Simply Soft Food: 200 delicious and nutritious recipes for people with chewing difficulty or who simply enjoy soft food is written for everyone who cannot eat hard, crunchy or chewy foods due to a wide variety of reasons, such as those with temporomandibular joint disorder, people who have lost teeth, the elderly who have lost chewing strength, anyone who has had oral surgery, people who wear dentures or orthodontic braces, and a wide variety of other issues. This cookbook will allow everyone who is restricted to a diet of tender and easy-to-chew foods to fully enjoy a wide variety of delicious, satisfying foods without feeling limited by what they can eat. These are wonderful, home-cooking style recipes that can be enjoyed by all, regardless of age or whether or not they have chewing problems.

The idea for this book began when my elderly parents started to say that they could only eat soft food. I found myself racking my brain for recipes. What to cook? Family meals had always included dishes such as pork chops, roasts, steak – in short, anything we could sink their teeth into! When suddenly faced with having to cook only soft foods, it was difficult to know what to cook beyond a limited number of dishes. As one of 76 million Baby Boomers, it occurred to me that if I was having the problem of needing to cook only soft foods for elderly parents, there were a lot of other people in the same situation. Later, when I developed temporomandibular joint problems after an injury, I realized that there are many people who need to eat soft foods for a wide variety of reasons. So, I decided that if I was going to spend the time coming up with soft recipes that my elderly parents and I could eat and enjoy, why not share them?

My intention in writing this book is to assist others who are in the situation of needing to find a variety of soft recipes and wanting the dishes to be both satisfying and nutritious. Because people who are limited by what they can eat often do not get enough nutrients, they are at a very real risk of malnutrition, which then leads to other health issues. For this reason, each recipe is written with nutrition in mind, and even the desserts have a nutritional component.

This cookbook has 200 recipes of tasty and satisfying soft foods, including 60 main dishes, 20 soft sandwiches, over 20 breakfast “anytime” dishes, 40 side dishes, as well as delicious bread, soup, and dessert recipes. Everyone deserves the pleasure of a good meal and this cookbook will allow those with chewing difficulty to fully enjoy a wide variety of dishes without feeling limited by what they can eat.