Top 7 Foods to Eat During Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer: A Comprehensive Guide

Hello, in this video I'm going to be talking about the seven best foods to eat during cancer treatment with chemotherapy. Before I go on, I'd love to invite you to subscribe to our channel. We're always putting out new content and you can go to Yerba.com to get your personalized report. So why is nutrition important during cancer treatment, whether it be chemotherapy or immunotherapy or around the time of surgery? I'm going to focus predominantly on intravenous treatments like chemotherapy and targeted therapy and immunotherapy. It's really important because your body is in a state of rapid cell turnover. Chemotherapy in particular kills rapidly dividing cells. It's much more dangerous to cancer cells than it is to normal cells, but normal cells are forgive the expression, caught in the crossfire. In particular, the digestive tract is relevant to this topic. So the cells in our mouth all the way down to the anus are turning over rapidly and maintaining good nutrition is important in terms of getting you through your treatment feeling as good as you can. Another reason that chemotherapy and nutrition are important to put together is to prevent side effects. A lot of people are given corticosteroids, steroids that help prevent side effects like allergic reactions or nausea. And when we're on this type of steroid, muscle breaks down and we can be more vulnerable to infection. So maintaining a healthy diet is really important. In this video, I'm not going to be talking about supplements. I'm just talking about the food you put in your body. Before I go on to the seven foods to eat during chemotherapy, I do just want to point out that at this point, we do not know of any evidence that there is any food that can cure cancer or even prevent breast cancer from coming back or prevent cancer from developing in the first place. Diet is part of our entire lifestyle and actually is associated with where we live. And where we live plays a really big role in our risk of developing cancer because of things like environmental injustice like water and air quality. So I just want to be really careful not to say if you're going through treatment or let's say you finished treatment and you didn't have any of these foods, that's okay. And also what I'm going to say doesn't take the place of what we know to be the best anti-cancer treatment. So I'm going to start with ginger. And the reason I'm starting with ginger as the first food is because ginger is really good at managing nausea. If you are not seeing benefit from all the medications that you're getting from your medical team, first of all, let them know. But you may also find if you have something I call stomach awareness, where you're just aware of your stomach a little queasy, you're not really suffering from nausea and vomiting, but you've gone off your food, you don't like the way things taste, try ginger. You can get ginger in candies, you can get ginger lozenges, you can get ginger tea, of course you can add ginger to your food. And this is a natural way to control nausea or queasiness. Again, if it's severe and interfering with your quality of life and you haven't told your medical team, please do. Unfortunately, medical teams often underestimate how much nausea people will get, so you need to let them know that you're still nauseated. The next thing I'm going to talk about, the second food, is protein. Protein is really important when we're on corticosteroids to prevent side effects like nausea and allergic reactions to chemotherapy. And it's also important when you're going through things that are stressful. So protein sources can be everything from meat, like chicken, fish, red meat in moderation, eggs, legumes. Protein sources are really plentiful, especially in countries that have more wealth. If you are in a country where protein is harder to get, this needs to be a priority for you. And a lot of things like legumes, lentils, and beans may make up much of your diet. And as a bonus, there may actually be some preventative effects of beans when you add that to a healthy lifestyle in terms of cancer risk. The third thing I want to talk about is whole grains. Whole grains are good for us whether we're going through cancer treatment or not. Whole grains absorb a lot of water. They can help you feel quite settled in your stomach. You might feel more satisfied. It can help with nausea to have whole grains. And it can also add fiber to your diet, which is really good during chemotherapy because constipation is very common. And interestingly enough, whole grains can also help with diarrhea. So if you're having constipation that's interfering with your quality of life or diarrhea, that is, talk to your medical team. And if you're interested in knowing what you can do to help with your bowels, whole grains are really helpful. So that's not processed grains, so not white bread, but rather whole grains, diets, cereals. Whole grain bread, I mean, and cereals can be really helpful. And you can make that part of your main meal by adding a side of brown rice, for example, or a side of farro. The fourth thing is healthy fat. And what we mean by healthy fat are naturally occurring fats and olive oil. So olive oil is really good. This is part of a Mediterranean diet, which is very good for overall health and cardiac health and can help you feel better. Avocados are a source of healthy fat. You want to avoid a lot of things like hydrogenated oils. Go light on the butter, but you certainly don't have to cut these things out. But lean into healthy fats. The next thing, the fifth thing, are leafy greens. Leafy greens are a terrific source of vitamins and minerals. So this is your spinach, your kale, iceberg lettuce is a leafy green. It doesn't have a lot of nutrients, but it has a lot of water in it, so that's good. But these dark leafy vegetables add a lot of color to your diet, and along with other colorful fruits and vegetables, can give you a lot of those minerals and vegetables that I know lots of people are curious about. The sixth thing I want to talk about is hydrating foods. You know, you've heard you have to drink eight glasses of water a day. Well, don't forget, we actually get a lot of water in our food, and that counts. So fruits and vegetables have a lot of water in them in particular, and I think, you know, making sure that you're having melon and grapes and berries, these sorts of things can add a lot of hydration if drinking just straight water doesn't work for you, and all the things that people suggest that you drink don't appeal. You can get a lot of fluid from fruits and vegetables, especially raw vegetables. They have a lot of water in them, and those can be really great. And then the final thing, the seventh food that's really good when you're going through chemotherapy are smoothies, and that's for a few different reasons. They can have, smoothies can have healthy nuts and healthy fat, like almond butter you can put in your smoothie, or peanut butter. Those are healthy fats. You can put protein in. If you want to have protein, you can put your leafy greens in there, and then they're hydrating. There are lots of places you can go for smoothie recipes. You do need to have a way to make smoothies, or you can buy them. More and more smoothie stores are open, though they do tend to get quite expensive. In this video, I've covered seven foods and types of foods that can be really helpful to you when you're going through chemotherapy. I hope it's been helpful for you. Remember, no food can prevent or cure cancer, but as part of all of your medical treatment, a healthy diet can help you feel more energetic and stronger, and also like you're taking control and taking care of yourself. I hope it's been helpful. If it has, click like. That helps other people who are wondering what are the seven foods they should eat during chemotherapy find this video. If you subscribe, you'll see our other content, which we're always putting out new content several times a week. You can go to Yerba.com to get your personalized report. Thank you, as always, for watching.