What Should I Eat?

Dear Sea -- You needn't be concerned about eating foods that have antioxidants during chemo -- in fact, you should do your best to continue your healthy eating to keep up your strength and your immune system. There will be days when all you want or can eat is Fruit Loops, but stick with the healthy stuff while/when you can. You should not, however, take any megavitamins. A well-balanced daily multi is fine, but no megas and check with your onc about any 'special supplements.' I know what you mean about feeling betrayed by good health habits -- I'm probably the healthiest eater in my family, have consumed 3 to 6 cups of tea every day for decades, and here I am! All that said, your best bet is still to keep with the healthy stuff -- if for no other reason than it just makes you feel better.

When you feel good --no nausea and food tastes good--you should eat anything and everything that sounds good.  Your taste buds and stomach will change daily so it's hard to know what tomorrow might bring so if today is a good day--eat!  I tried to include healthy foods and a lot of them, especially fresh fruit really tasted good to me.  As I went through chemo, my husband started throwing veggies in casseroles and even mixed peas in with my mashed potatoes the way we did with the kids when they were little but it did help.  Other days, I was lucky to eat 1/2 piece of toast and a bite of banana.

One thing I did find was that citrus tasted great--I ate limes and lemons like oranges.  Even started buying the bottles of lime juice and putting a teaspoon or so in glasses of water so I could stand the taste.

Good luck.

Hi

You can eat healthy if you want during chemo. What they don't want you to do is take supplements with antioxidants in them. Like Vitamin C or Vitamin E which may protect the cancer cells from the chemo.

Eat healthy but was told not to eat things like strawberrys  that you may not be able to get clean enough, to have things like apples you can peel, oranges you can peel.  All veges were ok if you cook them.  Was also told you need a higher calorie intake while on chemo.  I always ate what I was craving.  One of which was boc choy salad and cheese and saltine crackers

For the most part, antioxidents you get from foods are in much smaller doses than the antioxidents you get from individual vitamin supplements -- thus the seeming contridiction.  I wouldn't go overboard on any antioxident-rich foods but basically you can eat what you want.

I know, however, that my taste and stomach dictated what I could and couldn't eat, and all my intentions to eat healthy sometimes got waylaid by being able to eat at all.  So don't beat yourself up for what you can or can't manage if it isn't as healthy as you want.

I stayed off all individual antioxident supplements because they (especially E and C) can block the effectiveness of the chemo.  I wanted the chemo to have the maximum chance to do its work.

I would join in the recommendations to ask your dr. or NP with any diet/nutrition questions.  Nutrition is a whole field onto itself, and oncology nutrition is full of mixed research so be prepared to hear contridictions.  Knowing how to read and sort through the studies is a valuable skill.

Best of luck... I'm on the same road but farther along (almost done with Taxol)... at times it will seem endless but it isn't -- you can do it!  Hang in there.  Sending warm hugs.