Page 19 - Family Help

Appendix

Appendix

The art of eating
Following an oesophagectomy or gastrectomy, it is important that you change
your eating habits of a lifetime. Rather than having three large meals per day, you
need to eat at least SIX times per day; three small main meals interspersed with
nourishing snacks.

It is important to remember to drink between meals so that you are able to eat
food at mealtimes.

If the smell of cooking makes you feel sick, use convenience foods –
supermarkets have a range of frozen, chilled or packet ready meals and home
delivered frozen meals are also available. You won't need to rely on these
sources of foods for any great length of time. Alternatively ask friends and family
to cook at their houses and bring cooked food to you.

Another way to avoid eating difficulties is to cook enough food for two meals and
freeze one for a different day.

Following are some meal ideas for when you have progressed beyond a soft and
bite sized diet.

Breakfast
• Instead of plain egg and bacon, fry the egg and add a slice of buttered
toast.
• Stewed fruit with full fat yoghurt.
• Muffin or crumpet with butter.
• Full fat yoghurt with nuts, seeds and dried fruit.
• Ready Brek or Weetabix with fortified milk* and a sprinkle of sugar.
• Porridge with fortified milk and added sugar or honey.
* fortified milk is full cream milk or semi-skinned milk with 4 tablespoons of
skimmed milk powder added.

Mid-morning
Try having one of the following with your mid-morning cup of coffee or tea:
biscuits; a slice of your favourite cake; a couple of squares of your favourite
chocolate; fromage frais, full fat yoghurt, milky pudding or plain custard. Or for
those of you with a more savoury tooth, try having crackers and cheese; bread
sticks and a protein based dip, such as hummus, ideally try to eat something that
provides you with protein such as crackers with pate or cheese rather than just
biscuits or cake.

Lunch
• Jacket potatoes mash the centre of the potato with extra butter and add a
filling such as, cheese, baked beans, chicken or tuna and mayonnaise or
tinned oily fish.
• Beans or cheese on toast or tinned, oily fish on toast.

15