Chemotherapy changes your taste buds, so finding foods that tasted good, were healthy, and would deliver the most vitamins and nutrients was a process. I called them my safe foods!
Food is a tough one especially if you are going through certain types of chemotherapy. Since a few people have asked me what I ate, I figured I would share in hopes this helps you, or someone you know going through chemotherapy. It took me a long time to find my "safe foods," I only call them that because I could almost always eat them and they would taste good!
Chemotherapy can change your taste buds and make things taste spoiled, like metal, or simply not good! Since my chemo was three weeks apart, I almost had a food cycle. The night before chemo I always tried to eat a pretty healthy meal, and then right after my infusion, I would try to eat a hearty meal since I knew what was to come. The next few days I was so tired, that I really focused on simple foods, but a ton of water!
The next week, my taste buds would change and into the second week, nothing tasted good, except my safe foods. Then the week before I was to get another round, food started to taste normal. It was a vicious cycle, but I was thankful for at least a bit of normalcy in my diet, well at least until rounds five and six. After that, it was only my safe foods.
Focusing on simple foods helped during chemotherapy
Most oncologists can connect you with nutritionists or share any dietary changes they want you to make. Fortunately, mine only restricted a couple of things from my diet. I made personal choices, and those were much more significant. It is crazy because now when I try to drink or eat the foods I used to have, they almost instantly upset my stomach or taste horrible.
There are hundreds, if not more, of Cancer diet books and there are definitely everyday armchair experts who tell you what you should and shouldn't, be eating. They mean well, but, most are not super helpful and normally don't have great timing.
Below is my list of safe foods. I am sure that none are all that surprising. I did try to focus even more on organic products, and I sourced as much as possible from our local farmers and ranchers, not the grocery store.
- Eggs
- Toast
- Yogurt
- Granola
- Crackers/Chips-Gluten Free were easier for me and I don't know why
- Cheese
- Fruit-all berries, plus cherries, watermelon, and cucumbers
- Veggies-cooked carrots, snap peas, green beans
- Johnny Pops-frozen popsicles
- Beets, beets, and more beets
- My proteins were locally raised steak or chicken. While I couldn't ever eat much of either, I still knew how they were raised and knew it would give me the most nutrition possible. Bison was a big one, I always felt so much better after I ate bison in some form.
In full disclosure, occasionally my diet included ice cream or cereal for dinner! I know this is not a cancer-fighting superfood, but it was something I could eat and it tasted good! Ice cream and Johnny Pops were also super helpful when I had the occasional mouth sores coming on, the cold helped to take the pain away and I am convinced they helped with the sores themselves.
Lastly, and this is something that had to be hammered into my head. Not eating is not good, your body is fighting hard, so please give yourself grace. It took me a while to process this part because when I was diagnosed I was looking at so many things as threats and then I kept reminding myself life is 80/20. What we do 80% of the time is more important than what we do 20% of the time so eat the bowl of ice cream and then, tomorrow, you can get back on the healthy food train!
