Unless you’ve had to undergo chemotherapy yourself, or have had a close relative or friend who’s had to, you’re probably unaware that many chemo patients suffer changes in their sense of taste during treatment, and that these changes can lead to loss of appetite and nutritional insufficiency…
A sample Chemo Kitchen recipe. Sounds great, even if you
don’t have a taste-sense impairment!
Many chemo patients report ‘metal mouth’, or a severe attenuation of the sense of taste. Others lose their sense pf taste altogether. Others say their favourite foods suddenly taste like dirt. But the cause of these wide-ranging effects is the same: chemotherapy is a drug regimen designed to kill fast-growing cells, like cancer cells. But taste buds, which turn over about every two weeks, are also affected
Chemo Kitchen Executive Director and Co-Founder, Michelle Abbess, told FoodBeast that she and project partner Cal McAlister, whose mother suffered intense taste change while on chemo, decided to ask a team of Award-Winning Chefs to come up with recipes for dishes that not only would taste good to chemo patients, but would provide visual interest and – perhaps most importantly – rich, satisfying aromas. The final version of the cookbook contains more than 50 recipes from more than 30 generous Chefs.
The Chemo Kitchen team has tested every Salad, Soup, Snack, and Main Dish recipe in their own kitchens and has tried them out on chemo patient volunteers, to rave reviews.
The result is a cookbook, Chemo Kitchen: Winning A Battle While The Doctors Fight The War, which Abbess and McAlister hope to distribute widely. To that end, they’ve set up a crowdfunding effort on Kickstarter with a goal of (US)$40,000. I’m happy to say that they’ve already surpassed their goal by about (US)$10,000, but pleading more money dimply means they can do more. There are about 12 hours left until their Kickstarter deadline. Go on in and find out more about this worthy project!
~ Maggie J.