Wow you guys are great. This thread has more responses than any I have had on GW. I thank all for your responses, and will keep all the info. It means more to hear personal experiences and what has worked &/or others tips. He is starting on supplements, but as most of us know they get old real quick. He has lost 70 lbs over the last couple of months. I am not going to save him my desire is to support him as long as possible so he hopefully dies at home with dignity rather than go into an institution. Anyway, I have been around so much cancer the last 6 years I thought I would share my thoughts also. Maybe another poor soul will someday be in the same boat & these posts can benefit them. Lindac: your shake idea is great. He has been eating mainly ice cream for the last couple of months, so adding the extra calories would be great. He has refused chemo, but I agree on the acidic stuff. I have helped another friend with meals and cancer, and the tomato stuff always causes indigestion. Fresh tomatoes seem to be less of a problem. Orange juice is a definite no sometimes apple juice helps. The Mexican food sounds good. I tried making cheese taquitoes (sp) yesterday with fresh tortillas from a tortilleria, but they flopped. I think I need to use the rolled ones. ginger_st_thomas: Great site. It will keep me busy for some time. The Individual Cheese Pies, Macaroni and Cheese, & Creamy Potato Salad will be at the top of the list. I cook by feel, & the recipes give me tips on how to add extra calories. He eats peanut butter, so the snack spread might work. woodie2: I really like your overnight breakfast casserole. I was making a meal for two people with cancer last night. Sometimes helping people with cancer gets tiring, & an easy meal helps the helper. The bacon bread is also a nice finger food, & the rice bake looks nice and different. Potpie: I find your post especially interesting, as my friend also has lung cancer. As I am sure you know, it is a particularly bad cancer, & your fil is lucky to be around. I will try the caramel apple idea. You also make an important point. When cooking for cancer, be prepared to have your dishes tossed out or not eaten as these individuals can be picky &/or too sick to eat certain things. The helper should not get upset about this, & not be offended. It is just part of the role of a helper. Daisyduckworth, I am so sorry to hear about your friend. What you describe your friend experiencing lies further down my friends path. He can eat a little now, but he has been warned his eating will be eventually affected. It is or can be part of living with cancer. Sometimes you work yourself to the bone hoping to see that unique recovery only to see death. You are so very right about letting him decide. Success in helping a person with cancer, in my opinion, is being there for that person in whatever manner possible so they write that last chapter. Your cutting up fruit is a very good tip. Sometimes people with cancer will not eat whole fruit, but having something cut up appeals to them. Lisbet, I think the brand you spoke of is down the street from me. I am going to check it out. It would be a break from the supplements if he likes it. I like the idea that he could take it with decreased renal function, as my friend has that problem. I will check this one with his dietitian, however. Potpie, medicinal marijuana is legal in California, although the state and federal government are always arguing as to whether it is legal. I agree, when living with cancer it is time to break the rules. Lindac again. Daisyduckworth makes a very important point. Sometimes the path is as the doctor predicts sometimes you never know the time the outcome etc. Sometimes the suffering is a long path, sometimes people that should completely go into remission suddenly die; sometimes those that are expected to die beat the odds. I have seen people recover, but I personally do not like the word "cured." It can come back, & I do not want to jinx any good fortune, nor add any more to the wounds of those who have lost loved ones to cancer. Having said all that, here is my very bland egg roll recipe: 2 carrots diced ½ head napa cabbage ½ onion 10 or so mushrooms Vegetarian oyster sauce I used a tad of msg on one batch, but its use is up to the user. I sauté all ingredients in order of cooking time & add them to the dish. I then stuff the egg roll, seal it with cornstarch liquid & fry it. It takes about 45 minutes for a small batch. It is not a sophisticated recipe but it worked. Here are some of the other things I have found to be helpful if that person can eat it. Hard boiled eggs. Easy to prepare, grab & eat. Cabbage dishes are another good idea, as well as sauerkraut. Good for digestion. Cooked popcorn can be less upsetting than microwave popcorn. Broccoli, broccoli, broccoli. Fresh fruits and snacks always available. High fiber cereals and a variety of liquids available for constipation. Oatmeal, if tolerated for a bland meal. Supplemental vitamins and digestive enzymes if possible. These people need all the help they can get. Consider decreasing the meat. If they are losing weight, one may need to break the rules & add more meat. Last tip break the rules now & then. Remember stubbornness can be annoying, but sometimes it provides the fight that can result in more time. Please keep adding your comments and tips if you think of more. Baci

Carol: Some doctors mistake phytoestrogen (God-made & natural) with chemical estrogen (man-made). My Swedish mother-in-law grew up drinking tons of cow-milk (zero flax, zero soy), and had a mastectomy at 40 year old. No history of breast-cancer in my family of 9 girls (I'm the youngest girl), nor in my Mom nor Dad's side ... we eat tons of soy-products in Vietnam & zero cow milk. I got curious about phytoestrogen (occur naturally in plants) versus chemical hormones added to cow milk .. found this article from Cornell University: "A diet rich in phytoestrogens has been proposed as a way to decrease breast cancer risk. Some, but not all studies show that women with a diet high in phytoestrogens, including vegans (who eat no animal foods) and women who eat diets high in soy products, have lower rates of breast cancer. Why is this so? Most phytoestrogens are not stored in the body, but are quickly broken down. Phytoestrogens are weak estrogens, and may prevent stronger human estrogens from binding to the estrogen receptor. If the weaker estrogens bind to the receptor instead of the stronger ones, there may be less breast cell division. Women with diets rich in phytoestrogens also excrete more estrogens into their urine, and have lower blood estrogen levels. Some studies have shown that women with a diet rich in phytoestrogens have longer, and hence fewer, menstrual cycles. All of these factors may contribute to reduced breast cancer risk." http://www.envirocancer.cornell.edu/FactSheet/General/fs10.estrogen.cfm Below excerpt is from Oncology nutrition - Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics " Animal studies have shown that both flaxseed oil and lignans can reduce breast tumor growth and spread, even for ER- cancer cells. This result suggests that flaxseeds may have anti-cancer benefits that are unrelated to any type of effect on estrogen or estrogen metabolism." https://www.oncologynutrition.org/erfc/hot-topics/flaxseeds-and-breast-cancer/ Phytoestrogen is DIFFERENT from chemical hormones injected into cow to make them produce milk longer. An excerpt from below link: "new study out of Harvard University showing that pasteurized milk product from factory farms is linked to causing hormone-dependent cancers. It turns out that the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) model of raising cows on factory farms churns out milk with dangerously high levels of estrone sulfate, an estrogen compound linked to testicular, prostate, and breast cancers. Dr. Ganmaa Davaasambuu, Ph.D., and her colleagues specifically identified "milk from modern dairy farms" as the culprit, referring to large-scale confinement operations where cows are milked 300 days of the year, including while they are pregnant. Compared to raw milk from her native Mongolia, which is extracted only during the first six months after cows have already given birth, pasteurized factory milk was found to contain up to 33 times more estrone sulfate. http://www.naturalnews.com/035081_pasteurized_milk_cancer_dairy.html#ixzz3uj5y7wGc Havard-trained doctor Andrew Weil, M.D. stated "Among women, milk consumption has been associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer in both the Nurses' Health Study and in a 2005 study from Sweden's Karolinska Institute. Organic milk is better in many respects than conventional milk but still may be full of natural hormones. My advice: cut down on dairy products. Substitute soy milk for cow's milk when possible. Andrew Weil, M.D." From Physicians committee for responsible medicine "In international and interregional correlational studies, dairy product consumption has been consistently associated with prostate cancer mortality.3-7 The largest and most recent of these, based on World Health Organization mortality figures for 1985-1989 from 59 countries and United Nations food balance data for 1979-1981, reported a strong correlation between per capita milk consumption and prostate cancer mortality (r = 0.78, P<0.0001).7 A more geographically restricted study, conducted in 20 Italian regions, found a similar correlation between prostate cancer mortality and milk consumption (r = 0.75, P <0.01).6 http://www.pcrm.org/health/health-topics/milk-consumption-and-prostate-cancer *** From Straw: Agree with all the above researches, I gave flax oil to my kid to improve her eczema (skin-rash). I'm taking flax oil & flax seeds to improve my skin-rash. I develop an allergic reaction to the new batch of fish-oil (really stinky) .. and I still need Omega-3 for my dry-hands.

There's a side-effect of Brewer's yeast: selenium-overdose, so cut back when you see the below signs of selenium-overdose, like garlic-breadth, below is from Livestrong.com: Hair, Nail, Teeth and Skin Changes Common early symptoms of selenium toxicity and poisoning involve the hair and nail beds of the hands and feet. Excessive selenium causes brittle hair, hair loss, deformed nails, brittle nails, sloughing off of nails, tooth discoloration, tooth decay and mottled or discolored skin. Jess: If you take Solgar probiotic and Brewer's Yeast together, the Brewer's Yeast has Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a relative of Saccharomyces boulardii yeast (Florastor probiotics). Any yeast/fungus will wipe out BOTH beneficial bacteria and bad bacteria. Antibiotic penicillin is made from a yeast, or fungus. I once asked the biggest company in probiotics (Hyperbiotics) why don't they put Saccharomyces boulardii into their 15-bacteria-strains. They say that yeast will contaminate and wipe out the 15 good bacteria-strains. I STOP TAKING BREWER'S YEAST today for that reason, and for the research I did in the thread, "To your Mom", where I learned that Brewer's yeast kills both the bad bacteria like E. Coli, Salmonella, plus the good bacteria. Also I took only 1/2 tablespoon per day, but its high selenium made my fingernail chipped, plus I lost more hair. My hair is very thick, but it's annoying to see hair in the family's dinner. Nothing is wrong with Solgar, never see a bad review for that probiotics, and both I and my kid are taking Solgar-multidophilus for the past 2 weeks, zero gas nor tummy upset, UNTIL I took Brewer's yeast for the past 4 days. Then I got tummy-ache. Lots of people complain of tummy ache with Brewer's yeast on Amazon reviews. Four days of Brewer's yeast is like being on antibiotics again, since it wiped out the good bacteria that helped me to digest milk & cheese. So I have to take L. Acidophilus again just to digest dairy. I see brewer's yeast being useful only few days per week to supply B-vitamins & chromium .. then take a probiotics (good-bacteria like Solgar) at least 10 hours apart from brewer's yeast. That's what I did with antibiotics (which is a yeast/fungus): take it at breakfast & then at 4 pm, and wait for 7 hours before I took probiotics (good bacteria) before bed-time, to help digest my dinner. At the end when antibiotics Doxycycline tortured me with gas & upset tummy, I had to take probiotics (good bacteria) with antibiotics but I spaced them apart, with at least 7 hours gap. Here's from U. of Maryland Medical center: http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/brewers-yeast Side effects from brewer's yeast: gas. People who have frequent yeast infections or who are allergic to yeast should avoid brewer's yeast. From WebMD: People who are allergic or sensitive to yeast might experience itching and swelling. Crohn’s disease: Brewer's yeast can make Crohn's disease worse. Don’t use brewer’s yeast if you have Crohn’s disease.

Jess: Remember the puzzle over what cause our cravings for sweets ?? I still take Brewer's yeast (high in chromium, B vitamins, selenium) for my sweets-craving. I consumed Brewer's yeast for my immune when I was sick with flu-shot reaction, it took away my craving for sugar (despite drinking just lemons, no sugar). Now I cut down to 1/4 dose (only twice a week), just to supply chromium to stabilize my blood sugar. It does help with craving for sweets, see below excerpt: http://www.livestrong.com/article/101523-herbs-lose-weight/ "Chromium: This trace mineral helps metabolize carbohydrates. Some diabetics take it to help stabilize their blood sugar. It also can be used to curb cravings for sweets. Susan Brown, a certified clinical nutritionist in East Syracuse, New York. She recommended 200 micrograms of chromium four times per day to a woman who craved sweets. The woman was amazed at how quickly her cravings were tamed." *** From Straw: Months ago, I reported that eating eggs daily helped with my craving for sweets ... found that eggs are good sources of chromium: Foods High in Natural Chromium Beef Brewer’s Yeast Dark Chocolate Chicken Eggs Oysters Potatoes with the skin on Whole Grains Apples Read more: http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/sugar-cravings-how-to-control/#ixzz44hqTBlAK WebMD also reported that chromium helps with craving for sweets, see below: " June 3, 2004 -- A popular nutritional supplement may reduce serious carb cravings in people with depression. The supplement is chromium picolinate. John P. Docherty, MD, president of Comprehensive Neuroscience Inc., White Plains, N.Y., and adjunct professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, penned the report. Docherty's study enrolled 113 people with atypical depression. Two-thirds took chromium picolinate supplements for eight weeks, and one-third got a placebo. Researchers found that atypical depression patients who also had carb cravings improved with chromium compared to placebo. "In that group with high carb craving -- a third of the patients -- we had a very significant benefit from chromium picolinate," Docherty says. "Compared with placebo, it had a 2-to-1 advantage in reducing depression overall." http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20040603/chromium-may-cut-carb-craving-in-depression?page=2 **** From Straw: I used to buy chromium supplement but threw that away, after studies linked that to liver-damage. Brewer's yeast is much better, since it has all B vitamins, along with chromium and selenium. Will have to find the amount of chromium and selenium in the dosage.