Eating Well Through Cancer
By: Holly L. Thacker, MD • Holly Clegg • Posted on September 22, 2016 • Updated September 08, 2022
Choosing the Right Foods During Cancer Treatment
Best-selling national cookbook, Eating Well Through Cancer: Easy Recipes & Tips to Guide You Through Cancer Prevention has been a groundbreaking cookbook for cancer patients and caregiver support. This cookbook is designed to help cancer patients better tolerate treatment and maintain a healthy lifestyle, answering the question oncology patients frequently ask - “What should I eat?”
Anyone affected by cancer knows that patients lose their strength and appetite while fighting the disease. In order to improve their nutrition and heal, they still have to eat, but what? Eating Well Through Cancer, written by best-selling national cookbook author, Holly Clegg, and successful cancer researcher and oncologist, Dr. Gerald Miletello is an important resource in response to these questions.
Holly Clegg was a long-time friend to the Speaking of Women's Health Team and sadly passed away in 2019 after a brave battle with stomach cancer. Her legacy continues to live on with her family and friends through #TeamHolly as they continue her work of providing healthy and delicious meals.
Foods to Ease Common Cancer Side Effects
Eating Well Through Cancer highlights diabetic-friendly, gluten-free, vegetarian and freezer-friendly recipes with more than 175 easy recipes with color photographs and nutritional and diabetic information with each recipe. The cookbook’s chapters are divided by different cancer treatment side effects and contain recipes, tips and nutrition nuggets to help ease each specific side effect. Chemotherapy, radiation or surgery can affect the patient’s appetite, so the chapters include nourishing foods that are best tolerated to ease common side effects such as:
- nausea
- sore mouth and throat
- taste changes
- neutropenia
- weight loss
Comforting Food for a Sore Mouth and Throat
The Easy Potato Soup recipe from the Sore Mouth and Throat chapter is a favorite meal for many throat cancer patients. The soup is smooth, creamy with a satisfying flavor, and the frozen hash browns make the dish extra easy to prepare as there is no tedious peeling potatoes.
Recipes to Help Ease Nausea
From the Nausea chapter, Banana Bread not only makes a great snack for the whole family, but since bananas are easily digested by virtually everyone, this makes a nice, not too rich snack when going through treatment. Made with a biscuit baking mix to simplify, you can also make this recipe into mini loaves or muffins to keep in the freezer to pull out for a quick snack or even gift to someone going through cancer treatment.
What to Eat on the Day of Chemo
What is better when you aren’t feeling well than a warm bowl of chicken soup? This Chicken, Barley, and Bow-Tie Soup is an updated satisfying version of the classic remedy recipe. This recipe is from the Day of Chemo chapter, as it is important to eat lighter, easily tolerated foods. It is important to include recipes that not only feed the person going through cancer treatment, but also please the entire family!
Snacks and Smoothies
Many times someone going through treatment has difficulty eating and sometimes snacks are a good choice. Eating snacks throughout the day can offer a person something to munch on. From the Snacks and Smoothies chapter, this Snack Mix makes a great option for a caregiver to take over to someone’s house. Remember to take in a disposable container and this snack mix lasts a long time.
Healthy Cooking for Long-Term Health
When looking for a healthy meal for long-term health, look no further than the Snappy Salmon Burgers from the Healthy Cooking chapter. Diabetic-friendly and gluten-free, this nutrition packed mouth-watering burger uses fresh salmon, rich in heart healthy omega 3 fatty acids. A healthy diet can keep up your strength and immune system and what you eat may make a difference in how well you handle treatment.
With an awareness of the foods best tolerated and those that ease the symptoms of treatment, you may be able to eat well and stay properly nourished. Eating Well Through Cancer is a cookbook to feed not just cancer patients and caregivers but the whole family will benefit from these simple, heathy delicious recipes.
Be Strong, Be Healthy, Be in Charge!
Holly L. Thacker, MD and Team Holly
A culinary expert, Holly Clegg was featured on many national shows and magazines and consulted for national brands and hospitals throughout the country. Clegg was diagnosed with stomach cancer in August 2018. After a brave fight, she transitioned to hospice in June 2019 and established the Holly Clegg Gastric Cancer Research Fund with her family. Surrounded by her family, she passed away peacefully on November 1, 2019.
It was Holly’s wish that her brand continue to be a resource for the busy home cook, with her quick, healthy, and delicious recipes. Before she passed away, she created Team Holly to continue her work. Team Holly is made up of Registered Dietitian, Lee Jackson who has been with Holly for over 14 years, along with family and friends who oversee the brand’s social media and publishing operations. In late 2019, Team Holly partnered with Favorite Recipes Press, an imprint of Southwestern Publishing House, to commit to continuing Holly’s legacy.