Food for Cancer Patients....?!
Question: My close friend is going thru her 2nd cycle of chemo...She has asked me to stay with her during this time. This time around, she is very sick & unable to keep hardly anything down...Right now room temp. Ginger Ale & Saltine crackers is doing the trick...BUT my question is what other types of bland foods should I prepare? She says she has no real taste for anything but is hungry. I tried baked chicken last night with no seasoning & it did not settle well...Any one have suggestions?
Thanks for any ideas!!
Answers: My close friend is going thru her 2nd cycle of chemo...She has asked me to stay with her during this time. This time around, she is very sick & unable to keep hardly anything down...Right now room temp. Ginger Ale & Saltine crackers is doing the trick...BUT my question is what other types of bland foods should I prepare? She says she has no real taste for anything but is hungry. I tried baked chicken last night with no seasoning & it did not settle well...Any one have suggestions?
Thanks for any ideas!!
My advice is to not pay attention to anyone who has not been in the shoes of your close friend. It is easy to say what foods are best to eat or claim that sugar feeds cancer (it doesn't any more so than anything else you eat) if you do not have cancer and are just preaching things you read somewhere.
Your friend should for the time being eat whatever goes down easily and she likes. Baked chicken would be way too heavy of a food for most people. A milk shake might be a better choice or even better a fruit or yogurt smoothie. Ice cream and not the diet type might be a good choice. I like all types of yogurt and yogurt drinks. It all goes back to what she likes and will eat. Her taste buds are not normal so she may have some weird cravings. At times I was eating 25 mandarin oranges a day. Weird - yes, but I was eating. I lived on yogurt and mandarin oranges. Worked for me.
For the people that believe cancer feeds on sugar. This is based on a poor understanding of the mechanism of how PET scans work. Before a PET scan you stop eating and drinking anything with sugar then inject radioative sugar into the patient and track where the sugar goes because the tumors feed first on this radioactive sugar. So therefore sugar must feed cancer - right??? Well sort of but not really.
Most cancer tumors operate at a much higher metabolic level than normal body tissue or organs. This is why the radioactive sugar goes straight to the tumors because the tumors have the best blood supply. Can you stop the cancer from growing by not eating sugar? No, because your body needs glucose and will start breaking down muscle tissue, fat or anything else it has onhand to produce the glucose necessary to live and the tumor will always gets the first helping of glucose due to it's large blood supply. In order to stop eating enough sugar to starve a cancer you would have to literally starve yourself to death. You will die from starvation before there is one bit of difference in the growth of the cancer. People with cancer already have trouble keeping enough weight on so starving themselves is the absolute worst thing to do. What they need to be doing is eating the best balanced diet they can but when circumstances do not allow this (a tough ongoing treatment regimen) then you do the best you can (milk shakes, yogurt, whatever) while undergoing treatment and then when you feel better, go back to eating a better quality balanced diet.
My oncologist has candy bowls throughout the building. Is this to drum up more business? He is a very caring man and he already has more business than he needs so I truly doubt greed plays any part in the candy bowls. What is true is that people undergoing chemo and radiation often get dizzy and weak from low blood sugar and a small piece of candy is the easiest way to keep from fainting.
Until someone has walked daily in your shoes, puked in your toilet and dealt with your burns be very dubious of the advice of these "cancer diet experts" who do not have cancer.
I ate by whim--meaning chemo gave me such strong cravings or counter cravings. What worked one day was horrible the next day.
One theme that ran true for me--carb cravings and comfort foods.
Mashed potatoes
toast
potato soup(no leek or onion in it please)
vanilla pudding
low fat mac and cheese
I tried to eat things that would be neutral tasting if I burped it up or threw it up.
you're a good friend
how about light chicken soup with potatoes
ADDENDUM TO MY ANSWER:
BarneySwally's answer contradicts her other answer here, just scroll down to her other answer and it mirrors my answer:
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...
What the hell is going on, here? Because what she is suggesting on this answer to eat feeds cancer cells and her other answer on her other section starves cancer cells!
Also, look at my Avatar... I am a 44 year old woman who is on no prescription drugs, and blood work ups from doctors are all healthy, no health issues because I practice what I preach. Those who say don't worry about diet have some kind of a health issue and on prescription drugs, guaranteed.
Suggested foods:
Super Pro 96, with non GMO organic soy. No dairy or Insure.
The protein in the Super Pro helps her maintain her heart and cardio and muscle as the cancer is eating more protein than her body can keep up with.
No sugar, no ginger ale, plain mineral water or mixed with a little bit of organic juice.
High fiber fruits that contain cancer fighting enzymes are guava, mango, papaya, pinneapple.
Foods that snuff out free radicals are cruciferous vegetables, however... If she can't keep anything down, steam them.
Brown rice, not white rice.
Why am I telling you this? Years of changing the diets of people who have had cancer and beat it by strictly adhering to what feeds cancer and what doesn't allow it to proliferate in the body.
Cancer loves sugar. So, Ginger Ale and Dairy and white flower products like saltines that convert to sugar a no, no.
Spelt bread or brown rice, a yes.
She also needs to build her immune system back up, she needs supplementation for nutritional suppport. Not supplements that tax her immune system.
Supplements that tax the immune system are commercial synthetics. She needs whole foods supplements that are the same as eating an apple.
We all have cancer cells in our body all the time. What made her immune system fail? Many environmental factors did.
If you build the immune system back up to support its ability to fight the cancer, then that is what is the correct thing to do, which is to turn back the biological clock when her immune system was functioning properly.
Chemotherapy destroys the immune system so that you are a sitting duck for the cancer to grow or return. You have to prevent it with the proper nutritional tools.
She needs nutritional support that her cells can utilize ASAP.
Don't worry about a healthy diet at this time; that can be taken care of after chemo.
She should eat whatever she feels like and can manage. If the ginger ale and crackers are doing the trick, that's fine. (Don't worry about the sugar in the soda, it's not something you'd want to have all the time, but cancer does NOT feed off sugar).Ginger in any form is excellent for nausea, so ginger biscuits/cookies may help.
Bland carbohydrate often works best; I found mashed potato to be the most palatable food during chemo; toast was also a favourite.
If she has a horrible taste in her mouth, usually metallic, pineapple chunks help with that, eapecially if they're frozen
Best wishes to your friend for the rest of her treatment; you are a good friend
Mild soft foods like mashed potatoes and grits were good for me when my stomach was unsettled following surgery(s) for breast cancer.
Also - things like Jello worked.
References that sugar does indeed, feed cancer cells:
Things To Do To Stop feeding Cancer
You need to know this. Many people with Cancer are not told the Things To Do To Stop feeding Cancer. After seeing the Doctor they will go home and continue to feed the Cancer. In many cases the cancer comes back due to Acidosis (Acidic Blood). It is a proven fact that Cancer can not grow in an ALKALINE BODY.
Great Recovery Testimonies
http://www.glycostory.com/testimonials-s...
- Stop eating sweets and white Sugar. Makes your body acidic and cancer cells thrive in an acidic body. The more alkaline is your body the less likely cancer will survive. To alkaline your body to highest level go here: http://www.WakeupGethealthy.com
- Do not use main stream shampoo. Look out for Ingredients SLS, TEA and DEA. To order carcinogen free products: http://www.keytohealth.thewholefoodfarma...
- Do not drink cow's milk. They have been injected with hormones with carcinogen. Check out http://www.notmilk.com/ You can drink Almond Milk. http://www.bluediamond.com
- Avoid foods with artificial colors of any kind example Red #40 Yellow #5 etc