115 Soft Foods to Eat After Braces, Dental Surgery, Implants or Wisdom Teeth Extraction
By Dr. Tai Li Lin on 18 February 2020
After certain procedures like tooth extraction, braces, wisdom tooth extraction/surgery or dental implants, your dentist may recommend a soft food diet.
Eating food that can be easily swallowed with minimal-to-no chewing is a great idea when your mouth is sore. It keeps pain and inflammation in check while allowing the wound (if any) to heal faster.
While soft foods offer your teeth the tender loving care they need, they don’t have to bore the foodie in you — not with our curated list of 115 recipes!
As a rule of thumb, soft foods should be easily mashed with a fork. Even on a soft food diet, you should still eat a variety of foods to ensure that you’re getting all the nutrition you need.
Here are some suggestions by food group:
- Carbohydrates for energy: rice or oat porridge, mashed potatoes, whole grain biscuits soaked in milk
- Protein for growth and repair: soft-boiled or scrambled eggs, tofu, baked beans, steamed salmon
- Dairy for calcium: smoothies, milkshakes, yoghurt, pudding, cottage cheese
- Fruits and vegetables for vitamins and minerals: mashed carrots, avocado, banana, poached pear
Top tip for braces: Blend your oats
Oatmeal is a healthy, high-fibre option but the grains are easily lodged between your teeth and brackets, and are tedious to remove. Blend your oatmeal into flour before cooking to avoid this problem completely.
Top tip for wisdom tooth extraction: Cool your food
It’s a good idea to take your food and drinks at lukewarm or cool temperatures because heat can dissolve the blood clot that’s forming on your wound. This may trigger another bout of bleeding and slow down your recovery process.
Since your primary objective is to avoid pressure on your achy teeth (for braces) or healing wound (for extraction cases), it’s best to avoid anything hard, chewy or crunchy.
Here are some types of food to avoid:
- Hard food: Nuts, muesli, corn on the cob, hard candy, French loaf, popcorn
- Crunchy food: Raw carrots and broccoli, granola bars, cookies, chips
- Chewy food: Dried fruits, gummy candy, pizza crusts, fibrous meats
Top tip for braces: Think of your wires and brackets
A soft food diet is often prescribed because of soreness after your braces are tightened. Therefore, you may consider avoiding or minimising the intake of hard, crunchy, and chewy foods throughout the duration of your treatment. These can damage your brackets, while chewy food can tug and loosen wires.
Top tip for wisdom tooth extraction: Avoid spicy food
Spicy food tends to irritate your mouth, making it harder for your wound to heal well and quickly.
Breakfast Smoothies
(21 recipes)Vegetable Puree
(5 recipes)
Baby Porridge
(8 recipes)Italian Risotto
(19 recipes)
A soft food diet helps your body focus on recovering post-treatment.
After braces tightening, you may experience soreness for up to a week. For wisdom tooth extraction and surgery, this may range from five days to two weeks.
However, it’s always best to listen to your body. As you start to feel more comfortable, you can transition from no-chew to easy-chew foods. Use our 28-day meal plan as a guide!
Adopting a Soft Food Diet
Adopting a soft food diet may sound daunting at first but we hope we’ve demonstrated that there are still many delicious, nutritious, and oh-so-satisfying options out there! Go easy on your teeth and let your smile thank you for it.
Check out these wisdom tooth pain relief methods to ease your recovery process.