Teddy gets a blended diet through his G-tube, and not formula.
Why not formula? Well, most humans eat food. It’s what our bodies are made to use. It’s “normal.” There’s no reason not to. Formula is full of sugar and oil.
Pediasure Complete Enteral Formula ingredients: Water, Corn Maltodextrin, Milk Protein Concentrate, Sugar, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Soy Oil, Medium chain Triglycerides. (then a bunch of artificial vitamins and minerals)
Water, sugar, milk, sugar, oil, oil, oil. That’s gross.
So, Teddy gets a blended diet.
Almost any person with a feeding tube could have a blended diet. There are a few exceptions, definitely, but MOSTLY kids (and adults) with feeding tubes CAN have a blended diet. Lots of GIs and Nutritionists are against this idea for reasons I don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t make them RIGHT. Usually, their reasons are things like “you’ll clog the tube,” “it’s too hard,” or “you won’t know if you’re providing all the recommended amounts of every nutrient.” Because God Forbid any child in the US not get every recommended amount of every nutrient daily. I’m sure all the oral eating kids do, right?
Right?
(OK, if you don’t have any oral eaters, the answer is no. No, they do not.)
Is it hard? Not really. I cook things and I blend them up. It’s a bit more work than if he were eating orally, and yeah – a lot more work than popping the top on a can of pediasure. But it’s not THAT MUCH work.
Does it take a lot of time? When I was blending full time, I spent about 3-4 hours making his food every 3ish weeks. There’s an efficiency benefit in doing more at one time, so if I blended every 4 weeks, it’d still take about the same amount of time. I just only have room on the shelf in the freezer for so many jars.
Here’s what I do.
1. Make recipes. Not everyone uses a recipe. I do. I like spreadsheets. Some people just blend up whatever they’re feeding the rest of the family. I like to utilize the fact that I don’t have to make food that tastes good and create the very best, highest nutrition diet I can. It’s like an intellectual challenge for me. If you’re not into that, you don’t need to be that nerdy.
2. Check food inventory and cook.
I first check over our leftovers. Taco meat from last night? Oh, yeah, that’s getting used. Vegetables from the stir fry Saturday? Yep. Teddy gets MOST of our leftovers. I’ve even started saving leftover eggs from Sunday brunch. Nobody actually EATS leftover scrambled eggs, but they blend up just fine. 🙂 If I’m not blending within a few days, leftovers just go in the freezer until blending day. I also prefer to cook in advance. It actually doesn’t take that much time. Throw on a few pots to cook grains and one to steam or fry veggies. 30 minutes max. I tend to buy food that’s just for the blends in bulk, cook in a big batch, and freeze in small portions. Then I just have to defrost and blend.
3. Set up my workspace. This is my tiny kitchen. Cooked foods on the counter, produce on the TV tray to my left, jars underneath the tray, other things squished awkwardly in front of the microwave. It’s all right there, though I regularly run things like the hamburger back to the fridge when I’m not using it immediately.
4. Throw the things in the blender. Liquid first, then other ingredients. Blend, adding liquid as needed to make it nice and smooth.
5. Pour into jars. I freeze in Mason jars. Leave adequate headspace and don’t tighten the lid to avoid cracking. Others freeze in plastic containers or in Freezer bags.
6. Feed. I do modify the Infinity bags. Takes like 5 seconds.
For a How to Get Started guide, check out Blenderized RN.
Our Teddy Bear's Journey 