Apologies, I am posting-crazy tonight, but I had my 3rd FEC today and can’t have a drink so here I am instead ;D
Just wondered about something a colleague said … she is 5 years post-chemo (just finished tamoxifen) and was told not to eat microwave meals as they are dangerous and carcinogenic (spelling?). Anyone else heard this? Is this just another one of these dodgy rumours?!
I’m sure eating only fresh healthy food is best but not always achieveable! sorry about spelling today folks! ;D Lynne x
I really don’t know to be honest all id ever heard is microwaving in plastic containers is not that good as the hard plastics give off some PVC’s into the foods, yes its all very well eating healthy but at times when having treatments im sure microwaving is better than going hungry if you’ve no energy to cook up something fresh, if you’ve nobody to do some cooking for you. I wouldn’t worry too much get through your treatments the best way you can, save your energy you can concentrate on the other things when you have the energy.
eat as well as you can, drink lots of fluids, sleep when your bod tells you … I think thats all that matters right now.
I was told only this week by the hypno lady that the problem lies in heating the food (whether in micro or conventional oven) in the plaggy containers. She said simply to decant them into (say) a Pyrex dish.
a subject close to my heart. Not for cancer but for general health.
worst of all, pre-prepared meals in plastic containgers with a list of ingreanats as long as your arm, heated up in microwave.
better, if you need to get a good variety of food down you, top range pre-prepared meals with ingreadiants your granny would recognise decanted into a glass dish and microwaved at a lower power than they say.
ok-ish home prepared foods, in glass containers microwaved cos its quick.
Basically any food cooked at realy high temperatures alters the chemical chains in the food so they are harder to digest and other things that my son once explained, but i forgot, but just avoid even heating things up in the microwave.Not paranoid, just try to avoid it.
I buy expensive traditionally reared meat and veg so want to make sure i get the best out of it by taking that bit longer to cook it.
That is very true OAL but I think anyone going through chemo needs to just do whats best the week or days in particular when they know they are going to feel & be quite poorly & zapped of any energy & if that means shoving some food in microwave for those days lets face it your filed with poison metals during chemo … ok if you have someone to prepare cook foods for you during these days, even if you prepared foods on your good day & weeks some just want the lesser hastle of heating it in the microwave but yes glass oven proof dishes are best to heat them in
Lynne eat what you fancy & easy way possible for you at the moment … drink lots of water sweetie xxx
I think this is another case of “everything in moderation”. Sometimes we feel just too flipping tired to do anything more than drag our corpses into the kitchen and collapse in front of the freezer. And if you need some calories inside you, surely as long as you don’t actually climb into the microwave beside your dinner it’s not going to kill you? I’m sure it’s better to eat than just eat nothing because you’re too knackered to prepare it. I think we often fall victim to the idea that we have to be supermum. For goodness sake even without cancer and chemo and rads and other poisons, sometimes it’s too much to cook a meal from scratch, so if you don’t manage it WITH poisons, don’t feel bad.
I find a useful way of dealing with the “I’m too flipping knackered to do any cooking” is to do bucket cookery on my good weeks (chilli, spag bol with loads of veg, even veg soup, that kind of thing) and freeze stuff in single portions, which I can then bung into a saucepan (or, yes, I admit it, the microwave) while the rice or pasta or potatoes are cooking.
sorry, I realy did not mean to sound judgemental. I have been using a microwave solidly for years, I got one before they were available in the high street, got it from an industrial supplier. Remember being paranoid that it was under the counter at belly level when i was pregnant-- what if it was leaking radiation?? Got a man to come in and test it–another waste of money.
having three children under two and a half it was a life saver, and when feeding three hungry teenagers an essential part of the kitchen.
Its only recently I have stopped using it, and like any new convert to any creed I jumped in and ranted on about it.
I dont think using a microwave to get some food down, especially when trying to avoid the plastic is a totally bad thing, I just prefer not to do it now that I have only myself to cook for and all the time in the world to do it.
I was given a huge lists of foods to eat not to eat etc and it only mentions cook well. When my mums friend had chemo a few yrs back she was told no microwave, but I think that was because they were not as efficient and you used to get cold spots! I also agree fresh is best, but on bad days you do what you can. Chemo week is mr tesco prepared meals for 3-4 days till I feel ok, it’s what works for you.
Thanks for that link Cheryl, its very refreshing to see some sensible information being put on the forums,there are so many myths about what causes /contributes to Cancer that its very easy for people to become scared about stuff unnecessarily .
Linda x
Cherry - this research was published recently, and may be too recent to have been taken into account by the cancer research uk people - but it comes to a very different conclusion. It found that all the plastic containers they tested leached chemicals with reliably detected estrogenic activity:
xx