A food discovery

[haikumama]

We have been desperately trying to find high cal, high fat foods for Ike to eat. He seems to prefer crunchy foods all of a sudden, but he still gags or throws up if the food is *too* crunchy.

Anyway, I thought I'd let you all know that we have started to feed him freeze dried eggs and bacon. I bought a package of it at REI. I also bought some freeze dried mac and cheese.

The calorie count and fat count is stunning. Of course, the sodium is also extremely high, so there is that.

However, as far as little snacky finger foods, these have way way way more calories and fat than Gerber puffs or crackers, and the eggs break apart into dust as he crunches them, so he doesn't gag. The week he started snacking on the freeze dried eggs and bacon, he gained 8 ounces. (Huge for us.)

Of course, since then, he's come down with a cold and lost all that weight plus some. Sigh. But at least we now have something he can practice crunching and we don't worry so much about him getting filled up on something without any fat or calories.

I just thought I'd share in case this might work for someone else.

Kari

[sofiasmom]

thanks - I will try this with Sofia's brother (the other one of my surviving triplets). He is not trached but is such a picky eater and since he doesn't have the g-tube, hasn't gained much weight lately.

[scm]

wow! that is a great idea...is it expensive? I'm always looking for high cal foods for Max.

[drct1245]

Thanks for the idea!! Ayden is very sensitive and we are always looking for food that "melts" in your mouth!

[haikumama]

wow! that is a great idea...is it expensive? I'm always looking for high cal foods for Max.

It seems kind of expensive, like between $6-$9 per pouch of the freeze-dried food. But Ike doesn't eat much at a time, so a pouch will last for a while. For what you get, it's way cheaper than something like those Gerber yogurt puffs, and has tons more calories and fat.

[KJKK8437]

I love it when something different works for someone. For us, liverwurst was a key food in trying to get from purees to table food. We also had some success with the yolks of hardboiled eggs mixed in water.

[saywhatyouwill]

hey kari -

em had corned beef hash for lunch. a standard for ages and really tasty. you can make it as smooth or rough as you want.

corned beef
mashed potato (premashed has more kcals)
grated cheese
duocal, of course
butter

mix it all up. yum! i hate corned beef by itself, but in a hash it's delicious. a mega calorie meal.

at the weekend i also picked up some caramel shortbread squares - 250kcals in a little square! but although they are soft, they do require a bit of chewing.

[suzanne2545]

What a brilliant find.

You might try amazon. You can usually get a good deal on things, even food there. Might even be able to find the exact brands. Plus, freeze dried is pretty light so shipping wouldn't be outrageous.