Would a raw food diet be safe during chemo??

gshoemate

I'm thinking of going the all raw route but not sure if I should wait until after chemo. I'm talking about wheat grass drink in the morning, lots of raw veggies, salads, veggy juice and if I have meat it would be chicken or turkey and only at dinner. All veggies would be organic. I want to try to detox my body a bit.

Anyone else eat like this??

Thanks
Ginger

sandramacy

Hi Ginger,

My Onc told me that the only raw food I was allowed to eat, until at least 30 days after last chemo, was banana. The banana had to be blemish free. She said my immune system would be too weak to deal with any micro organisms that might be in or on the raw foods.

Once in a while I did sneak a bite of this or that raw thing but found that nothing tasted good anyway so it wasn't hard to give up the raw.

I was told that protein is pretty important as well as lots of water.

I know it seems like a long wait but the time passes quickly and the green light, once again, shines.

Hugs,

sharebear

The problem with a raw diet would be cleaning the fruits and vegetables. If you can't peal it or cook it, you can't get it clean enough to eat. Even washing it doesn't do the trick if your white blood count is low. They say too risky. Now I did grow my own summer fruits and vegetables in containers and didn't add any fertilizers or sprays. I did fine with that.

The other thing is NO FOOD taste like it should and you might find things you never liked before taste better than your favorites. Eat whatever you can stand. For instance, I can't drink water at all because it tastes very salty and minerally. Just plain nasty. I found myself sucking on lots of sugar free popsicles.

Today is my last Taxotere and I look forward to getting my taste buds back!

Sharon

Fireweed

I would realy worry about the risks of salmonella, literia, and e coli. Washing may reduce the risk but doesn't remove it. All these pathogens are common in organic furits and vegies! Please wait for your immune system to catch up - and even then I'd avoid common troublemakers like bean sprouts.

lkc

Eat only cooked foods which will kill the bacteria.
Trust me chemo will plummet your white blood cells,and you basically can not fight off anything.
It's hard , but for the time being, please be careful.

gshoemate

Thanks gals, I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I was so desperate to keep cancer away I didn't stop to think about how it would effect me right now. I will wait until after chemo and my body stabalizes a bit before I do anything drastic.

Ginger

katymom

I have just finished chemo.  I was told no raw veggies and limited raw fruits...especially days 8-12 when your counts would be really low.  I avoided most everything raw (even sushi).....toward the end of chemo when my counts seemed to maintain, I added some watermelon, cantaloupe. 

Katymom

dpbrown523

I ate lots of fresh fruits and veggies while I was on chemo.  Nobody ever told me not to.  I seemed to do pretty well and worked through the entire time except the days I was having chemo or surgery.

shocking

Hi everyone,

    I have only been eating peeled fruits and veggies but have been sick some of the time. Not sure if it is from the food or what. I can understand the urge to eat fresh foods. I am going crazy without my salads, and fruit. In the end, it isn't forever and I will survive without it for now.

sierrasusieq

When I did chemo nothing tasted the same. I ate lots of baked potatoes, mac and cheese, yoghurt, oatmeal and bananas. I did still enjoy my salads. But, the comfort foods were what I wanted.

I realy don't think I could have done all raw food at them time as the energy to clean it good would have done me in.

You will most likely crave certain foods durring chemo. Just eat what you can ! And do the health cleansing type diet after you get over the chemo.

Anonymous

My doc said something like this: When your body is fighting cancer, you don't want it to fight hard enough to kill the cancer AND fight the chemo. Your body needs to be a little "down", so the chemo is not fought with and can do it's job. I don't know if I believed it, but it was a way for him to convince me to not worry about my diet and just eat what I could keep down.

CBeemer

When I was going through chemo in 1999 for Ovarian Cancer, my oncologist told me to not eat any raw fruits or vegetables that were imported.  This time of the year in IL lots of items at the grocery store are from out of the country.  Makes sense to me, other odd viruses, disease, etc. coming in on the produce and then into our immune compromised bodies.  I would continue to follow this theory this time around with BC in 2008.

One of the biggest comfort foods to me when everything tasted bad & like poison when going through chemo was chilled, canned peaches.  I could actually taste them for the most part and the chilled peaches slid down easily. 

All the best,

Cheryl from Chicagoland