UEA students lived off blended food for a week for charity

UEA Speech and Language students gave up eating solid food in favour of blended alternatives for a week.

The campaign was started as a way to raise awareness for people with swallowing difficulties and to raise money for the stroke association.

With the week now over and the girls now back to eating normal meals, we spoke to some of the students involved in the campaign.

Despite not looking that tasty, the girls admitted to enjoying at least one of the meals throughout the week.

Third year Nicola Milbourn’s favourite meal was puréed fish and chips. She said:  “The nicest meal I had was probably the breaded fish with puréed potato, onion, mushroom, chorizo, and garlic  served with carrots, broccoli and pickled onions.”

We thought she was joking, but surprisingly she assured me this was actually really nice.

Looks it

Final year Kerri Ogglesbee said: “I loved my mash potato with beans, sausage, cheese and gravy but the stir fry was also good because it had a strong sauce which gave it a lot of flavour.”

She was not so impressed with the liquidized prawn pasta salad though. She said “I tried to push the boat out with this one but it didn’t go too well.”

Yum

For Nicola, it was blended sandwich and crisps that left a sour taste in her mouth.

She said:  “During this challenge I tried to eat as normally as possible, so I thought it would be worth giving the sandwich a go.

“The only problem was it took quite a lot of added soft cheese and water to blend it.”

One thing all of the girls noticed about the puréed diet was how inconvenient it was.

Nicola said: “A low point for me was the massive queue for the microwave from everyone on the puréed diet. |Blended vegetables don’t taste the same cold and when you’re hungry a long queue isn’t fun.”

Fellow third year Felicity Stephenson added: “The hardest part was going for lunch with my friend to Pizza Express.

“We had it planned ages ago and when I looked at the menu it turned out there was nothing I could eat apart from one dessert.

“It really opened her eyes to how little these people’s difficulties are catered for in everyday life.”

The Speech and Language Therapy students managed to raise a whopping £1,573, going way above their target of £350.

Felicity admitted she was impressed with the amount of people outside the course asking her why she was doing it.

She said: “ It really felt like more than just money was raised. It was awareness too.

“All of the students wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who donated and supported them during the week.”

Nicola said: “I’m overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity for supporting us and the Stroke Association.

“It’s incredible how much we have raised and far beyond what we could have hoped to raise. So a massive thank you to everyone that donated.”