There’s nothing worse than needing to eat but having problems with your mouth and teeth. Whether it’s due to an injury that you’ve sustained or just your run-of-the-mill toothache, it’s helpful to know what to eat and how to prepare food when someone you’re feeding is having pain in their mouth or has just undergone treatment of their mouth.
For those who are older and have just gotten dentures, here are three tips for preparing food after you’ve just had dentures put in when you’re cooking for yourself rather than being fed by an assisted living facility.
Make Sure It’s Not Too Hot
While no one ever wants to burn their mouth on food that’s too hot, if you’ve just gotten dentures, you might not be able to tell immediately when you put the food into your mouth if it’s going to be too hot for you or not. This is because dentures can have an insulating effect on your teeth and mouth, which can make it so you don’t feel the exact temperature of food as quickly.
Knowing this, you’re going to want to test the temperature of your food before you put it into your mouth. You can do this either by touching the food to see if it feels too hot to the touch or by using your tongue to test the temperature of the food before you put it into your mouth.
Start With Soft Foods
Almost regardless of the dental work that you’ve had done, if you’ve just had something done in your mouth, including dentures, you’re going to want to first start out with eating soft foods.
Soft foods are going to be much easier for you to chew, especially as you’re getting used to how your dentures feel and how to eat with them. Some of the best foods to start off with when you’re ready to move on from more liquid foods like soup and broth include things like eggs, potatoes, rice, pasta, breads, and cheese.
Be Careful With Anything Chewy, Sticky, Or Hard
Once you’re ready to start eating foods that aren’t quite as soft, you’ll still want to be careful with certain foods when you have dentures.
As a good rule of thumb, anything that’s chewy, sticky, or hard should be eaten very carefully when you’re chewing with dentures. These foods can cause your dentures to slip out of place while you’re eating, which can be painful and potentially embarrassing. So when you’re eating anything that’s going to be putting a lot of stress on your dentures, make sure you do so very carefully.
If you’ve just gotten dentures and are wondering about how to best go about preparing and eating food, consider implementing the tips mentioned above to help you figure all of this out.
