Did any of you eat rice or pasta on mushies? If so, did you blend it up or just chew it up really well?

Nope, those are two foods that many experienced bandsters can't eat. I wouldn't ever suggest a newbie try them.

I ate pasta - but it was mainly bolognaise sauce with a few strings of spaghetti blended into it. I just gave it a stab or two with the blender, so it was lumpy but still broken down somewhat.

No.....I did not eat rice or pasta on the mushie stage...

Nope, not on the mushie stage. I've had both rice and pasta since being banded and could get it down fine, but it isn't a mushie.

The thing about rice is that it can expand in your stomach with extra Fluid in your stomach. Do you really want that and especially at this stage? With restriction it can get stuck in your stoma and expand in there. OUCH!

Pasta is hard because it doesn't break down. What you get when you chew is all you get. Think about a cracker, it breaks down into tiny crumbs and then mush. Pasta doesn't really break down that way.

Right now you are healing and it is CRITICAL that you don't barf at this point. It's just not worth it. And white rice and pasta have no nutrition, there is no value in eating it. You need to be eating things other than white carbs, something healthy. You are healing from surgery.

I agree with Lauren. Those are not mushie foods, not even a little.

My dr said I could eat soft pasta during the mushies stage. I didn't eat straight up pasta, but I had some chicken noodle soup. The noodles were really soft and I didn't have any problems.

I still cannot do rice and only pasta in VERY small amounts. I think it expands in my stomach as Wasa said. I have talked to a lot of banded folks that have to totally avoid rice and pasta. It seems like everyone is different.

I use grits as a substitute for rice/pasta. It is just ground corn and if you add a bit of margarine and salt, tastes very much like rice. It is very, very finely ground and I can tolerate it during my mushie stage. It also is very good to thicken up Soups slightly. broth was getting where it didn't satisfy me at all but if I added a few tablespoons of grits, it thickened it up enough to stick in my stomach for a bit longer.

I use the quick cook kind, not the instant. I cook a big batch on Sundays and then refridgerate for use during the week. That way I have it handy.