Eating and drinking

Bite and dissolve food

Some children who are on a pureed or mashed diet may be able to manage some bite-and-dissolve foods. These may be recommended by your child’s therapist in order to help your child develop more advanced skills. This should be done under supervision. Bite-and-dissolve foods melt in the mouth and do not require any chewing, but the child needs sufficient control to hold the food in their mouth until it melts.

Children with strong suck-and-swallow reflex may swallow pieces whole if placed on the tongue. This may cause choking. Most of these foods are snack foods: (extract from ‘A Guide to Food Textures’)

Foods that dissolve smoothly and quickly (less than 15 seconds) with no tongue movement required:

Sweet Snacks Bite and Dissolve Foods that dissolve smoothly and quickly (less than 15 seconds) with no tongue movement required:

• Heinz organic biscotti

• Heinz Farley’s rusks

• Rich tea biscuits

• Sainsbury’s malted milk biscuits

• Lee’s meringue (be careful of meringues with softer filling, e.g. M&S brand).

 Savoury Snacks

• Tuc biscuits

• Pom-bear

• Quavers

• Wotsits

Foods that are slow to dissolve and require some tongue movement (including wheat and dairy free foods):

Sweet Snacks

• Chocolate buttons

• Maltesers (MILK only not white, broken into small pieces)

• Dairy Milk (cut into small pieces)

• Dietary special vanilla wafers

• Pink wafer biscuits

• Morrisons Short Bread fingers

• Cheerios

• Coco Pops

• Somerfield Malted Milk Biscuits

• Sponge fingers Savoury Snacks Foods that are slow to dissolve and require some tongue movement (including wheat and dairy free foods):

• Heinz toddler own mini cheese (has a strong after taste).

• Somerfield Cheese twists

• Cheddars

DO NOT OFFER YOUR CHILD:

• Stringy, fibrous texture, e.g. pineapple, runner beans, celery, lettuce

• Vegetable and fruit skins, including beans, e.g. broad, baked, soya, black eye, peas and grapes

• Mixed consistency foods, e.g. cereals which do not blend with milk, e.g. muesli, mince with thin gravy, soup with lumps

• Crunchy foods, e.g. toast, flaky pastry, dry biscuits, crisps

• Crumbly items, e.g. bread crusts, pie crusts, crumble, dry biscuits

• Hard foods, e.g. boiled and chewy sweets and toffees, nuts and seeds

• Husks, e.g. sweet corn and granary bread.….because children who need bite-and dissolve foods do not have the oral skills to be safe with these more textured foods that do not dissolve.