The BLENDS Project
The BLENDS Project
This resource has been designed to help you find out about blended diet and help you to decide if it is a good choice for you and your family.
We are aware that there are lots of different ways in which families choose to use blended diet, but we hope that this resource will help you to navigate those choices and prepare you for conversations about blended diet with your healthcare team.
It’s about choice, there are options, and there are different routes you can take
This resource was developed with a group of parents who use blended diet; they have already travelled this route. Their experiences and top tips are highlighted throughout.
This resource was funded by Vygon (the people who provide MIC-KEY buttons). The project was developed by Professor Jane Coad, a Children’s Nurse and leading academic and Dr Sarah Durnan, a children’s home enteral feeding dietitian and researcher. Both Sarah and Jane work together at Nottingham Children's Hospital and the University of Nottingham, in the UK. Sarah co-led the review of the BDA Practice Toolkit and some quotes used here come from her PhD research into parents experiences of blended diet.
There is no right or wrong way; it's about finding what works for you and your family.
Making a choice to use blended diet opens up lots of smaller choices, there are lots to navigate and we hope this resource will help you find your own path through
The term ‘blended diet’ is often used to describe the diet of a tube fed person who has everyday foods (the same foods people would eat orally) given through their feeding tube.
This can be either instead of, or as well as a commercially prepared enteral formula. Also, some people eat some food orally too.
Throughout this resource, we have chosen to refer to blended food because a blended diet is ‘just food, which has been blended’.
Much of the advice given here has come from general healthy eating and food safety advice for the general (oral eating population) using resources such as the NHS Eat Well Guide and Food Standards Agency advice, this information aligns to advice given in the British Dietetic Association Practice Toolkit.
We have also included ‘Top Tips’ from a group of parents who have travelled this path ahead of you.
A chicken curry blend
A birthday cake blend
Christmas Dinner, blended