Post-operative diet of esophageal cancer patients is a problem that has troubled many patients and family members. The reasons come from four aspects: 1. Since esophageal cancer surgery requires removal of part of the stomach, postoperative patients’ eating volume will be reduced to different degrees, so they need to eat less and eat more. As the activity of postoperative patients decreases, the movement of gastrointestinal tract also decreases, so most of them do not have strong appetite, and many of them even have the phenomenon of early satiety and feel full after eating little food. 2, the surgeon in order to ensure the safety of the anastomosis, and will be in a period of time to limit the patient to eat soft and hard, sometimes it is not clear what is meant by soft food, simply tell the patient to eat a thin rice type of thing, some patients do not know the case, really only dare to eat thin rice, and finally lead to serious patient paranoia! 3, patients will be more prone to diarrhea after surgery due to changes in the structure and function of the digestive tract. Some patients, because of diarrhea after eating, choke and dare not eat because they want to eat. 4, from a variety of sources (such as the network, relatives and friends, Chinese medicine) overwhelming information, some say spicy can not eat, some say chicken can not eat, mushrooms can not eat, coffee can not drink, tea can not drink, and so on and so forth, the various sayings are different, in short, all kinds of taboos. The end result is that patients are at a loss when it comes to eating and cannot get the best post-operative nutritional support, resulting in malnutrition. How do I eat? To answer this question, we need to understand the purpose of eating after esophageal cancer surgery first. Normal people eat for many purposes, besides the most fundamental nutrition, there are also very rich purposes such as enjoyment and socialization. But for patients recovering from esophageal cancer surgery, the purpose of eating is nutrition, just nutrition. Without nutrition, it is impossible to recover smoothly, and without nutrition, it is impossible to have good immunity, and always and finally to overcome the disease and tumor. Therefore, after understanding the above purpose, we can clearly know that the principle of eating for post-operative patients with esophageal cancer is: eating enough and balanced. How to eat enough and balanced food? First of all, patients should have a clear premise in mind: eating is not a kind of enjoyment, but a kind of treatment! Since it is a treatment, it can not eat when you want to eat, do not want to eat, do not eat. The time to eat, do not want to eat also have to try to eat, good nutrition, physical state restored, appetite can gradually improve. 2, pay attention to less food and more meals, with special emphasis on more meals. It is almost inevitable that the quantity of each meal decreases within a short period of time after surgery. In order to achieve sufficient eating quantity, it is necessary to increase the number of meals, and we generally ask our patients to try to eat 6 meals per day within six months after surgery, and gradually reduce the number of meals later with the increase of the quantity of each meal eaten by the patient. 3.Balanced diet. It is important to understand the fact that there is no evidence that any of the foods we eat are carcinogenic. It is very easy to debunk those rumors. Chicken can not eat? Westerners eat so much chicken, and the cancer rate in the West is higher than that in China? Can’t eat chili? Hunan people in Sichuan are so good at eating spicy food that their cancer rate is much higher than people in other regions? So those who tell you that you can’t eat this, that can’t eat the argument is nonsense! So the ingredients should still be balanced, not too partial food. 4. Pay attention to the taste and texture of food. Some people think that the post-operative diet should be light, but in fact this idea makes no sense. Eating chili, coffee, tea will lead to postoperative patients reflux is pure hearsay (possible for normal people, no such effect on postoperative patients). Some patients have no appetite for spicy food, so why can’t they have some chili peppers after surgery so that they can eat more? Some patients have a strong taste? Then why can’t they have more salt after surgery? Therefore, we suggest that in the process of caring for postoperative patients, do not take it for granted that the patient should eat bland as water, taste like chewing wax food, it may be better to taste whether it is good or not, whether they can eat it; it may be better to ask the patient what taste he wants to eat first. Do patients want to eat the taste and texture of food to him to eat, in order to maximize the amount of food intake. 5, play the role of snacks. It is true that some patients have poor gastrointestinal tract function, the feeling of fullness is very serious, three meals a day is not easy, can not do 6 meals a day, and the amount of food per meal is also seriously inadequate. Such patients tend to become malnourished quickly because they do not eat enough. For these patients, snacks can often play an unexpected role. The snacks mentioned here are not those junk foods, but nuts and other foods. Nuts like peanuts, melon seeds, walnuts, cashews and so on have extremely high calories, and a very small amount of nuts can provide a surprising amount of calories (so people who want to lose weight often avoid eating more nuts). For post-operative esophageal cancer, patients who eat very little, in addition to the main meal, if you can eat more of such snacks, it is possible to well supplement the lack of nutrition. 6. Proper understanding of diarrhea. Some patients are afraid to eat because they are afraid of diarrhea, which is wrong. Diarrhea is a manifestation of uncoordinated postoperative gastrointestinal activities, not an infection, and does not need to be treated according to the principles of gastroenteritis, and only needs to eat some drugs such as Emmon Stop and Similac to control the diarrhea and eat normally. However, it should be noted that postoperative diarrhea often occurs after eating a high-fat diet, so patients with this phenomenon should eat less fat. I hope this information mentioned above will help every post-operative esophageal patient recover successfully!