Helping Patients Reconnect With Food After Cancer Treatment

Dena Champion, a registered dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, sat down for an interview with CURE to explain that taste and smell changes from chemotherapy or radiation can make eating unenjoyable and challenging.

These changes, along with nausea and stress, can impact nutrition at a critical time. To help, programs like the Garden of Hope offer cancer survivors hands-on access to fresh fruits and vegetables and nutrition guidance. The garden grows a colorful variety of produce rich in phytochemicals and teaches survivors how to use unfamiliar foods.

For those without access to a garden, Champion suggests simple at-home strategies like growing herbs in pots or adding fresh flavors to water to help restore enjoyment and support a plant-forward diet.

CURE: Can you explain why that happens and how it affects a patient’s ability or motivation to eat well during recovery?

Champion: Yeah, you know, taste and smell changes are one of the biggest challenges for patients who are undergoing treatment, and those typically happen because of the treatment-related side effects. Oftentimes, patients are receiving chemotherapy, which can cause taste changes. Sometimes radiation can cause taste changes, depending on where the patient is being radiated. For example, if you’ve got radiation that is hitting your mouth or your tonsils, that can cause taste changes.

Taste changes are incredibly frustrating for people because they can cause them to not enjoy eating anymore, and that’s very foreign for most of us. Humans are meant to enjoy food, and most people have never experienced a time in their life where eating isn’t pleasurable. When patients experience these changes, it could look like a metallic aftertaste, a bitter taste, a salty taste, or sometimes everything just seems bland and flavorless. You can imagine how difficult it can be to find foods that are appealing.

What makes this really unfortunate is it’s a time when nutrition is so important. So you’re coupling these taste changes with perhaps nausea, which can also be a side effect, and perhaps the stress of the diagnosis. That really sets up a recipe for disaster when it comes to good nutrition, because it’s just so incredibly challenging to eat anything—much less healthy foods that patients really want to eat but find so difficult.

What inspired the creation of the Garden of Hope, and how does this program help patients reconnect with food after experiencing these challenges?

The Garden of Hope is a community garden that was specifically designed and created for cancer survivors and their caregivers. We have over 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables during the growing season here in Ohio, which runs June through October.

The program was developed to address a critical need: the recommendation for cancer survivors is to follow a plant-forward or plant-heavy diet, as recommended by the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research. But unfortunately, we know that most people, including cancer survivors, are not eating enough fruits and vegetables.

This garden directly provides fresh, nutritious produce in a supportive environment. It’s led by registered dietitians, so we are out there providing patients with hands-on nutrition education. We might talk about the particular produce they’re picking, give them nutritional insight about what they’re taking home, and provide practical, accessible, healthy recipe ideas they can use at home. That way, we’re not just giving them food but also the knowledge and confidence to use it.

Our hope is that by supplying fresh food and providing that education, we are inspiring and encouraging survivors to eat this more plant-forward diet, which is recommended for them.

How are the fruits, vegetables and herbs selected for the garden?

When we think about what we want for our survivors, we really want them to consume a variety of colors. A lot of those colors represent different phytochemicals.

Phytochemicals may sound like a big, fancy word, but all it means is a plant chemical — a compound inherent in a fruit or vegetable. It gives produce qualities like its color or the ability to withstand the sun or mold. For people, phytochemicals can act as antioxidants, decrease inflammation in the body, and even help prevent cancers from occurring or recurring.

We purposely choose a variety of colors. When you look at our garden, you’ll see purples, reds, oranges, greens — all of these beautiful colors. We also try to grow things people might feel intimidated cooking with. For example, most people have used carrots and lettuce, and we have those. But we also grow eggplant, kohlrabi,and sunchokes — foods that are less familiar. And we don’t just give them the produce; we teach them what to do with it, so they can expand their palate and hopefully eat a much larger variety of produce than before.

For patients who may not have access to a similar garden like the Garden of Hope, what are some simple ways they can recreate the core aspects of the program at home?

Unfortunately, most people aren’t going to have access to a garden like this. But there are things they can do. First of all, they can always ask their providers to refer them to a registered dietitian, which can be really empowering. That isn’t available at every cancer institution, but many do have access to dietitians who can help.

Another resource is the American Institute for Cancer Research (aicr.org), which provides evidence-based information and plant-based recipes.

For people who want that garden experience and fresh produce, some simple things you can grow at home are herbs in pots. I’ve done that myself, and as long as you have some sunshine and water them every few days, they’re easy. Basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme — those can be a really fun way to start, even if you’re in an apartment with just a balcony or a windowsill.

Fresh herbs can be great because they add different flavors to food. We talked about taste changes, and sometimes herbs or different flavors are actually appealing to people in a way they don’t expect.

I’ll give you an example: I had a patient who was really struggling with hydration. She told me, “Water just doesn’t taste good to me anymore, and I’m struggling to get enough.” We talked about flavors, and she ended up loving mint water, where she just used mint leaves to flavor her water. She also tried smashing lemongrass into her water, and she came back the next week saying, “I’m drinking my water.” So even small steps like that can make a big difference.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness

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