It is basically possible to resume a normal diet. A small number of patients can have 3 meals a day for 3 months after surgery, close to the amount of food they ate before surgery, but there are individual differences. Many people think that they cannot eat normally after total gastrectomy, so they are afraid of the surgery. First of all, the stomach is an important organ of the body’s digestive system, serving the function of food storage, initial digestion and, to a lesser extent, absorption. The digestion of the stomach has physical digestion by physically grinding food and chemical digestion by pepsin in the gastric juice, mainly absorption of alcohol. The real digestive and absorption functions are performed by the small intestine. After total gastric surgery for gastric cancer, the surgeon will connect the small intestine and esophagus together, so it basically does not affect the digestion and absorption of the three major nutrients. Surgery is an important or even critical part of treatment for gastric cancer, and surgery for early and middle stage gastric cancer is the only possible means of cure. Therefore, surgery is necessary. Do all gastric cancer patients need total gastrectomy? Definitely not. The scope of surgical resection is determined by the location and stage of the tumor. Generally speaking, esophagogastric junction cancer (cardia cancer) and cancer of the fundus and upper middle part of the stomach require total gastrectomy, especially for locally progressive gastric cancer. However, in case of early gastric cancer of cardia and fundus, some patients can consider proximal gastrectomy and preserve the distal stomach. However, proximal gastric surgery is rarely performed due to the high probability of severe esophagogastric reflux leading to heartburn and retrosternal pain after proximal gastric surgery. For lower and middle gastric body and sinus cancer, the distal gastric resection (2/3 or 4/5) is basically adopted. Therefore, the surgical method of gastric cancer is not decided according to the doctor’s or the patient’s own idea, but mainly according to the stage and location of the disease. There is no doubt that both radicality and preservation of function are important in gastric cancer surgery, preferably both, and if not, radicality is preferred. Some patients may ask, how do I know which way is better, then it needs to be left to professional gastric cancer specialist to decide, but it is not entirely up to the doctor to decide, you can communicate with the doctor to hear and understand which surgery way is more beneficial.