Any diet tips during cancer treatment?

I've found eggs and egg dishes most tolerable along with strong cravings for cola on ice!
Definitely no raw or undercooked vegetables!

@gingerw So true.

On treatment days I’d have a big chicken, salad and mayo roll near the treatment centre knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep food down afterwards until the next day. I learned the hard way that I couldn’t eat in the chair. I’d be horribly nauseous and vomit it up the next morning and was then turned off what I’d eaten and vomitted up for some months after treatment stopped. I could watch others eat in the chair so just enjoyed second hand, clutching my water bottle!

I’d have a lot of different things on hand at home like salmon, tuna, sardines, chicken, crackers, hummus, pate, hard boiled eggs, almonds, pistachios, crystallised ginger, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, corn kernels, yoghurt, jello, fruit icy poles, steel cut oats porridge etc.

Some foods I couldn’t go near because of the smell, like red meat.

i ate about 6-8 very small meals a day and didn’t stress if I could only eat soft fruit on some days. Loved bananas and grapes on bad days. Whatever I felt like really, and could keep down, especially the 2 days after being in the chair and then wearing the take home 46 hour pump. I’d have a huge bowl of laksa, noodles and shrimp as soon as the pump came off!!

I did lose a lot of weight but needed to as I’d put on a lot of weight when my cancer was growing and spreading. It always made me smile when people I hadn’t shared my diagnosis with admired my weight loss and told me how well I looked. Kind of them, but funny knowing why I was looking so svelte!

It’s trial and error and my oncologist was happy with my bloods and always told me to keep on doing whatever I was doing!

I would just add HYDRATE, HYDRATE, HYDRATE however you can - whether it’s with lots of soothing icy poles when treatment causes painful sores in your mouth

Cold sandwiches with lots of crispy lettuce. Turkey and chicken mostly; and eggs. No pork and very little red meat. Pasta upsets my GI tract, as does bread. Try to stay away from butter and cheese, but that's difficult.
Grapes!! Nice and cold ones. Oranges too. Slow chewing, and at times need to follow with water to get it down my esophagus. Cooked veggies. Raw broccoli and kale is too rough, sticks in the throat.
I've had a very difficult time having food lodge in my upper GI tracts, and even after taking all diet and behavioural modification, the problem just lasts for two weeks after chemo. After that it's fine.
I have to remember to hydrate often, which can also be a challenge. The medication I'm taking to supposedly facilitate stomach motility is metaclopromide. The trick is to take 15-30 minutes BEFORE eating meals.
Hope this helps

The oncology dietician from Mayo told me to eat 2500 calories and have 120 grams of protein each day during radiation. My wife, and caretaker, used these recipes:

Smoothies

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie – High Calorie, High Protein

½ cup whole milk OR a nutrition drink
1 frozen banana
¼ cup peanut butter
½ cup whole fat yogurt
¾ scoop protein powder
2 packs Stevia or a tablespoon of honey
2 tbs cream or half-and-half
Salt (just a pinch)

he recipe as it’s written was good early in treatment, but it got too thick for Steve around week 4. You can add water or use more milk or nutrition drink to thin it out. Thinning it out makes more volume, but I ⁶
Instead of milk, I often use a bottle of Core Power Elite, chocolate or vanilla (14 oz). That seems to make the perfect consistency for Steve, even though it ends up being 2 glasses of smoothie.

Sometimes I use Boost Very High Calorie, Vanilla (8 oz) instead of milk.

I add the cream or half-and-half at the end and stir it in by hand. I’m not sure, but it seems that blending it made the cream get too thick.

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Mango Smoothie – high calorie

1 cup frozen mango
1 cup whole milk or a nutrition drink
¼ cup yogurt
1 tbl honey or 1 pkg stevia
1-2 tbs heavy cream or half-and-half
1 scoop protein powder

I add the heavy cream at the end and stir it in by hand. It seems to get too thick if I blend it in the blender.

I often use Boost Very High Calorie Vanilla flavor instead of milk.
---------------
Mixed Berry Smoothie

1 ½ cups Naked Juice (Berry Blast)
1 Frozen banana, sliced
1 ½ cups Mixed frozen berries
¾ cup Greek yogurt (5% fat)
1 tbl Honey

Sometimes I have to add water to thin it out enough.

@isadora2021 Yeppers! Having a variety of foods available to grab when the mood strikes. I go for days with not much of an appetite, but know that keeping up my protein because of dialysis is important. A glob of hummus, or peanut butter on a celery stick. A protein shake with a scoop of protein powder [25 grams!] A few bites of cooked chicken. Rarely a full meal anytime, more "grazing", is successful for me. And yes! to the hydrate factor!
Ginger

Hi stay away from too much processed foods. Canned goods contain loads salt. I eat fresh fruit daily and some canned as needed. Read the labels on what you eat and where the food comes from Chemicals are used to keep bugs from killing crops and same with spraying with deadly cancerous stuff. Eat fresh as much as possible. if you can]t read the label contents, don't buy it.

Yay baked ‘tater😁

As others have written, when you struggle to eat at all, any calories that tempt you are "good calories" (it took me a couple of months to get back above 800 cal/day after my spinal surgery and ileus in 2021).

Once your appetite is stronger, that's the time to start thinking about a healthy, balanced diet again. But don't put any restrictions on yourself if your body is in crisis and threatening to shut down on you, like mine was.

@stephenrfleury

@jesussister Thanks for your feedback on diet during treatment. I'm a metastatic secondary breast cancer patient. I'm trying to eat the recommended foods. But l, I'm losing weight. 20 pounds since July 2025. I'll take your advice.