If you’ve had an adjustment appointment near our lunch hour - you KNOW our staff loves food! You’ll hear us deciding where we’ll eat lunch and who’s in the mood for which type of cuisine. One of our staff members is currently wearing braces and that takes some planning so that we can enjoy her company while she enjoys braces-friendly meal options.
Are you wondering why we’re talking about food? We've found an awesome cookbook for us to look at and we just couldn’t wait to share it with you!
The Braces Cookbook, written by Pamela Waterman and Brenda Waterman, has fantastic information on how to rework menus and address eating habits to help avoid breaking brackets. It offers soft recipes and great tips for meeting the challenges of working around braces and appliances.
Pamela Waterman, author of The Braces Cookbook: Recipes You and Your Orthodontist Will Love says, “Comfort food takes on a whole new meaning when cooking for children with braces. Whether you have new brackets, elastics, headgear, or more, there are great foods you can eat; it just takes some thought.”
At SmilesForever Orthodontics, Drs. Brad Gilbert, Adam Wells and our staff know that kids can be picky eaters. If cooking for children without braces is difficult, preparing meals for children new to braces may seem a bit daunting. Inspired by The Braces Cookbook, we’ve put together some familiar and staff favorite braces-friendly meal tips to help keep your kids smiling!
- Macaroni and cheese, the ultimate in comfort foods has soft pasta so it’s easy for children with braces to eat. The chances are great that your child already loves this homey classic dish. The warm, gooey cheese melts in the mouth and doesn’t get stuck in the braces. Mashed potatoes are yummy, creamy and warm comfort food too!
- There are some great tips to cooking braces-friendly meals. The key to braces-friendly cooking is in substituting softer foods for the crunchy items often found in recipes. For example, lasagna or spaghetti would be a better choice than pizza and eating a burrito or quesadilla would be better than a crunchy taco.
- If you have a hard time getting your child to eat vegetables, a veggie stir-fry is a healthy choice. Though they may try and tell you they can’t eat vegetables with braces - we’re on to that little trick! Cooked vegetables are nice and soft and are easy to eat as you’ll want to avoid preparing raw vegetables since they are too crunchy and hard.
- Sloppy Joes make a great braces-friendly meal and the meat is a great source of protein. While biting into meat with a bone is never a good idea, our SmilesForever patients can still enjoy chicken and meat, just cut it into smaller pieces. Meatloaf also makes a tasty, soft beef dinner and you can always serve it with those yummy mashed potatoes!
- For most children, the best part of dinner is the dessert! Hard, sticky and chewy treats should be avoided but thankfully there are so many braces-friendly treats to keep them smiling! Ice cream, yogurt, pudding, cake and cupcakes are just a few examples of yummy desserts they can enjoy.
Need more braces-friendly food ideas? Feel free to ask any member of our team.
