Delicious Diet for Cancer Patients
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Jumat, 19 Oktober 2018 23:36 WIB
After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, Ellen Martini was hearing all kinds of information about what she could and could not eat. It made her upset. She had already given up her left breast in surgery.
"Following the operation, there was a lot of information about food," Ellen told Tempo on Tuesday last week. “I was told to avoid this or that food."
It all came to Ellen via word of mouth, without clear sources of reference. Some of it confused her. Someone told her she could not eat melons or grapes, for example. “It's ridiculous," she said. To Ellen, it seemed logical that as she underwent treatment, nutrient intake would be vital.
To determine the facts, Ellen sought new information. She browsed the Internet, but more importantly, she also consulted doctors with experience handling cancer patients. It turned out that much of what she thought she could not eat, she actually could. She began to savor whatever she wanted, fruits and vegetables included.
As years went by, Ellen completed her treatment, and she has been fine ever since. Now she is an active member of the Indonesian Cancer Foundation.
Confusion over food is common among cancer patients. Dr. Ang Peng Tiam, a senior cancer consultant at the Parkway Cancer Centre in Singapore, said he sees the same thing in his country. “In every consultation, nearly all patients ask about their diet: what they can eat, what they must avoid," he said in Jakarta earlier this month at the launch of his new book, Delighting D'Appetite, a collection of recipes for cancer patients.
Patients ask about food because they hear and read so much different information about what they should eat, especially on the Internet. Food A will poison the body, food B will trigger cancer cell growth, and so forth. Some get it in their heads that they cannot eat meat and so turn vegetarian.
Ang hopes his book will convey that people affected by cancer can consume nearly all types of food. That includes soup, meat, fish, seafood, noodles, vegetables, fruits, drinks and different snacks. And every recipe in the book has been tried out by several famous chefs, so nothing is unproven. “The food is very delicious," said Ang, who is also active at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Not only are they appetizing, but the ingredients in the book were chosen to suit patients' nutritional requirements, said Fahma Sunarja, a nutritionist at Parkway. The book also describes cooking methods. There is no food grilled over charcoal fire, like satay or barbecue, for example. That is because grilled food has been suspected of causing cancer.
“All the recipes use fresh ingredients without preservatives," Fahma told Tempo on Monday last week. And they are good for you. Vitamins, anti-oxidants (which protect the body against cancer-causing free radicals) and phyto-nutrients (plant-based nutrients believed to boost health) are a common theme.
“People undergoing chemotherapy need energy," Indonesian Cancer Foundation survivors coordinator Dr. Ulfana Said Umar said. “They should thus sufficiently consume nutritious food." Like Ang, Ulfana gets questions almost every day about what cancer patients can eat. She shared his view that they can eat almost any kind of food they want.
DWI WIYANA, HERMIEN Y. KLEDEN