How to Cook Foods That Are Hard to Chew: Cooking Matched to Eating Ability (Chewing Difficulties)

Written by: 稲山 未来 (Registered Dietitian)

You probably know that chewing ability declines with age. There are several reasons for this:

• Dentures make it impossible to bite down hard

• Gum disease or mouth ulcers make chewing painful

• The muscles of the mouth, cheeks and tongue weaken, leaving too little strength for chewing

• Less saliva makes it harder for the tongue to gather food together

So let me explain what older people who find chewing difficult tend to eat, and some ways to make food easier to eat.

What do people with weaker chewing eat?

One study looked at whether nutrient intake differs between people who have 20 or more of their own teeth and those who have fewer.

It found that people with fewer remaining teeth ate notably less meat, vegetables, fruit, and nuts and seeds. With fewer teeth, hard and fibrous foods are difficult to eat, so they tend to get their calories from soft bread and rice.

Is it all right to skip foods that are hard to eat?

As I mentioned, intake of meat, vegetables and similar foods was especially low, but each of these foods contains nutrients needed to stay healthy.

Meat

Meat contains protein, the building block of muscle. A lack of protein causes muscles throughout the body to waste away, including those of the mouth and throat, which makes chewing even harder.

Vegetables and fruit

The vitamins in vegetables and fruit help maintain immunity. Vitamin C in particular keeps the gums healthy and helps prevent gum disease. If you avoid vegetables and fruit because gum disease makes them hard to eat, your gums weaken further and the gum disease is more likely to progress.

Fibrous vegetables are hard to eat, but they are rich in dietary fiber. Fiber forms the bulk of stool, so a lack of it can make bowel movements hard to control, causing constipation or, conversely, loose stools.

How can you eat foods that are hard to chew?

First, if you can’t chew well because of problems with your dentures or pain in your mouth, have the problem fixed at a dental clinic. This is the most important step.

If chewing is still difficult after that, adapt your cooking methods so that you get the nutrients you need in a balanced way.

Cooking meat

Chunks of meat are tough and hard to chew, so adapt your dishes using ground meat or thinly sliced meat.

Instead of fried chicken, try ground chicken meatballs

Meatballs made from ground chicken are soft to eat. If they still feel a little firm, mix in some tofu when kneading the meat mixture. Tofu makes them moist and fluffy and even easier to eat. As a guide, use tofu equal to about a quarter of the amount of meat.

Keep simmered chicken moist with potato starch

Chicken often goes into hot-pot dishes and the like, but when it simmers for a long time, its flavor and fat seep out and it can turn dry. Dry food is also hard to eat, so some care is needed.

If dry chicken is a concern, dust the surface of the meat with potato starch before simmering it in dashi broth. The starch coats the surface, so the meat stays moist and becomes smooth on the outside, making it easier to eat even for people who produce less saliva.

Use thinly sliced meat for stir-fries

When making stir-fries such as ginger pork (shogayaki), try using thinly sliced meat. Pork belly sliced for shabu-shabu is especially good: it is very thin and has just the right amount of fat, so it is tender to eat. You only change the type of meat, not the cooking steps, so it’s a very easy adjustment.

Cooking vegetables

Check the direction of the fibers

Take a close look at an onion. You’ll see fibers running from the top to the root end. Cutting along these fibers gives a pleasant texture, but for people who find that fibers stay in the mouth, cut across them.

Not just onions: cut leafy greens, celery, asparagus and similar vegetables across the fibers in the same way.

Peel the skin

The skins of eggplants, tomatoes and similar vegetables can be tough and hard to bite through. Blanch tomatoes and slip off their skins, and peel eggplants with a peeler before cooking, to make them easier to eat. If peeling an eggplant completely changes its look and makes it seem less appetizing, peeling off just some of the skin in stripes still makes it easier to eat.

Other foods that are hard to eat

As chewing strength weakens, springy foods such as kamaboko (fish cake) also become hard to eat. High-end fish-paste products made with carefully chosen ingredients tend to be especially firm and springy. If ease of eating is the priority, the fish-paste products readily available at supermarkets are sometimes lighter and softer.

To keep eating well for life

To keep enjoying good food in good health for as long as possible, it is important to maintain your chewing ability. Eating only soft foods because others are hard to eat causes that ability to decline further.

And the more limited the foods you can eat become, the deeper you fall into a downward spiral: undernutrition weakens even the muscles used for eating, and poor nutritional balance worsens gum disease.

To prevent this, the first step is a mouth that can chew. If you feel pain or find eating difficult, start by consulting a dental clinic near you. Then find foods you can eat with your current abilities, and try to eat plenty of meat, fish and vegetables.

Let’s keep enjoying delicious food and stay healthy for years to come.

---

About the author: 稲山 未来 (Registered Dietitian)

This article is a contribution from a medical or care professional, re-edited by our editorial team. It provides general information as of the time of writing, and symptoms and circumstances differ from person to person. For specific decisions, please consult your doctor, dentist, pharmacist or another professional.

This is an English translation of a column originally published in Japanese by Next Co., Ltd.

About Next Co., Ltd. We are a Tokyo-based company working in Japan’s senior care and end-of-life planning field. Alongside these expert columns, we publish professional training textbooks and support businesses entering Japan’s eldercare market. More expert columns | Our English textbook | Contact us