use some of them myself, even if I am also eating other stuff now.

    It sounds like there is enough variety in what folks have offered that you should never have to be bored by eating the same thing over and over, as I was (I had my PEG tube for four years, but was trying to eat almost from the first day home from the hospital).

    I found, frankly, as others have suggested, that I could not eat as much as I used to, and so had to eat much smaller portions and eat more often. This meant that a can of soup I used to be able to devour in five minutes was now two separate meals, and frequently my fridge would start to look like a sales brochure for Tupperware, stacks of leftovers, as it were.

    So I do have this suggestion, especially since you are eating eggs. Consider the Cream of * soups, cheddar, chicken, broccoli, mushroom. Make the stuff, down half of it, stow the other half, and the next morning, when you make your egg(s), pour in the remainder of the soup, maybe some cheese, since you can eat that (and most of the Cream of * soups are half milk anyway). In this way, you can avoid at least to some degree the huge backlog of leftovers that seemed to accumulate for me, while having a little variety too.

    Really, after awhile this became my biggest problem: too many leftovers and too darned bored to eat the stuff again and again.

    It sounds as though you have no issues with liquids, so be sure to make fruit juices part of your day, which ever ones float your boat.

    I suppose the only other suggestion that comes immediately to mind is to try things you think are beyond you at this point, always with your liquids nearby in case you were right to begin with. I have found that things I never liked before all of this, I now enjoy, for example. There are a mind-boggling number of things you can do with blocks of cream cheese, sauces that are otherworldy and will remind you of what you used to eat without being difficult to swallow (using, say, beef broth for example); I am not a chef but advise you to go online and check out some of what you can do in this regard. And I found that some things I thought I would not be able to eat went down perfectly well (for some reason, among the first things I could swallow after surg and treatments were pretzels, the stick versions...go figure...but I could nibble and gnaw and make them small enough to go down...same with some other hard but brittle things like crackers).

    Again, lots of great ideas here! I intend to break out the food processor at once and start playing with some of the ideas I got from one or two here. I hope you are successfully able to do the same.

    Take care,

    Joe

    Congee and Non Dairy Milks
    Brad,

    All the Non Dairy milks are good including: Soy, Hazelnut, Hemp. Oat etc.

    Congee is also good, full a grits and easy to get down till you can start to chomp on stuff, then go for the big salads +Oil.

    Scam
  • vsmith1982
    vsmith1982 Member Posts: 4
    Hummus
    Brad,

    I am on a soft food diet I like hummus made from chick peas and olive oil good source of protein and fiber buy it ready made at the store. Another one is refried beans you can always add a little water to get it to the right consistency but another good source of fiber and protein. Avocado or guacamole. Sometimes I will have some avocado with some salad dressing on it. Avocado is just packed full of nutirents. When I was trying to pack on the calories I found ice cream a winner, of course it upped my cholesterol so had to stop but did help when I needed to get the calories.
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    Ensure Plus
    Brad, not that I went through what you are currently. But when I was Hot and heavy into the radiation, especially the Hot....

    I used the Ensure Plus as my main nutrition for calories, vitamins and minerals. Mainly at 350 calories per can, I got the most bang for the buck. I couln't eat anything that would give me that many calories for a small amount of pain.

    I did also eat a few jarred sliced peaches, just to keep the muscles working though. But maybe you might consider the Ensure at least for a supplement and added calories.

    Best,
    John