Non-boring post-wisdom tooth extraction food?

January 28, 2007 3:16 AM

I really don't want to be bored by plain rice porridge after extracting three wisdom teeth.

I'll be extracting three wisdom teeth soon (two upper, one lower). I most probably won't be able to eat solids for a couple of days. Do you have any tasty ideas I can look forward to eating?

posted by Xere to food & drink (30 answers total)

When I had all four removed, I became a fan of lightly fried eggs with mashed potatoes. Fairly easy to season interestingly, quick, soft, and protein-packed. A little boring, I suppose.
posted by ipe at 3:32 AM on January 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

The blender is your friend.

Overly-whirled gazpacho isn't as bad as it sounds.

Mash cheese, herbs, anything you can think of into mashed (or baked) potato.

Some of those fruit-flavoured baby foods are actually edible.

Suggestion from a waitress when asked if there was a puréed soup, say, a bit after I had mine out: "I could ask the chef to overcook the pasta?"
posted by kmennie at 3:32 AM on January 28, 2007

Milk shakes.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:37 AM on January 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

IAARWTRS ( i am a recent wisdom tooth removal survivor):

Hot chocolate from Starbucks. I mocked it at first, but it's convenient and it's good.

Wait for it to cool a bit. Take a sip, hold it on the side of your mouth for a few seconds.

It feels good and tastes delish.

Campbell's Soup at Hands are awesome, too. I recommend the Creamy Tomato, the Potato and the Creamy Chicken.

Also ice cream soup (ice cream set out for a while before eating)
posted by damnjezebel at 3:53 AM on January 28, 2007

Soup — I ate at Panera every day for a week, and if you let the sourdough soak in the soup it's mushy enough to enjoy too.
posted by Brittanie at 4:08 AM on January 28, 2007

Carnation Instant Breakfast- 'You're gonna love it in an instant'
posted by Thrillhouse at 4:30 AM on January 28, 2007

I got mine (all four) out over winter break, and it was swell. I got no fun drugs, but no complications, either.

The important thing is not to eat food with bits -- no soup with tiny pasta, no rice, no orzo. Milkshakes and stuff are okay as long as you're not using a straw. Your dentist should warn you about both of those issues.

The first few days, I had mostly applesauce and pudding. Ice cream is good if it's without bits -- no nuts, no chocolate chips, just plain coffee or vanilla or something.

Eggs, scrambled or hard-boiled, are fine. Pretty much all stuff-in-a-blender is okay -- I remember hot dogs worked pretty well, chicken not so much (actually, chicken worked all right, barely, but looked like cat food). Vegetables, like beets and cooked carrots, tend to work well in a blender.

When you're transitioning back to solids, first try stuff that's naturally soft -- fish is a good idea; steak can wait another week.
posted by booksandlibretti at 4:30 AM on January 28, 2007

When I had all four wisdom teeth removed, the first night I ate pasta with soft, wide, flat noodles. I also liked applesauce. My favorite thing, though, was using the blender to make smoothies out of fruit, or milkshakes using ice cream and Slim-Fast or Ensure. I figured that had a higher nutritional content than ice cream alone.
posted by christinetheslp at 4:36 AM on January 28, 2007

I enjoyed Thai food -- nice, soft wide rice noodles and pillowy tofu.
posted by veggieboy at 5:30 AM on January 28, 2007

Yogurt! After a bad fall and a lot of stitches to my lower lip, I ate one cup of every kind available.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:32 AM on January 28, 2007

Yup, custard style yogurt is your friend. You can also try Farina (aka Cream of Wheat). Made from scratch with milk it's high in iron and generally equivalent to breakfast cereal. Put in some real maple syrup at serving time.

I lived on yogurt, fruit juice, mashed potatoes, and other very, very soft foods until things healed up. I was excited when I could Spaghetti-o's and you know how soft they are...
posted by plinth at 6:21 AM on January 28, 2007

There's always room for Jello. For that matter, [insert your favorite flavor] instant pudding. Nestle's makes a pretty good instant chocolate mousse if you're not up to making it yourself.
posted by Dave Faris at 7:23 AM on January 28, 2007

miso soup
posted by cotterpin at 7:32 AM on January 28, 2007

If you're making smoothies/shakes, you might want to add some whey powder -- not the most exciting food, I admit -- to make sure you get enough protein.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:36 AM on January 28, 2007

Going on the shake recommendations from above, my mom makes this really great drink that tastes similar to Odwalla's Superfood. If you decide to make it, I'm sure you can pick and choose -- some of the ingredients are slightly aberrant from traditional pantry stock:

• 2 cups water
• 1 orange
• 1 apple
• 1 frozen banana
• ½ lime
• ¼ mango
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Dash salt
• 1 packet of Stevia sweetener
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil (heat small skillet till warm, add oil and allow to melt – do not use high heat)
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 oz. ground flax seeds (Grind with small coffee grinder)
• 1 Tablespoon lecithin
• 1 teaspoon Spirulina (blue-green algae)
• Scoop of hemp protein powder

posted by fourstar at 8:27 AM on January 28, 2007

Refried beans! Mmmm...beans. With melted cheese for added protein. Soft enough not to cause any trouble, but with enough texture to it that you don't feel like you're drinking all your meals.

Also ice cream.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:18 AM on January 28, 2007

Just in case the point above gets lost, avoid straws. The suction can dislodge the blood clot over the extraction, which often leads to dry socket. Trust me; it's very unpleasant.

Good luck!
posted by j-dawg at 9:50 AM on January 28, 2007

I had all four of mine out and really only had to modify my eating for the next day. Yogurt was good. That next day you will feel zonky anyway and by the time your head feels right you can eat most things pretty easily.
posted by stormygrey at 10:34 AM on January 28, 2007

Dhal.
posted by randomination at 11:54 AM on January 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I ate spaghettios, if you don't mind the taste, or even like it.

I went out to a restaurant about a week later (I had dry sockets so my pain was prolonged) and had a bowl of soup. It was chicken-veg-rice, so I just ate the rice and broth and ordered a 2nd bowl, simply explaining that I'd had my wisdom teeth out and couldn't eat the remains. It worked out fine.

What J-dawg said - avoid dry sockets. They stuffed mine with something that tasted like cloves... it was coming out for weeks afterwards. I never want to taste cloves again.
posted by IndigoRain at 11:56 AM on January 28, 2007

Steamed egg in chicken broth, like what they serve in Japanese restaurants.
posted by hobbes at 12:10 PM on January 28, 2007

When I had mine out in High School, something went wrong, and my jaw was locked almost shut for a week... This was when I was a tiny little whisp of a thing, and couldn't afford to lose any weight, so my mom got as much nourishment down me as she could. I had milkshakes, pudding, some applesauce..and -don't laugh- baby food. Baby food slides right down, and the fruit varieties are pretty darn tasty.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 1:00 PM on January 28, 2007

I got a lot of good, basic post-extraction advice from the MeFites a while back that might be helpful in some ways.

As for food, I did well afterward with a creamy potato soup, split pea soup (very thick and hearty), scrambled tofu, oatmeal, and the usual litany of puddings, yogurts, applesauce (and peachsauce) and milkshakes and smoothies. By day three I was able to manage macaroni and cheese and pancakes (lots of butter and syrup and mashing with my tongue, YMMV on that) but I had very little pain, so I may have been more adventurous than you'll want to be.
posted by Dreama at 3:14 PM on January 28, 2007

When having my wisdom teeth out had to eat soup one day, but after that I was able to carefully eat sandwiches or whatever else. I was mainly worried about being careful not to eat or drink anything fizzy or overly hot, so that it wouldn't bother the clot.

Mainly, be careful to chew with your front teeth and you won't have any problems.
posted by wierdo at 3:28 PM on January 28, 2007

congee. You should use a starchy rice, like Calrose.
posted by Chuckles at 4:44 PM on January 28, 2007

Deviled ham.
posted by agregoli at 7:47 AM on January 29, 2007

Hot chocolate from Starbucks. ...Wait for it to cool a bit.

If you don't want to wait, ask your barista to make it at about 140-145F. We make kids' drinks at 130F all the time, and our co-workers tend to ask for theirs around 140F so they can drink them before they go back to work.
posted by Cricket at 11:55 AM on January 29, 2007

Oh man, I can never get bored of rice porridge, at least the congee or jook kind that Chuckles mentions. I admit it's pretty boring on its own but there are so many good things to add to it.

Lately, the BF and I like to eat congee with the following mixed together:
- a bit of vegetarian satay sauce aka "Nazi-sauce". Some people call it bbq sauce, but it tastes nothing like bbq sauce to me. It's salty with a garlicky spicey kick to it
- carmelized & diced onions and shittake mushrooms (small enough to swallow?)

If you're up for it, cut up some thousand year old eggs, drizzle on some sesame oil and soy sauce, and mix them into the porridge. They're fairly soft and don't require too much chewing.
posted by nakedsushi at 5:28 PM on January 29, 2007

I had mine out during the summer. The week of our local fair. I ate so much Hawaiian Shaved Ice I almost started to Hula(sp)

Although by day 2 I added a Bloomin' Onion into the mix.
posted by imjosh at 8:39 AM on January 30, 2007

I had five wisdom teeth out at age 16. Five, you ask? Yes, I had an extra, the oral surgeon was totally weirded out.

Anyways, I was in such bad shape after the extraction (they actually had to cut my gums open in a couple of places because the wisdom teeth were blocked by normal teeth) that I actually didn't eat at all for two or three days after. The pain meds made me ill. After that, I stuck to mashed potatoes, pudding, cream soups, soft ice cream (the cold can be hard on your open sockets, though). When I went back to solids, I started gently with soft foods, like pasta, beans, canned fruit, etc. I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's not like you're going to have to eat like this for a month. I had to eat like that for about 10 days if I remember correctly. And mine was a special case, what with the extraneous tooth and the sliced open gums and all. I would think that a normal extraction would have even less healing time.
posted by katyggls at 1:40 PM on January 30, 2007