Welcome our Online Cooking for Chemo Class page! Here you are able to watch (and re-watch) a Cooking for Chemo Class in the comfort of your own home! The video is found at the bottom of this page after the list of required ingredients and resources.
This class is a fun, energetic, and interactive discussion about food and flavor. We will discuss how your taste and flavor perception can change during and after cancer treatment. In this class, Chef Ryan Callahan will teach the fundamentals of flavor, origin, and function, as well as how to combat the most common eating-related side-effects. A tasting demonstration will teach you the five basic flavors of salty, savory, spicy, sour, and sweet.
Class requires the following ingredients to be tasted to have the full experience of the class:
1 teaspoon of the following ingredients:
1: Salt (coarse ground or table salt)
2: Soy Sauce (an authentic, brewed soy sauce preferably Kikkoman)
3: Ground Black Pepper (coarse ground or table grind)
4: Red Wine Vinegar or Lemon Juice
5: Sugar (regular white sugar if not available honey is an acceptable substitute)
You can put these ingredients into portion cups, disposable cups, regular cups, or any container that can be easily accessed during the class. DO NOT MIX THESE INGREDIENTS KEEP THEM SEPERATE.
We also request that you grab two to three herbs or spices from your kitchen to smell during the class.
You’ll also need the following Class Guides:
Cooking for Chemo Interactive Class Guide
Cooking for Chemo Printable Class Guide
These are two different versions of the same document. “Interactive” can be filled out on a computer or tablet and then either printed or emailed directly to your dietitian, and “Printable” is designed to be printed at home and then filled out by hand. Otherwise they are identical. You will need an application on your device that can read PDF Files.
Here is a link to Adobe Acrobat if you do not have a PDF Reader.
What’s in these class guides? These new documents are 17 pages long and include the following:
1: An introduction to the subject matter and how to use the guide.
2: Cooking for Chemo video class minutes.
3: Printouts for the at-home participant that allows you to get all the ingredients you need for the tasting demonstrations as well as pages to fill out what you experience. This is for the 5 flavors and for the broth demonstration as well.
4: A few handy charts showing where you can find each flavor, and how to easily correct flavor in a dish.
5: A Smell Game printout that you can fill out at home on your own time.
6: A tasting journal page that you can practice with.
7: Last but not least a Self Evaluation that asks “Where are You Now?” and allows you to go through all five of your senses plus memory and association to identify what experiences you are having success with and which ones you are not having success with. This self-evaluation can be filled out as many times as you would like.
What I love about this self-evaluation is that it will give you a real tangible guide to your senses. It allows you to work more closely with your dietitians who can read your responses and help you to find foods that will meet your nutritional needs, while also staying within your ability to eat. It’s really a win-win for everyone.
The most important part of this self-evaluation is to go through the CFC class material first though. Like I always say, it’s not the recipes that are going to help you, it is understanding what foods taste good, and which ones taste bad that are going to help you.
If anyone has any questions whatsoever please let me know and I’d be more than happy to address them.
Chef Ryan Callahan: [email protected]