There are a couple of different types of liquid diets, most prominently the clear liquid diet and the full or complete liquid diet. Liquid diets offer certain benefits when undertaken properly, but can be counterproductive if done improperly. Therefore you should only undertake a liquid diet with a doctor's recommendation or approval and only under their careful medical supervision.
Clear Liquid Diet
A doctor may suggest a clear liquid diet if your body is unable to tolerate even soft foods or dense liquids. Often a clear liquid diet is prescribed just before surgery of the stomach or bowels, or just after any kind of surgery at all. Clear liquid diets may include carbonated drinks, fruit juices, punches and flavored drinks, coffee and tea, sorbet and gelatin desserts, bouillon, broths, honey, jellies and syrups. Exceptions may be caffeinated beverages and citrus foods, depending on whether your body can currently tolerate them.
Full Liquid Diet
A full liquid diet is for those who have no trouble digesting any kind of liquid -- light or heavy, thin or thick -- but cannot yet digest solid food. Doctors and dieticians may suggest a full liquid diet following surgery or if you have trouble chewing and swallowing solid food. This diet includes any liquids you can serve at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of a healthy body, or below. Milk is a prevalent part of most full liquid diets, as it contains important calcium and other vital vitamins and nutrients. A full liquid diet may also include purees of potato or tomato and hot cereals like oatmeal or farina.
Extended Period
If you need to go on a liquid diet for an extended period of time, an adapted full liquid diet is best. Here you slowly add increasing amounts of certain light food products to provide necessary calories and protein. Such products may include non-fat dry milk added to soups, instant breakfast powder added to puddings and milk shakes, strained meat as found in baby food to vegetable or chicken broths and butter to hot cereals.
Use & Benefits
One of the main benefits of a clear liquid diet is that it helps to ensure that your body avoids losing more fluids than it can safely handle as it recovers from its current condition, whether due to an illness or post-surgery, and prepares for a return to a regular solid food diet. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment, for example, may be prescribed a liquid diet to avoid complications and ensure nourishment during their treatment. Doctors may also prescribe liquid diets before a medical test to avoid interference with the results. A third reason people take on liquid diets is to lose weight, although doctors and scientists continue to debate and investigate the safety and effectiveness of this use of a liquid diet.
Precautions
Liquid diets, and especially clear liquid diets, lack the full nutritional value recommended in a daily diet, in particular providing insufficient calories or protein to sustain the human body for any longer than a few days. But as doctors usually only recommend liquid diets for a short period of time, such diets are unlikely to cause any symptoms of serious nutritional deficiency or related harm.
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