Meal time problems for Radiation damaged salivary glands.

Try super small sips with every bite. It what I do now. Canned chili no beans. Heavy soups. Stew if you can have the meat cut up into really small pieces. Spaghetti isn’t bad. Smaller bites plenty of small sips. Over time you learn how to substitute the water you drink for saliva by sipping between bites. Take a bite chew a little bit then take a very small sip without swallowing and then finish chewing. Needless to say I can eat steak now. It’s not easy but I can do it taking smaller bites. Having wet foods along side the dryer ones can provide some relief. Canned peaches are great. Au jus is the way to eat a dry snndwich. Experiment til you find foods you can tolerate

I had tongue cancer, and that destroyed most of the function of my salivary glands but not my taste buds. I chew sugarless gum a lot. I am also finding it challenging to find foods that are tolerable to eat. I chew things to a pulp and take small sips of water to help things go down. I mix finely chopped chicken dark meat & veggies with mashed potatoes. I eat canned black refried beans (with no vinegar) & mix with a small amount of sour cream, shredded cheese, a little minced onion & lettuce, and slices of avocado. I also drink protein drinks with water & almond milk. For me, I cannot eat spicy or acidic foods (like anything tomato or citrus based) without causing ulcers throughout my mouth. I am not sure what bothers throat cancer patients. But definitely finely chop things, add something soft & creamy, and take small sips of water to get it moving toward & down the throat.

It's not that I don't get how to eat, small bites followed by a drink of liquid. I think we are all doing that. However, I was searching for a recipe blog or something along those lines for good meals designed for people with Salivary gland damage. My radiation left me without being able to taste Marinara sauce very well, so spaghetti and lasagna are not the wonderful choices they used to be. I'm very sorry to say. My wife and I are just running out of ideas for complete main entrees. I just wanted to reach out and see if one of my fellow survivors found something? Thank you all for responding.

@harleytiger you might pose that question to Meta AI or chatGPT or similar. I have cancer and ask questions a lot.

@pnlees and I do the same thing except I can eat spicy food. With practice I’ve gotten to eat steak now! Small bites and it takes longer to eat than it used to. I’m lucky all the ulcers in my mouth cleared after radiochemo was done. But that’s so painful and I couldn’t eat any solid food when I had the ulcers I’m happy to be Lucky enough for them to clear up.