By James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix. I designed Phoenix Bars after more than 150 conversations with people who struggle to eat enough, many of them dealing with low appetite. I am not a dietitian, and nothing here replaces advice tailored to you, but this is what I have learned about making eating feel possible on the harder days. Last reviewed June 2026.

When your appetite is low, what you eat matters less than two simple things: that it is small, and that every mouthful carries as much energy as possible. You do not need to face a full plate, and you do not need to wait until you feel hungry, because when appetite drops, hunger often stops arriving on time. The most useful approach is to eat little and often, choose food that is dense in calories rather than large in volume, and match what you reach for to how much you can actually manage that day. Some days that is almost nothing. Some days it is a few mouthfuls. Some days a small plate feels possible. This guide is organised around exactly that, so you can meet yourself where you are rather than where you think you should be.

The rules that hold on every day

A few principles are worth keeping in mind no matter how you feel. Every mouthful counts, so it is usually better to make a small amount of food richer than to try to eat more of it. There is a fuller explanation of this idea on the calorie-dense foods guide, and practical ways to add calories to food you already eat on the food fortification guide. Eat little and often, roughly every two to three hours, rather than relying on three big meals. Eat the most at the time of day your appetite tends to be best, which for many people is the morning. Choose full-fat versions of things rather than diet, light, or low-calorie ones while your appetite and weight are low, because those are not the right foods for you right now. And keep drinks for after meals rather than before, since filling up on fluid leaves less room for food. With those in place, the rest is just choosing the right option for the day.

On the days you can barely face food

Some days the thought of chewing anything is too much. On those days, calories you can sip are far better than calories you skip. Nourishing milky drinks do a lot of quiet work here: full-fat milk made richer with a little milk powder, milkshakes, smoothies, hot chocolate, or a milky coffee. Cold and bland often goes down more easily than hot and strong-smelling, so a small smoothie, a few spoons of ice cream, or a cold milk drink can be more achievable than a meal. Smooth soups count too, ideally enriched with cream, butter, or grated cheese stirred through. The aim is simply to keep something going in, gently, across the day.

A Phoenix Bar works on these days made into porridge: add hot water and stir, and you can keep it as a soft, spoonable porridge or loosen it further into something closer to a drink. It asks almost nothing of you to eat, and one bar still carries up to 557 calories in a very small volume. If even that feels like a lot, half a bar made up and sipped slowly is a perfectly good thing to have done. For more ideas in this register, the soft high-calorie foods guide covers foods that need little or no chewing.

On the days you can manage a few mouthfuls

On slightly better days, the goal is small portions of soft, dense food that need little effort and no real cooking. Thick and creamy full-fat yoghurt with a spoon of honey and some nut butter stirred in. A few squares of cheese. Half a small bowl of porridge made with full-fat milk and topped with something sweet. A little avocado on buttered toast, cut small. A milky pudding, custard, or rice pudding. The trick is to keep the serving genuinely small so it does not feel daunting, while keeping it rich so the small amount still counts.

This is where many people who struggle to eat enough find a bar easiest to manage. Broken into small pieces and eaten cold, a Phoenix Bar gives you something to graze on a mouthful at a time without any cooking smells, which matters on days when the kitchen is off-putting. The same bar warmed into porridge is softer and easier again if you feel weak or tired. They are vegan and gluten-free, and the milder flavours like Vanilla or Apple and Cinnamon tend to be the easiest when nothing much appeals, though some people find a sharper one like Ginger or Cherry Bakewell cuts through better. If you would like a few flavours to test which sits best, the 12-bar Starter bundle is the simplest way to do that. There is a short guide to both the cold and the porridge method on how to use Phoenix Bars.

On the days a small plate feels possible

When you have a little more in you, take advantage of it, especially if it lands at your best time of day. Keep portions small but make each one rich: eggs cooked in butter on buttered toast, cheese on toast, a small bowl of fortified porridge, a buttered jacket potato with a generous filling, or a small ready-made pasta dish with extra cheese or olive oil stirred through. Choosing foods you actually enjoy matters more than choosing what looks virtuous, because enjoyment is what gets the next mouthful in. If preparing food is hard, ready meals and easy-to-grab options are completely sensible, not a compromise.

Even on a good day, a small plate rarely adds up to enough on its own, so this is where a between-meal top-up earns its place. A bar eaten a couple of hours after a small meal closes the gap quietly without needing another sit-down meal. If you are doing this regularly, or buying for someone you care for, the 18-bar Essential or 36-bar Complete box keeps a steady supply within reach. The wider picture of eating enough across the day, including for an older relative, is covered on the eating when it is difficult guide and the elderly low appetite guide, and there is a companion piece on the patterns and habits that help on the low appetite guide.