After a successful surgery, doctors often recommend switching over to soft food diet from a liquid diet. One reason is that, soft food diet is easily digested in the intestine while the patient is still recuperating. Secondly, soft food diet does not harm the recently sutured wound of mouth and abdomen surgery. The diet is suggested especially when the surgery involves your jaw, gastrointestinal tract and other organs of abdomen.
Soft diet is always preferred in any digestion related problems. Soft foods are those that can be swallowed easily without chewing. The diet consists of foods that can be well cooked, easily mashed, blended or pureed.
Soft Foods Diet To Eat After Surgery
Food is necessary to regain strength from the stressful surgery one has undergone. If you have been advised to eat soft food diet it is healthy for you, as your body requires a healing period. Surgery of any body organ involves lots of cuts and injuries to the tissue, it takes time to heal. If you eat solid food after an oral surgery or tooth extraction, it may damage the sutured tissue causing bleeding and pain. Eating soft food during this period allows an uneventful healing.
Soft food diet is also easier to eat when your mouth, throat, esophagus is sore after radiation or chemotherapy procedures. Puddings, sherbets, soft eggs, overcooked pastas, buttermilk, yogurt, chives, variety of clear soups such as vegetable soup, tomato soup, oatmeal, baked potato, gelatin, thickened broths, mashed rice are some of the soft foods that are easy to digest and also have less of fat. Fat food items should be avoided as it may cause bloating and gases.
Soft Food Recipes And Menu Options
Here are some of the soft food recipes that are useful after surgery:
Breakfast: Breakfast needs to be healthy and sufficient to keep your strength till your lunch time. In breakfast you can have cup full of yogurt, flavored or non- flavored as per your choice. Milk, soft eggs and gelatin is a good breakfast diet. Pancake with honey, or white bread with cream cheese is also good soft food breakfast recipe after surgery.
Lunch: Tomato soup, chicken, sweet corn, vegetable soups, can be taken as a starter. Pureed vegetable gravy along with soft rice forms a good menu for lunch. You can also include baked potato and over cooked pastas as they are soft and they are easily digested by the body. This diet is generally advised after gastric bypass surgery. In case of meat it should be tender and baked, broiled or stewed but not fried.
Dinner: Vegetable soups and broths, mashed rice and pureed tomato gravy, or any vegetable gravy with mashed potatoes or baked potatoes. Plain meatless stews together with boiled and mashed vegetables are also allowed in soft diet menu.
Desserts: Ice creams, milk shakes, sherbets, custards, milkshakes. Blended fruit smoothie is very good source of vitamin. It can be added to a protein shake for extra nutritional benefit. You can also drink a glass of fruit juice such as watermelon juice or sweet lime juice.
This soft food diet can be consumed after any surgery and in particular after oral or gastrointestinal surgery.