Nutrition Tips - soft mechanical or pureed (and in general)

ButterflyWings

Forum mates, I went looking for tips to help me with the challenge of pureeing everything that DH eats, and still getting enough variety and nutrition in him to not lose too much weight, too fast. He is late stage 7 many of you know, and recently has rebounded from what seemed like his last hours on earth.

He is of course not recovering. This disease is terminal and a relentless downward spiral. Most of us feel that should a quick, painless, off-ramp be in the cards for our LO then that would be a blessing. But in the meantime, I am here for him for the duration and that means lots of focus on figuring out this pureed food thing without spending all day, every day, just cooking and mixing and running the blender lol. Strange, but true. Here is a good article with sample menu and lots of information about balanced diet even if your LO is not where we are.

FYI, the main reason we are pureeing now is to avoid activating DH's chewing instinct. When he starts chewing a mouthful of food, he doesn't stop and will keep pocketing more food without swallowing the first batch. That becomes a choking and aspirating risk. And what's worse, you can remove the bowl or plate but he then will chew on anything within reach. A serious choking hazard, e.g. napkin, wipes, a chunk of his sponge wedge pillow, tag ripped off the blanket, the blanket itself, ripping pieces off…he was even trying to pull the button off his shirt a moment ago and it would have gone in the mouth like the big avocado seed he grabbed from the cup where I was letting it sprout but DH was trying to chomp a piece of it.

Thankfully that wouldn't hurt him if I hadn't been able to get it away from him, but some things are too hard to be biting and potential choking/swallowing hazards of course. Most of the poison things have been disappeared for years, but you don't think about dish sponges or my jewelry going in the mouth. Really just like a 1-2 year old. Not hungry, just hyper oral and best to not get him started chewing or anything goes. He has destroyed a few teeth over several months of doing this (and chewed them up yikes). The things we never expected in life to deal with. Anyway, the food lists and sample menu in this article are super helpful for me in meeting calorie and nutrition needs for a no-chew diet. And otherwise he is arm's length and line of sight to make sure we don't have any edible catastrophes if possible.

, https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/patient-education/pureed-and-mechanical-soft-diets

M1

thank you for posting this…and glad to hear from you, was wondering how you both were….

concerned_sister

Thanks for explaining all the reasoning behind the pureed food. I've learned somethings I didn't know.

jfkoc

I found that baby food is really pretty good now. Dick liked it additionally we put powdered protein powder on almost everything…even ice cream.

ImMaggieMae

Thank you for posting this very informative guide. I have just read over it briefly as today was a busy day, sitting on hold for close to 2 hours with 2 doctor’s offices over a simple prescription that could have been solved in less than 5 minutes. That and all the regular caregiving duties.

My DH eats soft foods at this point but I can see it moving to puréed, and maybe incorporating some of those sooner rather than later. I was going to ask you once for ideas when you mentioned feeding your husband puréed but you were so overwhelmed with keeping him breathing at the time that I didn’t want to bother you.

I hand feed my DH, now in late stage 6 because he gets too distracted these days and wouldn’t get much down. He chews things very slowly although he doesn’t pocket food. A normal meal takes a couple hours. While it is one of the things we can still do together (I sit next to him on the couch) it takes up a good part of the day between food prep and feeding. I am always worried about aspiration or choking. Puréeing would perhaps speed the eating a little.

He does still enjoy eating, so the idea of “gourmet” puréed isn’t just a funny idea. I want to make his meals flavorful and enjoyable. This would be a great topic for a Group. I have lots of questions but little time to type them out right now. Thank you again for posting this. Excellent topic!

ButterflyWings

My pleasure! I posted a different article on the same topic, in the other forum. Both gave me some ideas I had not thought of and will definitely use! @jfkoc I boost his smoothies and sometime soup with protein powder, but had not thought of sprinkling it on everything. GREAT idea! Thank you :)