Hi Bonniee,
Actually, there is LOT that you CAN eat, so rather than give you sample menus, I'll just tell you good food choices.
Fruit: Any kind of berry is great, and you should eat berries as much as you can - just avoid added sugar (fructose or honey is ok.) Tart cherries (black cherries) or tart cherry extract are excellent choices. Any Citrus fruit - except grapefruit and bananas (unless you need them for the potassium - then one banana a day is ok.) Especially papaya and pineapple - either eat the raw fruit or get extracts (papaya tablets and bromelaine extract.) Lemons and limes are great. Apples - the more sour apples are better. No more than 1 large or 2 small to medium apples/day, and eat both the skin and the seeds. Cantelope provides needed vitamins plus vitamin B-17. Seeded Grapes - concord are best, but red or black will do - eat the skins and the seeds (try to get organic grapes, if not - wash well with warm soapy water and rinse, rinse, rinse.) If you can't get seeded grapes, use Welch's 100% concord frozen grape juice concentrate, and make it with steam-distilled or reverse osmosis filtered water. (Any kind of water with chlorine in it is a no-no for drinking and cooking.) Black currants are a great choice.
DO NOT eat pomegranate or drink pomegranate juice.
Juices: Welch's concord as mentioned above. Mangosteen, noni, goji. NO orange juice unless unsweetened and then only a little bit. DO drink Lemonade from unsweetened 100% pure lemon frozen concentrate or actual squeezed lemons - mix with pure water.
Apple cider vinegar: get an organic brand, use as much as you can tolerate as often as you can tolerate, on salads, vegetables, in cooking. If you can tolerate it, drink a tsp in an 8 oz glass water/day. Apple cider vinegar extract tablets are ok, too.
Vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale, spinach, endive, radishes, beets (pickled beets are ok, but not Harvard beets - too much sugar added.) Carrots in moderation ( no more than 1 medium carrot/day). Celery in moderation. Lettuces and greens. Asparagus. Cabbage. Bok choy and chinese cabbage. Parsnips (but not turnips.) Peppers - red, orange or yellow are best as green peppers can cause a lot of heartburn, especially with chemo.
AVOID peas and corn and sugar snap peas . Lima beans , snow peas, are ok but in small amounts infrequently. NO SPROUTS.
Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes - as many as you can eat, in whatever form you can eat. If you can't get tomatoes, get a lycopene supplement and follow the label directions.
Rhubarb is an excellent choice - as little sweetener as possible to make it palatable.
Sweetener: organic crystallized fructose - available at health food stores, some grocery stores in the organic/health food aisle, and online. Can be used for cooking and on cereal, in tea, etc. Use as little as possible. The herb stevia is an excellent choice. You can also use very small amounts of pure honey and pure maple syrup.
AVOID: nutrasweet, aspartame, phenylalanine, any kind of artificial sweetener.
Dairy: as little dairy as possible. For milk, raw goats milk is the best choice. Raw cow's milk or sheep's milk is ok. If you can't get raw, you need to try to find organic milk from grass fed cows that are not given any hormones. 100% organic butter rather than any kind of margarine. Any kind of cheese should be organic - hard cheeses are a better choice than soft (except cottage cheese, which I will address later.) Limit intake of cheese. Ice cream IS NOT a good choice, although a little bit now and then is ok. YOGURT should be limited, and should be unsweetened - no more than once or twice a week, unless you want to use it with flax seed instead of cottage cheese (see below.)
Eggs: organic, farm fresh from range fed chickens. No need to limit intake, but should be soft-cooked - just enough to be done, as too much heat destroys the sulfur, protein and other nutrients in the egg.Try to eat at least one egg a day.
AVOID HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. AVOID ALL FORMS OF SODA POP. (Exception: ginger ale or lemon-lime soda if needed for nausea or heartburn.)
Nuts and seeds: almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts are ok. Apricot kernels are an excellent source of vitamin b-17, if you can tolerate eating 5 - 6 a day (if not, don't worry about it.) Roasted pumpkin seeds are a great source of omega fatty acids and protein - see my blog. Squash seeds can be roasted the same way.
http://motherearthtreasurechest.blogspot.com/2008/09/roasted
Avoid sunflower seeds, peanuts and brazil nuts. NO peanutbutter.
Oils: 100% pure organic virgin expeller-pressed coconut oil from raw coconuts (not dried chopra.) Expensive, but absolutely the very best choice of oils - melts at a much lower temp, so you won't need to use as much. Can be used for cooking, salads - even on your skin - anything that you would use any other kind of oil. Next best choice is 100% pure organic extra virgin olive oil.
Avoid: safflower oil, corn oil, any kind of vegetable oil that has hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated fats (also known as trans fats.)
Linseed oil = flax oil - I do not advise using it.
Meats: the less, the better, although if you go totally meatless, you do need to supplement with a good vitamin b-12 (see my blog, "buzzing the B's - vitamin b-12). I totally avoid fish and sea food - the earth's water supply is drastically contaminated, and it gets into the fish. Wild Alaska salmon, or any fish/sea food that comes from far northern very deep cold waters would be the best choice if you want to do fish. I recommend fish no more than once a week. If you want to supplement with fish oil, I recommend krill oil - very expensive, but really the only way to ensure that you are getting uncontaminated fish oil.
Chicken - best if range fed that isn't given any hormones. Beef - needs to be grass fed without hormones. Pork - not a good choice. Lamb/mutton - infrequent. The average person in industrialized nations eats WAAAAAAY too much meat - I recommend maximum intake of 3 - 4 ounces of meat 3 - 4 times/week. Turkey needs to be range fed without hormones.
Be very careful with organ meats - no more than once a month.
Beans/legumes (except peas): as much as you can stand to eat. Dried organic beans/legumes are the best choice - soak in pure water before cooking (soak at least 8 hours to break down the components that cause bloating/gas.) This is a major source of protein and roughage, and contains MANY cancer fighters. Beans and legumes cooked with onions and garlic add an extra boost. Barley is an excellent choice to add to soups, stews, chili, etc.
Grains: Organic brown rice is best, otherwise long-grain rice. (White rice is a poor choice.) Whole grains: wheat, oats, spelt, etc - I have an article on my blog listing good choices. Avoid, white flour and processed pastas - whole wheat or spinach pasta is ok. Cous-cous is ok. Buckwheat pancakes is an excellent choice - go ahead and use butter and maple syrup on them! Barley is an excellent choice to add to soups, stews, chili, etc.
Chocolate: dark chocolate that is at least 70% cacao is an excellent choice. NOT fattening, but offers a lot of cancer-fighting nutrients.
ALCOHOL: avoid ALL alcohol except red wine. 3 - 4 ounces of red to dark red table wine/day is ok - will help fight the cancer - the sugar in the wine carries the phytochemicals to the cancer cells, so is ok. Do not use a beverage wine for this - way too sweet. I use Taylor Lake Country Red Table Wine - that is the very least tannin content and sweetness you want. Anything that's darker or dryer would also be ok.
Juicing/smoothies: - a great way to get nutrition fast. add a 1/2 tsp organic powdered brewer's yeast, and powdered lecithin for nutrition. You may need to add just a little fructose or honey with these to make it palatable, and it's good to add some crushed ice. Barley grass powder or wheat grass powder are also very powerful additives. If you don't juice or make smoothies, I suggest you supplement with barley grass or wheat grass tablets. Just remember to take with food.
SOY: I would avoid completely.
FLAX: breakfast only - this is my routine:
I make sure to eat no later than 1 hour before going to bed. I do not eat or drink anything other than water for another 8 - 10 hours. First thing when I get up - a handful of grapes with seeds (concord, red or black grapes.) If I can't get grapes, I use 6 - 8 ounces of Welch's 100% pure concord grape concentrate - non-pasteurized, mixed with steam-distilled water. THen I eat about 1/2 cup small curd cottage cheese (organic when I can get it) with no more than 1 tsp ground flax seed. I add salt and pepper for taste, and I sometimes throw in no more than 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin seeds or a small handful of dried black currants. Cranberries would work just as well. I drink 10 ounces of brewed green and black tea - I just use 1 green tea bag and 1 black tea bag, and I steep it pretty strong, adding fructose to taste. . (you could do one or the other if you don't like them combined.)
COOKING tips: as much as you can, use onions (fresh, frozen, or powdered or minced), garlic (fresh or powdered - but not garlic salt), crushed red pepper, turmeric, and cumin. If you don't like cooking with onions or garlic, or if you're getting chemo and can't handle the spice food, I recommend you take an odorless garlic supplement.
Fresh, raw, organic fruits and veggies are the very best choice - but not always possible. Flash frozen is the next best choice - canneries do a pretty thorough job of washing fruits and veggies before freezing them, and with todays technology, everything you get in the freezer section is now being flash frozen, except ice cream and dairy products. Canned (unless home canned in glass jars) - should be the very last choice. Exception is tomatoes - but try to buy brands that do not have the plastic coating inside the can, as this is broken down by the acids in the tomatoes.
If there is anything specific that I haven't mentioned, and you want to know if it's ok to eat, just send me a message. I'm not sure where you live, so don't know what regional foods you might choose. I have a few recipes on my blog - they are all ok for anyone with cancer to use. Take a look at my series on the B-vitamins "The Buzz on the B's" - there are like 8 or 9 articles (I don't have my B-17 article published yet, and that one may take a while - have hit a few road blocks!) Unless I have specifically mentioned to avoid something above, ALL of the foods that I list in the vitamin B articles are ok to eat. Look at the articles on ancient seeds and grains, and on functional foods.
Take a look at the Lemon Volcano Drink (enter that in the search box - it will pull up several articles - one has a recipe.) That is an excellent detoxifier, if you can stand to do it with the cayenne pepper. It provides the cancer fighting benefits of citric acid , capcaisin in the pepper, and maple syrup.
In fact, I recommend that you read through the whole blog, as you get time. I've scattered cancer fighting information, including a lot about foods, throughout just about everything I've written on the blog. There also is other advise, such as incorporating humor and laughter, exercise, detoxification, etc.
I cannot emphasize enough that you need to be drinking plenty of fresh pure water. Minimum 64 ounces/day, as much as 80 - 100 ounces /day if you can tolerate it. (If you weigh less than 125lbs - not more than 72 ounces/day.) Steam-distilled or filtered by reverse osmosis are best. I purchased a home steam-distiller when I found out I had metastasis - one of the very best investments I've ever made. My partner and I know use steam-distilled water exclusively for all our drinking and cooking needs. There is a link for A-1 Distillers in my blog. I purchased the 1 gallon, metal-topped distiller - came to just under $120 including S&H, and the service is great:
http://motherearthtreasurechest.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-pers
Let me know if you have more questions. You're welcome to use the link on my blog to send me email - just identify yourself as Bonniee from Cancer Compass in the subject line the first time you write.
Sincerely,
Tre