Now, I'm a vegan and have been for four years. It's like being vegetarian, but stricter - I also avoid eggs and dairy products.
For the benefit of other new vegan braces-wearers, I'm going to post a list of soft vegan foods. Please feel free to add your own vegan soft foods to the list.
If you're curious about veganism, this website will explain more about it.
If you're vegan and looking for a recipe resource, check out VegWeb.com for all kinds of recipes!
And now....
A List of Soft Vegan Foods
- Oatmeal
- "Mushy toast" - I'd resorted to toasting bread, cutting the crusts off, "buttering" it liberally with dairy-free margarine, cutting the toast into bite-sized pieces, and then microwaving it until softened, sometimes topped with maple syrup. It's kind of pathetic but it's the easiest way to chew it!
- Whole-wheat macaroni and vegetables (mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, tomato, etc). I finely dice the vegetables, so no chewing is required.
- "Jello" type desserts that have been congealed with agar, pectin, or carageenan. Check out Asian grocery stores for ones in flavours like mango and lychee. And some have little cubes of nata de coco suspended in them - yum
- Applesauce
- Most canned fruit (Peaches were fine, but papaya was hard to chew)
- Fresh soft fruits, particularly bananas and peaches. It may be necessary to cut them.
- Smoothies (Here's a tip - buy the frozen bags of mixed berries and pop'em in the blender with some chocolate soymilk. The end result is like a liquid chocolate rasperry linzer tart!)
- Ramen noodles, broken into small pieces before cooking
- POTATOS. Mashed potatos especially....When you start to chew again, hash browned potatos and deli-style potato wedges are good to start with.
- Canned peas. Canned creamed corn is good too but requires a little bit of chewing.
- Soup - every type of soup imaginable...especially with crackers crumbled in
- Vegetable dumplings from the asian grocery store. I've discovered that a simple sort of won-ton soup can be made by boiling them for a few minutes with vegetable broth, sesame oil and soy sauce. you'd think that these things would require chewing, but i just break them up with the side of my spoon and I'm all set!
- Dahl - Lentils that have been cooked until they practically melt, and are seasoned with spices like cumin and garam masala. Just be careful using turmeric or curry powders with clear or light coloured ligs though, you could stain them!
- Rice Pudding (Check out the Racy Raisin Rice Pudding from the cookbook How It All Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. yum!)
- Avocado
- Polenta - Just add tomato sauce for an almost instant soft dinner.
- Tofu pudding or mousse (Click here for a delicious chocolate mousse recipe!)
- Bean dip, straight up! Hummus, refried beans...who says you need bread?
- Soy or rice-based ice cream
- Tapioca pudding
- Cream of wheat cereal
- Cupcakes or muffins, if they're soft enough that you can mush them around with your tongue. These spice muffins are pretty soft and flavourful!
- Mashed vegetables. Good mashin' vegetables include potato, sweet potato, rutabaga, acorn squash, butternut squash, carrots, and parsnips. Although I wouldn't reccomend a bowl of straight-up mashed parsnip..those things are kinda bitter.
- Soy yogurt. Some health-food stores sell this.
When I was able to start chewing a little again, Amy's bean & veg burritos were easy to start with (except that it hurt to chew the tortilla, but the filling was fine)
This is all I can think of for now, but I'll be sure to add more as time goes on. After I get my first adjustment, I expect I'll be in pain again. I'll experiment with some other foods (like canned baked beans - those seem to me like they should be soft enough!) and I'll report back with my results
