Common questions

What IDDSI level is soft and bite-sized?

Soft & Bite-Sized is IDDSI Level 6. Adult pieces must be no bigger than 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm — about the width of a standard dinner fork — and must be soft, tender, and moist enough to squash flat under fork pressure without springing back. Children use an 8 mm limit.

Level 6 has two requirements and food has to pass both: a size test and a softness test. Getting the pieces small enough is not sufficient if they are still firm, and cooking something tender is not sufficient if the pieces are too big.

The size check is easy to do without a ruler. IDDSI describes 1.5 cm as roughly the width of a standard dinner fork, so the fork you are already holding is the measure. For babies and children the limit is 8 mm — about half a fork width.

The softness check is the fork pressure test: press down on the food with a fork until your thumbnail blanches white, then lift the fork. The piece should be completely squashed and should not regain its shape.

Level 6 assumes the person can chew a bite-sized piece safely but may not be able to bite a piece off, which is why the food arrives already cut. A knife should not be needed at the table.

Two things routinely fail at Level 6. Regular dry bread is excluded outright for choking risk. And mixed thin-and-thick textures — cereal with milk, soup with pieces in it — are unsafe even when every solid piece passes both tests.

Your speech-language pathologist prescribes the level. This page explains what the name and the number mean, so a menu, a care plan, or a product label reads clearly.