On this episode of the Swallow Your Pride podcast, Theresa sits down with Kelly Kalseth, founder and CEO of Momma Gourmet, a company that is changing what pureed meals look and taste like for people with swallowing disorders.

Kelly's journey started in 2015 when her son Caleb was born premature at 30 weeks and was later diagnosed with Tracheal Malacia. After navigating thickened liquids, swallow studies, and surgeries as a first-time mom, Kelly saw a massive gap in the food options available to people on modified diets. When she toured a Meals on Wheels kitchen and saw the shelf-stable brown purees being served to clients, she knew she could do better.

Today, Momma Gourmet provides chef-crafted, flash-frozen pureed meals made with real ingredients like red beets, cauliflower, lentils, quinoa, and Greek yogurt. Every meal packs at least 28 grams of protein and ships nationwide on dry ice. Kelly talks about the emotional experience of eating, why food presentation matters even on a pureed diet, how she's expanded into halal meal options, and her goal of getting nutritious purees into senior living centers and hospice programs. She also shares a client testimonial from a caregiver whose 99-year-old mother eats every single bite.

If you work with patients on modified diets (or love someone who's on one), this episode is going to make you rethink what's possible.

Episode Page: https://syppodcast.com/395
🔗 Learn more or set up delivery at https://MommaGourmet.com

The post 395 – When Pureed Food Tastes Better Than Your Dinner: Inside Mama Gourmet’s Mission to Change the Game appeared first on Swallow Your Pride Podcast.

On this episode, Theresa sits down with Dr. Diane Longnecker, Assistant Professor at Baylor University and clinical researcher at Baylor Scott and White, and Jamie Anderson, medical SLP and clinical instructor at the University of South Florida, to talk about something a lot of clinicians have heard of but aren't quite sure what to do with: pharyngeal manometry. Jamie starts with a confession most of us can probably relate to — she rolled her eyes at it when she first heard about it. Now she can't imagine practicing without it. Dr. Longnecker walks us through why she started using it clinically back in 2019, what her very first case taught her about the limits of visual interpretation, and why she no longer sends a patient for UES management without it. They break down what pharyngeal manometry actually tells you that your modified barium swallow study and FEES simply can't, which patients belong in the referral pool, what the barriers to starting a program actually look like (reimbursement, analysis time, catheter placement), and why someone in this field needs to take ownership of the UES. If you've been curious about this tool but didn't know where to start, this conversation is a genuinely helpful place to begin.

Get the show notes and references: https://syppodcast.com/394

The post 394 – Pressure, Pumps, and the UES:The Case for Pharyngeal Manometry in Clinical Practice appeared first on Swallow Your Pride Podcast.

On this episode, Theresa sits down with Dr. Julie Cichero, a clinician, researcher, and one of the foremost experts in dysphagia with over 30 years of experience, to talk about something that has had a complicated reputation in our field: cervical auscultation. If you trained in the 90s, you probably learned it. If you trained more recently, you might have been told to ignore it. The truth, as it turns out, is a lot more nuanced than either camp wants to admit.

Dr. Cichero breaks down what the evidence actually shows, including sensitivities of around 91% and negative predictive values that should genuinely change how we think about using this tool at the bedside. She explains why it's not really about the "clink and clunk" sounds at all, and why the breathing pattern after the swallow is where the real clinical information lives. She also shares what proper training looks like, how cervical auscultation fits alongside instrumental assessment (not instead of it), and two clinical stories involving pharyngeal pouches that are honestly pretty wild.

Get the show notes and references here: https://syppodcast.com/393

The post 393 – Clinks, Clunks, and Clinical Confidence: Rethinking Cervical Auscultation – Julie Cichero BA, BSpThy(Hons), PhD appeared first on Swallow Your Pride Podcast.