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Met with dietician today: Some answers to questions the group asked
I met today with a dietitian who specializes in cancer survivorship nutrition. Here’s how that went:
We met for about an hour, just a telephone visit. I had a couple of specific questions, and was happy to hear him provide immediate, detailed responses tailored to prostate cancer - you know how sometimes you’ll talk to an “expert” and you’ll be able to work out pretty quickly that they’re a generalist giving you a general answer with a lot of extra words to pad their response out so they sound like they know more than they do? That wasn’t this guy, he gave very precise answers to my questions. That made me feel confident in talking with him.
Onto the food:
I asked about eggs, because there are a lot of controversy around eggs and prostate cancer.
The dietician talked about the pros and cons about eggs in relation to prostate cancer, then stated the position of the nutritional department at the cancer center is that eggs don’t need to be severely limited, just moderated - no more than two a day. Since I rarely have more than four eggs a week these days, I’m good, but now I feel ok in increasing that a little, maybe up to six eggs a week.
I also asked if there were any foods that were recommended to never consume. I said, “What’s the cigarette of the food world?”
“Two things,” he replied, “Alcohol and deli meats/cured meats. I’m all about moderation in all things, but for those two things, if you don’t have to consume them, then don’t.”
That means hotdogs, bologna, bacon, sausage, salami, even so-called healthy sliced meats, like chicken or turkey from the deli, are an avoid-at-all-costs if possible.
I was surprised by the chicken and turkey stuff, but he said those are processed in such a way to prepare them for deli sales, that it makes them unsuitable for a cancer survivorship diet. That also includes nitrate/nitrite-free stuff and chicken sausages.
Thankfully, he did ok making some of that stuff at home, including roast beef, which would still count against the recommended red meat amounts, but would be better for me than buying the pre-sliced stuff.
That one hurts a little because deli meats and cured meats made up a very large part of my diet. I had some form of that every day, and many times multiple times a day, and have done so since I was old enough to eat solid food (maybe that’s why I developed cancer 😉). I ate obscene amounts of lunchmeats, bacon, and sausages.
So that was the worst of it. With the alcohol, he just said if I don’t feel like I have to drink, then don’t, but recognized that there’s a social component to it that’s hard to fight. I mentioned that I didn’t drink a lot beforehand, and I’m not drinking at all right now, and he simply recommended not starting back again if I could help it.
He then went through the usual things of this much red meat, that much protein, eat a plant-forward diet, eat the rainbow, blah blah blah, but did specifically point out that tomatoes appear to be very effective in curtailing prostate cancer recurrence, so eat tomatoes, fresh, canned, or cooked, as much as possible.
Then he had me tell him typical meals that we eat, three of each of breakfast, lunch, and supper, as well as snacks and desserts, and he graded me very highly on my choices overall, with little tweaks here and there. He said I was eating better than 95% of the people he meets with, and he commended me on my general food/meal knowledge…we even swapped a couple of recipe ideas.
Last thing he left me with was that he was sending me a bunch of dietary info through my patient portal, and that I had access to nutrition services through the care center for the rest of my “very long life,” and “…one more thing: holidays and vacations, throw all that out the window and eat and drink what you want. Life’s too short not to have a little fun.”
All in all, a good meeting, I thought.
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@turtbean
Thanks for sharing. I have not read all the responses and will need time to study.
I have never consumed alchohol, so no issue there.
But no Bacon - I think that is a bridge too far😂
Also, I have never liked tomatoes. Can’t add those to the diet.
Maybe I will have to choose salads with a moderate amount of bacon on the salad😂
Best wishes.
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2 ReactionsI’m glad everyone is finding something of interest in the notes I posted!
Tomatoes…I eat tomatoes morning, noon, and night. I eat them raw (there’s always a big bowl of cherry tomatoes sitting out for snacking), cooked, canned, processed, I stuff them, I stuff other things with them, anywhere I can fit a tomato in, in it goes.
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1 Reaction@turtbean
I always like to hear recommendations about healthy diet 😎👍. I will stick with UCSF recommendations thou since it aligns more with what I know BUT the MOST important thing -
STUFFED TOMATO RECIPE PLEAASSEEEE 🙏 !!! Do you cook them or bake them ?! : ))))
@surftohealth88 -
“STUFFED TOMATO RECIPE PLEAASSEEEE 🙏 !!! Do you cook them or bake them ?! : ))))”
One of my favorite ways is with a fresh tomato: scoop out the innards and dice those up with some onion, capers, mortadella, jarlsberg cheese, toss it all in a mustardy vinaigrette, then stuff it back in the tomato. Makes a great starter or light lunch.
For baked ones, I stuff it with mushrooms, breadcrumbs, spinach, and cheese (and a few other things) and bake that. My wife loves those.
I’ll post recipes up later.
I make tomato fritters, tomato pie, tomato dumplings…anything tomato!
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4 Reactions@surftohealth88 - Just to keep things in one place, I posted two stuffed tomato recipes over in the recipe thread here:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/diet-recipes/
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1 ReactionFor your grandparents processed meats was the healthy option since food poisoning would kill you much faster than colorectal cancer. That is still probably true for many areas of the world without dependable refrigeration. In 2015 it was determined that processed meats increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. Currently that will result in 34,000 cancer deaths a year worldwide that can be attributed to sausage, bacon, jerky, etc. As a comparison alcohol is associated with 600,000 cancer deaths per year. I doubt the processed meat risk has been adjusted for colonoscopy where the cancer is nipped in the bud (or polyp). Anyone consuming processed meats should keep these current. Back in the day a low percentage alcohol was also safer to drink than water since it killed most water borne pathogens such as cholera.
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3 ReactionsVery interesting , thanks for posting. I sure like bacon, but don't actually eat it that much. Well this past week, I did have some each morning with a waffle. But that was first time in months, had some in freezer wanted to use up that I got on sale. I guess I need to take it easy at Subway. Tonight I loaded up on lasagna, most likely that wasn't good for me, but no wine with it Then for lunch I had a barbecue turkey sandwich with baked beans at a restaurant. Every lunch we eat out at some restaurant. Dieting is something I have never done or thought about. I never had a weight issue and gets lots of walking in and weight lifting. Because I got good cardio and lipids just never thought of dieting. Now I think I need to give it some thought. Won't be easy! Going to have to find some info and study up, at least give it a try.
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3 Reactions@jim18 So true - and their meats weren’t considered ‘processed’ but
‘Preserved’…like in winter when there’s no food and hunting is much harder?
Remember Baccala? Codfish dried and preserved in salt - so much so that you have to soak it for 3 days and keep changing the water frequently to make it edible!
Italians consider it a delicacy on Christmas Eve, but who would even eat this stuff were it not for ‘tradition’? I guess it’s the equivalent of Matzoh for Jews - a remembrance of the privation and sacrifice of our ancestors…
Tough times call for tough solutions - and foods!😉
Phil
@turtbean, thanks for reporting back, getting answers to your questions, but also answers to the questions often asked in this group. I added a small addendum to the title of the discussion 🙂
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2 ReactionsThanks @colleenyoung !
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