The ALS Association

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Progress

Easier-to-Eat, Delicious Meals - Add Savory Holiday Favorites to Your Table

Advocates
Lorraine Danowski, MSRD

For people with ALS and their caregivers, there’s helpful news from research results regarding the importance of appetizing and nutritionally dense foods. Such foods can be mixed and matched to satisfy appetites and abilities when it comes to the mechanics of eating. With this in mind, simplicity is the golden rule not only for methods of food preparation, but also for concerns about safe and easy swallowing.

The calories and nutrients contained in each meal are important, according to a 2014 report in ScienceDaily where evidence supports that eating a high calorie, high carbohydrate diet and maintaining weight may help to slow the progression of ALS. Attention to both easy-to-eat foods and textures of these foods is essential for meeting individual calorie and energy needs. However, additional studies are also required to more clearly understand the types of calories required for optimal benefit.

“Mixed-textured foods can be hard to swallow for some people,” said Lorraine Danowski, MSRD and Clinical Instructor of Family Medicine at the Christopher Pendergast ALS Center of Excellence, in Stony Brook, N.Y. “Smoothies made with different fruits, almond milk, Greek yogurt, ice cream, and more, can be a wonderful way to assure nutritional intake.” Another rule of thumb can help to guide choices. “If it takes more than a half hour for a person with ALS to eat, give him or her smaller portions of food throughout the day. Make the texture is soft or creamy or pliable enough for teeth and tongue to manage with ease and gently aid swallowing.  Cut food into smaller pieces so there’s not so much time spent chewing. In some cases, liquid vitamins can also be added,” Danowski suggested.

insight-nov2014-article-cookbookSimple and Successful Strategies

Part of Danowski’s sage advice is to work with fresh foods as often as possible and to cook larger quantities at a single time—a double batch of something—to reheat later. Tomato sauce poured over raviolis (what she calls “Easy Lasagna”) and baked in the oven is a quick, nutritious shortcut to the popular and readymade dish that can be eaten again later in the week.

Soups are another win-win food. From her Cream of Mushroom to Chilled Avocado Cucumber recipes, soup can be easy to eat and digest and prepared with optimal taste and nutrition in mind. For someone having difficulty swallowing, a shrimp or seafood bisque recipe, for example, can be served after ingredients have been put in a blender. “Adding cream, whole milk or butter are ways to increase calories,” Danowski said. A garnish of Greek yogurt is good too because it has less water and is higher in protein compared to other yogurts. “We don’t skimp on fat,” she said. “The goal is getting calories in to maintain strength and energy.”

It’s Turkey Time: Celebrate with Flavors of the Season

Thanksgiving is the time of year to enjoy family and friends and also to enjoy easy-to-prepare foods that give everyone a chance to taste long-awaited favorites. For the person with ALS who may need softer foods that still sparkle with traditional flavor and memories we offer two choices adapted by Danowski from her book, High Calorie and Easy-to-Chew Recipes.

Favorite flavors for our traditional Thanksgiving feast are found in  Turkey Meatballs and Mashed Potatoes and Pumpkin Pie Smoothies. Dig in and enjoy surrounded by the people you love!

No matter the time of year eggs are also “terrific” for getting nutritionally rich food into the diet, Danowski said. “Eggs are a softer, less ‘fatiguing’ food to manage for people with ALS,” she says. “They can be scrambled for lunch, made into omelets for dinner, with cheese and veggies added for a higher fat content and variation.” From pancakes to salmon, and cheese grits to peanut butter quesadillas, Danowski condensed her years of nutritional know-how into a tasty guide for meal-making with a purpose that is devoted to people with ALS and their caregivers.

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