Real Food for Tube Feeding Makes a Comeback |Biomedgrid

Attempts to feed patients unable to eat by mouth through alternate routes are documented as early as 3500 BCE but with poor outcomes. However, successful enteral nutrition began in the 1940's with blender zed food made in hospital kitchens delivered through large bore nasogastric tubes. In the decades that followed, advances in enteral nutrition included smaller bore tubes delivering commercial formula (CF) via feeding pumps directly into the stomach or jejunum. Blenderized tube feeding (BTF) was displaced by CF in the 1960s and 70s because the latter was sterile, provided standard nutrient composition, less likely to clog small diameter tubes and covered by most medical plans [1,2]. Ironically, in the last two decades, health care providers (HCPs) report increasing patient interest and use of BTF to the point that formula companies are now responding by producing their own lines of whole food enteral formulas [3-11].