The “dos” and “don’ts” of cancer recovery diet

  As one of the five principles of cancer recovery, i.e. optimistic attitude, balanced diet, appropriate amount of exercise, regular review and reasonable medication, we recommend the “Mediterranean diet” as early as 1990, which is a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fat, and rich in vegetables and fruits. The typical Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables and fruits, i.e., starchy foods, vegetable paste, plus a lot of green leafy vegetables and fresh fruits. It is simple, light and nutritious, which is actually our traditional Chinese diet, and the so-called “appropriate” is summarized as one, two, three, four, five.  One, a little meat, plus an egg every day; two, 250ml of milk or soy milk; three, 300g of cereal; four, about 400g of fruit, such as a slightly larger apple; five, 500g of vegetables.  12345 is a little bit easier to say, but of course it should be slightly modified according to physical exertion.  Do recovering patients need to avoid eating?  The most important thing is that you have to be careful about what you say. TCM nutrition attaches great importance to the influence of the four qi of food: cold, hot, warm and cool on the body and condition, as well as the relationship between the five tastes of acid, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty and the five organs. It divides food into yin, yang and neutral: grains are neutral and are the main food for humans; vegetables, fruits and beans are yin; animals including meat, eggs, milk, cheese and seafood are yang foods. Further subdivision down the yang in the yin, yin in the yang. For example, sea fish is extremely fishy Yang in Yang, freshwater fish is slightly fishy Yang in Yin; vegetables are Yin, while ginger, onion, garlic strong smell is Yin in Yang, radish, cabbage, watermelon is Yin in Yin, watermelon for the natural white tiger soup, cooling and relieving the heat is this reason. Food affects people’s health does not lie in the amount, but in the quality of food that is the yin and yang properties.  Therefore, Chinese medicine to avoid mouth 1, depending on the person: the patient is easy to dry mouth and stool, avoid spicy; patients prone to diarrhea, avoid Yin cold food including watermelon, seafood.  2. Different from time to time: in spring, in addition to adjusting the cold temperature, eat more vegetables, and supplement the liver with pig, goat and chicken liver. Summer tonic Yin clear summer to watermelon, tofu, chrysanthemum, etc., can not be greedy for cold, long summer avoid frying and roasting, help wet. Autumn is appropriate to moisten selected lily, silver fungus, pear, duck meat, honey. Winter help to Yang, mutton, dog meat, bird eggs, etc.  3.Varying from disease to disease: avoid oil and meat for liver cancer jaundice; avoid spicy for lung cancer hemoptysis; avoid sweet and greasy for stomach cancer.  4.Different treatment methods: avoid spicy food for dry mouth after radiotherapy for esophageal and nasopharyngeal cancer, and use “snapper” to nourish Yin and clear heat.  The four “no’s” in Chinese medicine tumor etiology in terms of diet and nutritional factors: First, do not eat foods with carcinogenic substances in the diet (pickled and smoked products containing amines nitrite); second, do not smoke, drink less alcohol, do not eat overheated, fried and hard and rough foods; third, do not eat fatty, sweet, high-fat, high-protein foods; fourth, change bad dietary habits. Fourth, change the bad eating habits, so as to induce cancer.  In addition, “the stomach is happy as a tonic”, any food that the patient likes, sometimes contrary to the identification or the above principles, but the patient is comfortable to eat, can enhance appetite, mood improvement, but also a small amount of food, do not need to adhere to.