Fix Meals for Cancer Patients
Good nutrition is important for everyone, but getting enough nutrients into a cancer patients' bodies is critical to their healing and energy levels. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments all take a toll on a cancer patients' bodies so finding foods that are not only appetizing, but also tolerable, can be a challenge. Knowing how to fix meals for cancer patients will help you keep up the patients' energy as they battle the disease and heal.
Steps
- Consider what type of surgery patients have just undergone when deciding what to include in the meals you fix. The types of foods you include in cancer patients' meals will depend upon the organs impacted by the surgery and which foods the patients' systems can tolerate.
- Post-surgery patients need to consume as many foods rich in protein and calories as they can handle in order for wounds to heal and to keep up energy for subsequent medical treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation, required after recovering from cancer surgery.
- If any portion of the digestive system was removed, consider serving only meals that are easy to consume and digest. This could include nutrition supplement drinks, whole milk, pudding, mashed potatoes and gravy, ice cream and other foods rich in calcium, carbohydrates and essential vitamins.
- For patients whose digestive systems are compromised due to surgery, avoid fixing meals that include gas-causing foods and beverages including legumes of any kind, broccoli, cucumbers, radishes, peppers, soft drinks, beans and cabbage.
- Patients who have intact digestive systems will generally be able to handle foods that are more substantial in texture. Their meals can include fried foods, those prepared with sauces and gravies, salad dressings and sandwich spreads like peanut butter and chicken or tuna salad with plenty of mayonnaise. Fat-free dressings and low calorie spreads are not appropriate for cancer patients' meals.
- Understand how chemotherapy treatment generally affects the mouth, throat and stomach when deciding what meals to prepare for cancer patients.
- The purpose of the chemo drugs is to kill the fast-growing cancer cells, but in doing so, it also usually kills off other fast-growing cells in the mouth, throat and stomach. Chemo generally makes patients' mouths and throats feel very raw, greatly affecting the ability to taste foods that were favorites before treatment. A raw feeling throat can also make swallowing quite painful, especially for highly-textured foods.
- Foods to avoid preparing for chemo patients include anything that is highly acidic or too texture-rich. When the mouth and throat are already raw from treatment, serving citrus fruits or juice, or any food that is bulky and requires a lot of chewing will only make patients feel worse and potentially lower the appetite.
- Select foods containing vitamin C, a critical nutrient for cancer patients because it helps regenerate their bodies supplies of vitamin E, improves iron consumption and helps promote healing of wounds.
- If patients are undergoing chemotherapy, there are still plenty of vitamin C-rich foods that are not highly acidic and still soft enough to chew or mash for easier consumption. These include cantaloupe, banana, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cherries, mango and pears.
- One easily-consumed liquid that is rich in vitamin C, pear juice, isn't nearly as acidic as citrus juices. Cancer patients may also find frozen treats made from strawberries and cherries to be appetizing and well-tolerated as they are low-acid, sweet, and melt in the mouth. Patients with a raw or sore mouth and throat may also find the coldness of the melting frozen treat to be soothing.
- Serve plenty of iron-rich meats to cancer patients if they are able to chew.
- For those not dealing with chemo-raw mouths, beef or pork are healthy choices. Chicken and fish (especially highly-nutritious salmon) are easier for cancer patients to tolerate if their sense of taste and ability to chew are not yet back to normal after healing from chemotherapy because they have a milder flavor when prepared without a lot of seasoning and their texture is not as dense as other meats.
- Maintain an impeccably-sanitary food preparation area and cook all foods thoroughly while fixing meals for cancer patients.
- While cleanliness is always important, it is even more critical for cancer patients, especially those going through chemotherapy or radiation as these treatments compromise the immune system. A meal not prepared with sanitary utensils, cutting surfaces and cooking dishes could introduce potentially harmful germs into cancer patients' bodies. Under-cooking food could have a similar toxic effect.
Tips
- Maintaining their strength is so critical for patients dealing with cancer that the doctor may see the need to prescribe appetite-enhancing medication to boost their desire to eat.
- Fixing nutritious meals for cancer patients is critical both before and after surgery. Patient who are undernourished or malnourished going into surgery will have a harder time both making it through surgery and with the post-surgical healing process.
- Often, chemo patients will need to have intravenous nutrition until their mouths can handle eating solid food again.
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