Eating Well Through Cancer

This was the first book that I found on the subject of eating for health one day while sitting with Nani in the chemo office. It is full of recipes to "help" people get through chemo so they can keep their strength and calorie intake up. Before I rip this book to shreds, I would like to say that it is complements of Merck Oncology. Merck, as you may or may not know, is one of the big pharmaceutical companies that creates the chemo drugs that millions of people are given to "cure" cancer. Notice the lovely fruits and vegetables on the cover.

Now I'll tell you what they are advocating cancer patients should eat (this is just a sampling not the entire list):

• Eat between meals with high-protein diet supplements, milkshakes, puddings or nutritional energy drink supplements. SUGAR & FAKE NUTRITION
• Add cream or butter to soups, cooked cereals, and vegetables to increase calories. Add gravies and sauces to vegetables, meat poultry, and fish until weight loss is no longer a problem. FAT & ANIMAL PROTEIN
• Add extra protein to your diet by using fortified milk, peanut butter, cheese, and chopped hard boiled eggs ANIMAL PROTEIN
• Be creative with deserts. SUGAR
• Try drinking lemonade. MORE SUGAR!
• Increase the sugar in foods to increase their pleasant tastes and decrease salty, bitter, or acid tastes.
• Use extra sugar with many deserts to improve the taste or to provide its accustomed taste. A teaspoon of sugar added to cooking water or glazing vegetables such as may help improve vegetable flavors. INCREASE THE SUGAR!!!
• Fresh vegetables may be more appealing than canned or frozen ones. FINALLY!

Food Staples:

• refrigerated biscuits SUGAR
• butter or margarine FAT
• fruit
• reduced fat cheese FAT
• skim milk DAIRY
• sour cream DAIRY
• fresh vegetables
• fat free yogurt DAIRY
• white bread SUGAR
• pasta SUGAR
• pizza crusts SUGAR
• white rice SUGAR
• cake mixes (chocolate, yellow, & white) SUGAR
• instant pudding SUGAR
• sugar & artificial sweetener SUGAR
• reduced fat creamed soups WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!

Recipes for the day of chemo:

• cinnamon rolls
• blueberry pancakes
• berry french toast
• baked french toast
• apple lasagna
• egg noodle casserole
• yam biscuits
• chess pie (butter, sugar, white flower, eggs)
• lemon angel food cake
• chocolate eclair

ALL SUGAR!!!!

OK ready? First of all I appreciate the tidbits of fruit and vegetables that are scattered across these pages. More importantly though, the majority of this book is filled with white flour and sugar. THE ONE THING THAT FEEDS CANCER IS SUGAR! HOLY S-H-I-T! This book is basically advocating eating a low fat diet that is high in sugar- which the last couple decades of American's fat free psychosis has proven  a disaster. 

How is any of this food going to help the chemo get rid of the cancer that this food is actively feeding?

Where did these people get their information? Actually, did they even research anything about what feeds cancer? and what prevents disease? Surely not! I really feel for people who take information like this at face value. Just because it is published and backed by a huge company like Merck doesn't mean it's good information. Besides Merck doesn't want cancer to go away. Then they would be out of business.

In my humble opinion, people who are dealing with cancer should be eating a plant based diet with tons of fresh fruits and vegetables in the form of salads, fresh juices, smoothies, with whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Someone with cancer should NOT be eating deserts!!!

Ugghhh! 

Please if you or someone you know is dealing with cancer, the best thing you can do for yourself is change your diet. If you have any questions please email me at jessicageier@gmail.com.