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Full Liquid Diet

Submitted by Nick on March 4, 2011

Full Liquid Diet

A liquid diet is diet which is prescribed when someone either has some gastrointestinal problems or has undergone some surgery. A liquid diet usually means only liquids or food that has been liquefied for the consumption. This is a full liquid diet with had foods in liquid form, with complete recipes, men and plans.

The food that can be used are all kinds of fruit juices, nectars, fruit punch, broth, cream-based soup, milk, milk shakes, pasteurized eggnog, plain cornstarch or plain gelatin based desserts, strained cereal, smooth ice cream, coffee and tea.

The idea of a liquid diet is also used for weight loss. If it is used for weight loss, you cannot eat all the rich foods like eggnogs and will have to concentrate more on light broths and soups only.

These diets are usually undertaken under the guidance of a nutritionist or a doctor because what you will ingest needs monitoring. Just consuming liquids makes you very susceptible to a nutritional deficiency.

Foods that people on a liquid diet have to avoid are frozen fruit, meat, cereals and cheese. Raw foods and vegetables are also discouraged.

When people following a liquid diet eat ice cream, it should be without nuts and any kind of chocolate chips. In the weight loss program which uses liquid diet, no pureed potatoes or avocados can be used as it increases the calorie count. Low calorie ways of increase calories are adding non fat dry milk to your milkshakes and other drinks, adding strained meats like when made for babies to broths, butter or margarine to soups and even some times adding sugar syrup to drinks works.

Sometimes nutrition supplements are used in this diet in order to maintain the required level for nutrition.

These supplements are powders than are soluble in water or milk and can be had on the go. Ideally your nutritionist should recommend these to you. Taking any supplement without any prior knowledge or recommendation can be dangerous.

If this diet is being used to correct a nutritional imbalance due to a severe treatment like that for cancer, soft food is important as often body parts are sore due to the treatment.

Sometimes a liquid diet can be a complete liquid diet where no form of solid food is allowed or ingested. It can also be a clear liquid diet where even thick liquids are not okay for the patient. The clear liquid diet consists largely of fruit juices and thin soups. Eventually patients are moved to soft diets. Soft diets consist of food that does not have much fiber due to damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. The soft diet usually limits intake of fruits and vegetables, cereals and milk and dairy products. This diet can be altered frequently depending on the condition of the patient. Another version of this diet is a low-residue diet. In a low-residue diet, regular fruits and vegetable are cooked and strained so that the person on this diet can digest the food easily.