Some people in life suffer from conditions such as dysphagia and are looking for ways to make food easier to chew and swallow. Alternatively, you may be simply searching for ways to make food easier to digest for people with digestive troubles.
How to Make Food Easier to Chew
There are a few techniques that you can put into practice in this department, so let’s shine a spotlight on just some of them.
Choose softer foods
To begin with, plenty of harder or more textured food take more chewing and digesting than some other options. Therefore, it is worth choosing softer foods in the first place as this is going to make everything so much easier. Another one of the major options that you have in front of you is to think about how you are preparing them. For example, carrots are a hard fibrous food, instead of eating them raw or undercooked, cooking them will make them a lot softer and break down some of the fibres – making them easier to eat and digest.
Think about thickening food
Another one of the main options that you could look into involves investigating the additives you could use to thicken food. For example, you could take a look at SimplyThick how to thicken beverages. This is an additive that is flavorless and odorless – it can be added to all sorts of food like sauces, soups and stews to thicken up the liquid and make it easier to swallow.
Chew your food more times than usual
A lot of people are so distracted when they are chewing their food that they simply do not notice how many times they are doing so. Therefore, you should certainly look to count the number of times you are chewing as a way to practice mindful eating. This can certainly help out with both the whole swallowing and digesting process as well. It is one of the most simple solutions that you can try out, but a lot of people do not realize they could practice something so small and have an impact on their eating.
Eat slowly and take small bites
As has already been discussed in the section above talking about mindful eating, it is certainly going to be worthwhile taking your time in eating. Rather than stuffing everything into your mouth, another great potential option is to take smaller bites. This can stop it getting clogged up in your mouth, as well as aiding the overall digestion process. In general taking the time and moving away from rushed eating habits will reduce the risk of choking on food when trying to swallow.
Eat smaller meals
Instead off having the usual large meals that are typical throughout the course of the day, it could be a good idea to take some smaller meals. This way, you can see how well you are able to take them in and you are not going to be under pressure to consume too much food.
Using a combination of all these different tricks and techniques can help out with the whole process of ensuring that your food is easier to chew, swallow and digest in your daily life.