Reflections on a Week of Soft Foods

A few weeks ago, I had a wisdom tooth removed. Luckily, it was a simple extraction, but they still wanted me to stick with pretty soft foods for a week. And the dentist told me it was one of the only times a doctor would tell me I should eat ice cream (and I took the advice).

I had planned for this, at least, so in addition to ice cream, I made sure to have plenty of other soft foods on hand: yogurt, bananas, applesauce, Jello, soup, cornbread, ratatouille, roasted broccoli, and likely something else I’m forgetting. But even though I knew it was coming, it still felt strange having to limit the types of foods I could eat.

A departure from routine

Part of the strangeness is because crunchy foods are a regular part of my diet. Nuts, carrots, tortilla chips, apples, etc. – I like having some texture in my food.

At least I could still chew normally on one side of my mouth, so maybe I could have cheated a bit, but the last thing I wanted was to slow down the healing process or risk infection. So, soft foods it was.

And I will say that from a timing perspective, with Cyclospora and other food-related illnesses going around, it wasn’t a bad time to stick with cooked produce. 

Not having any fresh vegetables reminded me of when I went to India for ten days in 2010. Because India doesn’t treat water the same way we do in the U.S., I was told to only drink bottled or boiled water unless I wanted to have serious stomach issues. Plus, since fruits and vegetables were washed in the water, I needed to avoid fresh produce and stick with cooked items.

Those ten days were much harder than my recent week, both because it was for a longer period and because, at least with the tooth removal, I could eat things like bananas and grapes. By the time I left India, I was so desperate for some fresh produce that as soon as I got to a layover here in the U.S., I got a salad and an apple. They tasted great.

Satiety

It also feels different when you’re not able to chew much food. Not just because you can’t chew, but it sometimes doesn’t seem as satisfying.

I seem to remember listening to a podcast or reading an article once that said this is the reason why astronauts don’t simply have a liquid diet. They want to be able to chew something, even if it’s soft.

I couldn’t find that again, but I did find an article that talked about this (see #4). It pointed out that solid foods, or thicker liquid foods, seemed to reduce hunger more than a pure liquid diet. Why this is remains up for debate, although there are a couple of theories.

One is that by chewing, it takes longer to eat your food and therefore gives more time for fullness signals to get from your stomach to your brain. The other idea is that chewing gives more time for food to connect with your taste buds, which can impact satiety.

Whatever the reason, I did seem to be a little hungrier while eating more soft foods, and I was glad to switch back to my more regular diet after a week.

Lack of variety

The other challenge was that I didn’t have much variety of food in the week after I had my tooth out. I only have so much space in my fridge and freezer, so I could only do so much cooking, which meant I ended up eating largely the same things all week. That got rather old.

But this did give me more sympathy for my cat, Fezzik, who had all his teeth removed last year because of a condition called tooth resorption. He had to be on soft foods for two weeks, and by the end of the first week, he clearly wanted more variety because he didn’t seem that interested in eating, something very unusual for him. But when I brought home a can of food in a different flavor from what he’d been having, he ate the whole thing all at once. (It was only a 3-ounce can, but still.)

As a side note, while it took Fezzik a bit of time to adjust to not having any teeth, he’s doing very well now. He’s also clearly feeling much better because he’s more playful and active than he was before.

And we’re both enjoying more variety in our food again.

Appreciating the little things

Now that my eating habits are back to normal, I’m trying to really appreciate it. It’s nice not to have to worry about eating some almonds or carrots, or biting into a crunchy apple.

I still have one wisdom tooth, so at some point I may go through this again. But for the moment, I’m enjoying all the fresh produce available this time of year – and to be on the safe side, I’m sticking with things I can get at the local Farmers’ Market.