Louise M: Yesterday, I had a Level 5 Minced and Moist diet, meaning all of my food required minimal chewing and the pieces had to be 4mm in size. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to adapt food I already have.
My breakfast didn't change much, I had my normal yoghurt and I didn't add as much milk as normal to my Weetabix, to ensure the milk was completely soaked up by the Weetabix.
I normally have a sandwich, crisps and an apple for my lunch so this was definitely a no-no. I had had chilli the day before so thought this would be nice with the inside of a jacket potato. I cooked the jacket potato the previous night, however, it just wasn't soft enough so I couldn't eat that. I also had to pick all the onions, tomatoes, kidney beans and peppers out of the chilli as these weren't small enough.
I also had a muffin that I mixed with yoghurt and this was a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It didn't look appetising but the taste didn't change at all. It was also easy to prepare as just required a fork to mix the muffin into the yoghurt.
For tea, I had cottage pie, I needed to blend the mince and veg slightly to ensure that the lumps were small enough. This meant the texture was a lot more smoother than normal and the sweet potato was a perfect consistency, so mixed together it was delicious.
Throughout the day, the food did not look appetising and looked like 'mush', however the taste was unchanged and actually I could have eaten more of the cottage pie and muffin and yoghurt. It made me think about the language we use when we hear people calling it "mush" and "slop" and how that can be quite negative and may put people off eating it, even if the taste doesn't change. I hate people commenting on the look of my food anyway, so this probably would rub me up the wrong way even more.
I also really missed chewing and crunchy foods.
I realised that there was a lot of preparation involved to ensure that my food was correct consistency. I also don't think I ate as much as I would normally have done in a day. I washed up a lot more as I used a lot more Tupperwares, utensils and pots than normal.
I don't mind mince and would say cottage pie and chilli are my favourites, however I can imagine that it could become fairly dull after a while. It would have been great to have a recipe book with meal suggestions and snack ideas that adhere to particular diets.
Overall, it was an interesting insight into the diets we recommend to service users requiring softer options.
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