Home > Total Nutrition > Food for Health and Healing

What to Know in a Nutshell

By Jill Place, MA, RD

So…down to the NUTS AND FRUITS of it. If you have cancer, have had cancer, or want to prevent cancer you ideally want to eat a whole lot more fruits and vegetables, a lot less fat, especially fat from animal sources such as meat and dairy, very little or no red meat ,a lot of Omega-3-rich fish, some white-meat chicken and turkey, and a whole bunch of vegetarian entrees from beans, nuts, and legumes and soy foods like tofu and tempeh.

General Meal Planning

Choose more unprocessed food like fruits, vegetables, dried beans, fresh fish, and poultry. If it's got a label, it's going to be processed to some degree.

Choose more organic foods if possible. Organic foods are as free of hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides as food today can possibly be.

If you can't manage to eat all of the recommended vegetable servings, try juicing some of them or using purchased fresh juice in plastic bottles (brands include Naked Juice, Ferraro's, Odwalla, Trader Joe's, or local health food store or supermarket brands ).

Choose less sweet foods, especially those sweetened with sucrose or other refined sweeteners. Eating alot of sweets or foods made with white flour may cause insulin resistance, also called Metabolic Syndrome or Syndrome X, which may be a cancer risk factor.

Snack on high-protein foods, like a handful of raw nuts or some low-fat dairy or non-dairy cheese, when you're hungry instead of sweet, fatty, or salty processed snack foods.

The suggested dietary changes on the following pages are most likely MUCH higher in fiber than your previous diet. Please increase high-fiber foods, like raw fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, and whole grains GRADUALLY as making a rapid change may cause gastric distress and diarrhea.

Drink 8 to 10 glasses of purified or distilled water a day.

Take baby steps so that you don't feel overwhelmed. Promise yourself to try one new food or a new recipe from magazines like The Vegetarian Times or books like 1,000 Lowfat Recipes every week. You're bound to find something that you just love to eat that you never considered eating before. Check out your local health food store or specialty stores like Trader Joe's for healthy unprocessed food finds. I just found out that I can make fresh almond butter at mine. Yum!

Meal Planning If You're Having Treatment

If you're having difficulty with food for any reason, eat small, frequent nibbles rather than large meals. For more severe problems such as swallowing difficulties, diarrhea, or nausea, ask your Registered Dietitian to design a custom plan for you based upon your special eating needs.

If you don't have much of an appetite, drink fluids or soups separate from meals. If you fill up on liquids, you might not have room for high-nutrient-density foods.

Make mealtimes happy times with china, candles, soft music, and anything else pleasurable.

If you're still preparing meals, cook double or triple the amount of easily digestible, comforting foods, such as spaghetti and turkey meatballs, and freeze them in individual portions for the days you're exhausted and can't cook. Or buy more of and freeze leftover take-out meals.

Don't eat any raw foods, such as sushi and raw vegetables and fruits. Your immune system isn't working right at this time and these foods may make you sick. Use common sense when handling foods, like washing preparation areas well, keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold, and storing perishables like poultry, fish, milk, and egg products safely. And when in doubt, throw it out!

If you're losing weight, tell your doctor or dietitian IMMEDIATELY. You may become malnourished and have difficulty recovering from treatment and surgery.

If you continue to lose weight, you might want to drink a nutritional supplement between meals or as a meal replacement. DON'T use commercial supplements that are high in simple sugars, like Ensure and Boost. If a canned supplement is more convenient, use the low-sugar ones like Glucerna or dmChoice. Or, better yet, make some of the low-sugar, high-protein shakes chock full of cancer-preventing phytonutrients on the Sample Menu page.

Don't worry about changing your diet right now. You're going through a trying time and don't need any more stress. You may want to stick with familiar foods right now. You can always change what you eat AFTER treatment.

If you want to continue eating your favorite foods, don't eat them the day of treatment as you may develop an aversion to them. Stick to soft, easily digestible foods or the great homemade shakes on the sample menu page.

Leave your multivitamins and other nutritional supplements on the shelf during treatment. The antioxidants contained in them may make your treatment less effective. There are simply not enough studies done yet on humans to make sure that taking things like Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, N-acetylcysteine, and Conenzyme Q-10 might protect your cancer cells as well as your normal cells from treatment.

There are nutritional supplements and herbs that can help during treatment. But some supplements and herbs can be harmful or interfere with your treatment or other medications that you're taking. So don't try to self-medicate or take supplements that are recommended by a well-meaning friend or relative. Don't take nutritional supplements at all during treatment unless they've been recommended by a supplement expert such as a Registered Dietitian, accupuncturist, or herbologist.

Don't eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice during treament. Grapefruit has something called naringenin in it that makes treatment less effective.

Looking At Serving Sizes

You'll notice on the following pages that there are suggested amounts of servings for each category of food. To visualize what that amount might look like on a plate, first you need to know the size of one serving of each food. Generally:

One vegetable serving = ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw

One starch serving = ½ cup cooked or 1 ounce bread or dry cereal

One protein serving = 2 to 3 ounces cooked chicken, turkey, or fish

For meat alternatives: 1 cup cooked beans, 2-4 eggs, ¼ cup of nut butter, and 2/3 cup of nuts roughly equal 2 ounces of animal protein

One fruit serving = 1 woman's fist-size piece or ½ cup juice

One milk serving =1 cup milk or yogurt

One fat serving = 1 tsp. butter or oil or 1 Tbsp. salad dressing

You probably aren't used to carrying measuring cups, sppons, and scales around. So a good rule (and use) of thumb is:

1 Tablespoon equals the top joint of your thumb

1 teaspoon equals the top joint of your index finger

1 cup equals the size of a woman's fist

1 cup equals the size of a baseball

3 ounces equals the inside and thickness of a woman's palm

3 ounces equals the size of a checkbook

© Copyright 2002 Jill Place, MA, RD