in my opinion, the vegetarian chilli should be fine at this point as long as you make sure you really chew the beans up well. I was eating veggie chilli and lentil soup the end of my second week. As for the beef chilli, I'd wait until 2 months if it were me. (you don't really notice much difference in flavor of vegetarian and regular chilli)

It was on my soft foods list. I just pureed it. Went down easily.

I ate it in the pureed stage as well. Just chewed the heck out of it!

I wa able to eat vegetarian chilli, and then started adding ground turkey to it, and never had any problems, I am a little over three months out and still can't eat beef,

As long as you puree it, you can eat it then. My nutritionalist told me about eating Wendy's chili at that stage. Since so many of my tastes had changed I figured I would give it a try. So I bought some, put it in the blender, took one bite and pitched it because it was so gross. Never liked it before, don't know why I thought I would like it now.

Vegetarian chili is the way to go at the puree stage. I made some and it was really good.

My surgeon had me trying soft foods on day 5, and recommended chili . . . been eating it since.

Puree it and strain early on, then allow more to come through as able.

HINT: add tofu to everything you puree and double the protein value, no change in taste...{:>}rd

Thanks everyone! I start stage 3 next week and I have my follow-up with the surgeon then, too. Hopefully he will give me the all clear to eat some chili. I don't mind veggie chili at all, so I will start there. I actually make a good one with 2 kinds of beans. I'm just dying to have something other than liquid! LOL

Pureed stage. Only I could only eat a few bites at a time, it was so filling. Definitely not a slider in my book!