Finding Comfort, Joy, and Healing in Food

Cookbook Author and Chef Rebecca Katz Shares Her Tricks for Re-Awakening Taste Buds

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Caring4Cancer magazine.

At a moment in life when nothing may feel in control, taking the time to create a simple, delicious dish can be a lifeline, a reaffirmation of your humanity. 
    -- Rebecca Katz, “One Bite at a Time”

Preparing and enjoying a delicious meal can be one of life’s greatest pleasures—a source of comfort, joy, and healing for both body and soul. Yet if you are someone battling cancer, that can be challenging. Cancer and cancer treatments—radiation, chemotherapy, and some medications—can wreak havoc on taste buds and create taste changes that make food unappetizing. Fatigue and other side effects may leave you too tired to shop or to cook, and that creates yet another roadblock to eating well. Luckily, even in the midst of cancer, there are simple ways to overcome some of these obstacles and enjoy delicious, nutritious meals.

“You have to make food your ally as you march through treatment,” says Rebecca Katz, the author of “One Bite at a Time” (Celestial Arts), a pioneering cookbook and nutritional guide for cancer patients and caregivers that is now in its fourth printing. Food isn’t a cure or a replacement for treatment, but it can help you enormously, not only by providing you with the physical strength you need but a psychological boost—the power of “yum” as she calls it.

Katz is senior chef at the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Bolinas, Calif., one of the nation’s most highly respected cancer wellness centers. Praised by oncologists and cancer wellness professionals for her fresh, yet scientifically informed, approach to health supportive cuisine, Katz has developed ways of using simple ingredients, such as olive oil and maple syrup, to season dishes and overcome, or compensate for, taste changes that cancer patients sometimes experience and that can sour them on eating.

She has worked with many cancer patients who were on restricted diets and who had little interest in eating until she served them a delicious bowl of soup, for example. “You have to grab people by their taste buds,” she says with a smile.

Katz wrote “One Bite at a Time” in part because when her father was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999 she could find few resources to guide her in cooking for him. She was a chef at one of Northern California’s finest organic restaurants at the time and had not yet started working with cancer patients. She needed to find meals that her father, who was in the food business and loves good food, could easily swallow and, just as importantly, enjoy. The few resources she could find took a utilitarian approach that seemed to ignore the importance of flavor and the complexities of taste.
 
“Most people feel totally overwhelmed at first,” Katz says. “Food becomes a very emotional issue.” Katz, who refers to herself as a culinary translator, shows people how to creatively translate what their doctor or dietitian has told them they can eat into delicious meals they can enjoy. One of her goals in writing “One Bite at a Time,” she says, was to give people recipes built around ingredients that would not only bolster the immune system but work well with healthy substitutions.

Putting “FASS” To Work for You

Eating is a sensory experience, an intricate interplay of smell, taste, and sight. Taste buds, the tiny sensory organs on the surface of the tongue, allow us to perceive the flavors in the food we eat and the liquids we drink. However, cancer and cancer treatments can knock your taste buds for a loop, making food just not taste right.
For example, chemotherapy, radiation, and some medications may cause an increased sensitivity to sour or bitter tastes, or create a metallic taste; food may taste bland or taste like cardboard. These taste changes may be temporary or permanent.
 
“If your sense of taste is off you can lose your connection to food and become less interested in eating,” Katz says. To overcome this, Katz has developed a simple tool that she calls “FASS” (“Fat,” “Acid,” “Salt,” and “Sweet”) for “tricking the taste buds and making the natural flavors in any dish soar.”

You can put FASS into action with only four ingredients, says Katz: extra virgin olive oil (the fat); lemon juice (the acid); sea salt (the salt); and Grade B organic maple syrup (the sweet). These are ingredients that you use while cooking or preparing a dish.

For example, if you have mouth sores, you need to cut back on acids (especially citric acid) and add a little fat, such as extra virgin olive oil, and sweet flavoring to dishes, Katz says. The fat creates a coating action that smoothes over mouth sores, and the sweet teases the taste buds at the front of the mouth, in turn coaxing the appetite. She recommends Grade B organic maple syrup because it is more flavorful than refined sugar and does a great job of cutting the acid and bitterness in any dish.   

If food tastes bland, or like cardboard, try adding a few drops of an acid flavor, such as lemon, lime, or vinegar, Katz says. The acid flavor will animate the other flavors in the dish, making them easier to taste. If you’re experiencing a metallic, sharp taste in your mouth, try adding a few drops of a healthy fat like olive oil and a little bit of sea salt, she says. Katz prefers sea salt over regular salt because it doesn’t have the bitter taste that regular, iodized salt does. Many supermarkets, as well as organic food and specialty stores, carry sea salt.

Honing your taste buds takes trial and error. Be willing to experiment and give yourself permission to “taste, taste, taste” as you go, Katz says. (To learn more about FASS, see the “FASS Tip Sheet.”)

Getting Ready to Eat Well During Treatment

Once treatment begins, the last thing you may feel like doing is shopping and cooking. Yet your need for good nutrition is especially important at this time. It’s important to have a “culinary game plan” in place, Katz says. Ideally, you should do this before treatment begins, but if your treatments have already started, it’s not too late. Here are some tips Katz offers to ensure that you have a variety of palate-pleasing meals on hand at all times:

• Get a list of foods that you can and can’t eat from your doctor or dietitian. Start going through your pantry and refrigerator to make space and get your kitchen organized.
• Invite a friend to be a “cooking buddy” and help you start cooking and freezing nutritious meals in small (2-cup or 4-cup) containers that can be ready and reheated in a flash. (See the recipe for “Magic Mineral Broth.” “Magic Mineral Broth” is packed with minerals that can be depleted by the side effects of cancer therapy. It also freezes well.) Clearly label and date each container. Food can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.
• Consider forming a “culinary support team.” Remember friends will want to help but may not know what you need. Assign chores that you know you’ll need done but may not have enough energy to do once treatment begins, such as stopping at the farmer’s market, keeping your kitchen stocked with paper products, and so on.

To make your own delicious and nutritious meal, click on one of Rebecca's recipes below:

Chicken...Roasted All The Way to Yum! 

Magic Mineral Broth 

Jicama and Red Cabbage Salad 

Tuscan Bean Soup and Kale 

Best Oatmeal Ever