What To Eat After Root Canal Treatment (Best Foods In Details)

It’s a common concern to ask about what to eat after root canal procedure. Don’t worry! Eating shouldn’t be a major concern for you as there’s enough flexibility in eating foods. You should focus on keeping your other teeth intact from diseases to prevent another root canal surgery. After all, you shouldn’t forget that prevention is the best cure.

The deep-seated portion of teeth is known as the root. When the pulp layer gets infected, unbearable pain emerges as this layer contains nerve roots. As a result, periodontists need to remove the infected part and relieve you from pain. 

If you ever experience such tingling pain sensation in your teeth, consult a dentist as early as possible to avoid further infection under gum tissue or alveolar bone. However, if you don’t shelter microbes in your teeth to form cavities, you won’t need to see such consequences. So always strike the iron while it’s hot.

Maybe, we should focus on the foods you can eat after a root canal procedure. After drilling a hole in a tooth and expelling the contents out, your dentist fills it up with rubbery materials and a temporary crown. As medical anesthesia has developed to full in the past two or three decades, you’ll enjoy the fruit of it by avoiding any pain sensation during the root canal procedure. The dentist will numb your tongue, lips, and surrounding tissue of teeth so that you won’t feel anything during the tooth canal.

Without any further ado, let’s jump in to learn about the foods to eat after the root canal procedure.

When To Eat After Root Canal Treatment

A simple surgery might affect you mentally if you don’t know the procedure. However, the root canal isn’t a complex process like other dental surgeries. You can go to school the next day after a root canal. 

But root canal surgery involves some anesthetic steps that don’t go away right after surgery. You’ve to wait until the numbness in your lips, mouth, and tongue completely goes away. Based on the doses of the local anesthetics, It can take 48 minutes to 48 hours to revive the natural masticating process. If you try to eat something having anesthetic effects present, you may end up biting your tongue or finding it difficult to move your tongue. Moreover, your taste buds might not respond to flavorful foods.

But what to eat after the root canal procedure? There’s no problem eating on the unaffected side of the teeth. Just avoid gnawing or gnashing at anything using the side of the treated teeth. For the 1st day after a root canal, eat something of soft consistency. It needs some time to adjust to the new environment inside your mouth. So take time to transform the soft diet into a hard diet in a few days.

What To Eat After Root Canal

After a root canal treatment, chewing hard foods may cause stress on the temporary coating of the teeth. The temporary filling is due for weakening gradually. So if you eat something intolerable to the temporary crown, it can crack or wear down soon after the root canal. Hard foods need the grinding of teeth that may break the temporary crown of the treated teeth.

And soft food is the savior in most oral surgery cases when people find it hard to eat. Soft foods stay less time in the mouth and pass into the esophagus swiftly. Eating soft foods after a root canal has less to no impact on the vulnerable part of the mouth due to the easy passage of food.

We always eat some foods in a softer consistency, like fruit juices or drinks. But using your wits, you can grind and blend most of the hard foods incorporated into a flavorful meal. If you need some, stay with us till the end. 

After all, it won’t bring any good if you miss out on a healthy meal that includes all the proximate principles of food. We’ve tried our best to compile all types of soft food and nutrition you can eat after a root canal procedure. And again, you can make up some excellent and smooth meals using your creativity, instilling the right proportion.

A rule of thumb is that- 

• you need to avoid the peel and seeds of foods, nuts, corn, hard grains, tough and rubbery cuts of meat, and you’ll get your desired soft foods. 
• The food should be soft and wet pulpy mass when you reach the food with a fork or spoon. 
• Soft foods should be tender and juicy.
• And soft food will need a lot less effort in chewing.

So, what foods should you eat after a root canal? Here’s a list of soft foods we have for the conscious you.

Soft Protein Foods

Don’t indulge in despair when looking around the high-protein foods, mostly seeds, nuts, or rough cuts of meat. So what can you eat after a root canal procedure to meet your protein demand?

• Cut meats into small pieces. You can select the tender parts and make pot roasts, pulled pork, and chicken. Spiced-up gravy can be your ultimate friend after a root canal.
• Soft meatballs
• Soft cooked tuna, grilled salmon without skin, flaky fishes
• Broiled, boiled, or poached fishes
• Fishes without bones
• You can use shredded chicken salad. But avoid using any raw vegetables like carrots or celery on top of it.
• Pureed soups using meats or broth-based soups
• Well boiled lentils
• Omelette, poached and scrambled eggs
• Beans can be used in several ways. They can be baked, mashed, refried, or made into a bean soup
• Minced or silken tofu
• Hummus
• Yogurt, kimchi, and kefir

Soft Carbohydrate Foods

The Carbohydrate part is the most available and dominant in our meal. So excluding this part won’t be wise and practical. A day after the root canal surgery, you can try more solid foods. However, you won’t lack carbohydrates in your meal as they’re also abundant as soft foods.

• Mashed and sweet potatoes
• Cream of wheat
• Butternut squash
• Moistened and juicy pancakes
• Soft grains, boiled pasta, or noodles
• Risotto
• Cooked rice, sauce and rice, or rice pudding
• Porridge oats
• You can soften bread in milk, gravy, or soup and eat it
• Congee
• Semolina
• Mashed hotchpotch
• Brown or white-colored bread

Soft Fatty Foods

The fat portion is also essential to maintaining a healthy diet. You can increase taste by adding some delicious lipids to your cuisine art. However, food items you can eat after a root canal shouldn’t number too many that can be uncomfortable. It’s better to ensure the presence of a complete nutrition profile by adding different sorts of ingredients. Our food choices are according to this principle mostly. 

Though fats are intrinsically soft, their presence in foods can dodge you being a hard shape.

• Pudding
• Butter
• Margarine
• Frozen yogurts
• Soft and cottage cheese
• Mayonnaise
• Mild salsas
• Vegetable oil

Soft Fruits

Fruits can be easily processed into soft foods. Many fruits have a softcore. If you peel the skin off and exclude the seeds, you can directly eat ripe fruit. If you crave differences in the taste of fruits, taste some tropical fruits that have yellow-orange to grayish colors.

• Mashed or baked or cooked bananas
• Applesauce
• Tinned fruit can be heated and made soft
• Fruit smoothie
• Stewed fruit
• Ripe and soft fruits like mango, banana, etc.
• Avocado
• Peeled ripe Peaches
• Pureed fruit
• Cooked pears

Soft Vegetables

Vegetables are necessary to eat after a root canal treatment. Using vegetable oil in cooking will enhance the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. You may not find most of the vegetables naturally soft. But you can cook and boil them into soft vegetables. They are not only nutritious but also delicious to eat. Eat a rainbow of vegetables like pink, green, or yellow to enrich your diet.

• You can prepare vegetable soups or buy readymade ones
• Pureed and mashed winter squash
• Soft cooked and boiled carrots
• Soups of beans
• Sliced and cooked kale and spinach
• Zucchini excluding seeds
• Boiled or slow-cooked cauliflower, broccoli, or cabbage
• Vegetable juice, such as milk & banana juice, carrot juice
• Cream of mushroom soup

Soft Sweet Foods

Sweet and desserts switch our modes to happiness. If you crave sweets or dessert now and then, what will you eat after having a root canal treatment? Can you find the soft ones? Here’s a list of sweets and desserts. So pick up the best foods to eat after having a root canal before wearing a permanent crown.

• Custard
• Ice cream
• Rice pudding
• Mousse
• Sorbet
• Bubble tea
• Jelly
• Moist cake and pie that won’t linger around the mouth and stick to the teeth
• Jam & jelly
• Macaroni and cheese
• Frozen yogurt 
• Peanut butter

Soft Sour Foods

Sour foods always remind of something juicy and watery. This experience mainly comes from eating citrus fruits which are tart and tangy. The cramming antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties in these foods are just like WOW. If you want a quick recovery from root canal surgery, jumpstart having these sour and savory foods.

• Mango juice
• Pineapple juice
• Orange juice
• Cranberries
• Gooseberries
• Vinegar
• Kimchi
• Yogurt

Wrap Up

Are these foods okay for you? Hopefully, you won’t need to worry anymore about what to eat after a root canal. You can easily find your favorite ones in this detailed list of foods to eat after a root canal procedure. Do you have any idea to prepare a more interesting soft food? Let us know in the comments.