Liver Cancer Diet
If your loved one is at home with liver cancer, you have your hands full. You want to make sure every moment from their liver cancer diagnosis onward is spent in minimal pain.
The first things to consider are the guidelines offered by the dietitian. Usually, there will be specific amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrate that you’ll have to adhere to. For example, many patients with liver cancer are suffering from a nonfunctional liver, and it’s difficult to process a high protein diet in this circumstance.
Thus, when shopping at the grocery store, you don’t want to get too many protein foods (beef, pork, turkey, chicken, duck, capon, buffalo, lamb, fish, shellfish, yogurt, cheese, and milk). However, you will still want to get enough protein so you aren’t contributing to causing protein malnutrition and end up watching your loved one’s muscles waste away.
Liver Cancer Diet Tips 101: Planning
When planning a diet for liver cancer patients, the dietitian will have a goal of calories needed for the day. This matters a lot. You will want to have enough calories, but not too many calories since overeating will tax the liver and could worsen the symptoms your loved one is having.
Thus, don’t buy too much when you go grocery shopping. It’s better to have a little less in the cart than too much when your loved one has liver cancer. You can always go back for more.
What Are the Best Foods for Liver Cancer?
Next to consider is how much fresh food is your loved one consuming. You can’t expect someone with liver cancer to eat a raw foods diet although some people do exactly this. However, the difference is that they are usually using a specific diet such as the Gerson diet or a macrobiotic diet.
You might try raw fruit and vegetable juices which are easily sipped, yet provide enzymes and high levels of vitamins and minerals. Your loved one with liver cancer can sip them all day long. Thus, your shopping list will consist of fruits and vegetables for the juices.
Here’s a sample of what you could include:
- Carrots
- Kale
- Apples
- Strawberries
- Lemons
- Fresh mint
- Spinach
- Oranges
- Blueberries
- Blackberries
- Ginger root
Start with these fruits and vegetables in your shopping cart.
Next Steps for a Liver Cancer Diet
This is enough to get your mind going in the right direction. Make an appointment to discuss a diet for liver cancer with your loved one’s dietitian and get the details today.