My friend has recently returned home from nearly 9 months off and on in hospital. The poor thing has had chemo, radiation and recently a bone marrow transplant and stem cell transplant. She is now in remission thankfully, but her ongoing struggles are with tiredness and weight gain. She told me that food just doesn't taste the same after all her treatment (and on-going medication).

The doctors have told her she can eat whatever she likes now, no restrictions, but obviously she wants healthy, good food. I wanted to try and make her some dishes to help her get a bit more excited about food.

Does anyone have suggestions for meals that would help her tastebuds get activated?

When I have cooked for friends in similar situations it is often the strangest things that they will suddenly decide taste OK and they enjoy eating them.
I know it isn't healthy but a good friend of ours loved a piece of tan square with a cup of tea whereas most other food to him just tasted of nothing.
At this time of year hearty soups are popular, nourishing and easy to eat.
Our friend wasn't able to eat chicken, fish and some other foods post stem cell transplant. I don't really know why, maybe from a safety perspective of food hygiene.
Otherwise I guess it is just thinking of high calorie yet nutritious meals.

Good luck.

I think in this situation it is best to take the surprise aspect out of it and ask. Just say that you'd like to make something for her, but are aware that her tastes may have changed and is there anything that she'd particularly like you to make.

Hi Griz, Yes I have talked to her and she has told me food doesn't interest her much because her tastebuds have been affected by the treatment. So ultimately she would opt for nothing. I just want to explore some options for her as she doesn't have interest in cooking right now. Hopefully her tastebuds return with time. I thought maybe a Thai coconut soup - Tom kha - (leave out the chicken) but loads of flavour?

I cooked for someone who had completely lost his sense of taste following radiation treatment of throat cancer. After a while he started to dimly taste some foods; lemon zest and juice were the first to be discernible. Then salmon was next, then tomatoes. So I suggest you try making a dish of very lightly cooked (therefore very soft and juicy) fresh salmon with a sauce of reduced fresh chicken stock, lemon zest , lemon juice and butter.

If people are running a meal roster to support them then check out Take them a Meal.
The template is very easy to work with, we have used it a few times.

Thanks Helen - I've heard about this but not looked into it yet.

avocado have anti-cancer properties and a lot of other vitamins, try giving him some.

I think anything pungent would be good because the complex part of our 'tasting' is actually conveyed by smell. So Thai, Indian, Chinese, American barbecue, etc. Also maybe blue cheese, or warm sardines on toast, or shellfish. Fat conveys a lot of flavour so egg dishes, juicy meatballs, spiced nuts, guacamole, mousses (savoury or sweet), spare ribs, pates, cheeses, pork belly and the like.

Another idea is to serve small portions of multiple things rather than a big plate of one or two things. Think bento-box style, but not necessarily that elaborate. The benefit of this is that it doesn't seem daunting because it isn't a big plate of food. It's more appetising because it's easier to make it look colourful and varied. It gives your friend an element of choice. If your friend doesn't like a particular food that's on it, she doesn't have to eat a whole serving of it because it's just a small amount. I also think that if she gets served up a plate of food but she can't eat much of it, there's kind of the mental factor of a feeling of 'failure' if she sees that she hasn't made much inroads into the food.

You don't have to literally buy a bento box container, there are lots of divided lunchboxes that are available that you can use. Or you could just deliver her the prepared components and she can set them out on her plate. When a friend of mine wasn't doing well, I used to bring her a chilly bag with lots of small things. I prepared those things as much as possible so that she didn't have to do any preparation. This is because if we aren't hungry, the time and fuss it takes to prepare something just makes us less inclined to eat it. I had some vegetable frittata cut into very small cubes, some soup, peeled hard-boiled eggs, peeled mandarins that I then broke into segments, cored and segmented apple pieces, marinated mussels, a broad bean salad, some cherry tomatoes with a little container of yoghurt and a separate container of vadouvan spice and salt (dip a tomato into the yoghurt, then into the spice/salt mixture), some roasted nuts, some cut-up vegetables with a satay sauce dip, some cut-up cubes of cheese, a chocolate brownie cut into cubes, some pretzels and some home-made lotus root chips. These were all in little containers or zip lock bags. My friend said she loved that it felt like a lot of little treasures and surprises, and it was all ready to eat. It sounds fiddley but it's no more work than preparing a dish. I also found that I didn't have to worry if foods went 'together' to make a harmonious meal, I just put in whatever I had on hand. It's so easy because you only need to make small volumes of each thing so you don't have to worry about not having enough ingredients to make a single big dish,

The following is a link to some brilliant YouTube videos for bento lunch box ideas that I absolutely love. The lady who does them is a dietitian and her recipes are really easy. The videos are also fun to watch. There are 30 of them in total but each one is really short:
Bento Box Healthy lunch

My final idea (sorry this is so long) is to take your friend out for a meal. My friend found that being out and about with a good friend to relax with, stimulated her appetite a lot. I think there's also the element of being waited on and treated, and having a choice from the menu. Maybe somewhere with small sharing plates so she can eat little amounts of varied things. Yum cha or Japanese izakaya-type food or Indian where you just order some appetisers or Middle Eastern mezze?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2017 05:23AM by DK.