 Hi, I'm Chef Robin. Welcome. This is a hands in the kitchen workshop and today we're going to be talking about restorative foods. Restorative foods are foods that promote healing and also balance. So if you're out of balance, if your gut biome has more bad gut bacteria than good gut bacteria, it can make you ill. It can lead to other distressing situations. So we want to talk about those foods that can help us stay in balance day to day. We also want to talk about foods that help that nausea tamp it down so that we have a nice tummy feeling most of the time. We want to talk about once we've gotten over our nausea how to increase our appetite if we've lost our appetite. So 10 tips to increase our appetite. We're also going to actually look at those foods that can reduce our level of pain. Whether you have a wound, whether you're recovering from surgery, whether you've just scraped your knee. They're actually food products, whole foods that can address some of that pain issue. We want to talk about foods that will help us heal quicker and speed our recovery quicker. And then we want to finish up about talking about during chemo treatment or radiation treatment when you lose your appetite completely and you may not have a lot of weight and you want to put on weight. How you can stay and treat yourself during that treatment time and get your calories boosted back up. So restorative foods are foods that promote healing and balance. They also enhance our immune function. They heal wounds. They're antivirals. They provide fuel throughout your day. They give us pain relief. They're antioxidant, antiviral, antibacterial. They're nutrient dense. So we want to center when we're not feeling well or we're in recovery. We want to focus on those nutrient dense healing foods and foods that have those properties. So let's talk about nausea, which we all have experienced at one point in time for various different reasons. The definition of nausea is stomach distress, like SOS in your stomach. And the urge to vomit, where you can't keep down anything that you've eaten or drank drunk. There are a lot of different causes to nausea. You could be on a boat and get seasick. You could have an infection that's making you feel bad. Lots of people have side effects from prescriptions that they're on. Also if you're getting chemo treatment, that may make you nauseous. You may have allergies to certain foods that you're not aware of. Odors sometimes can set off nausea or pain. If it's extreme, can make you also nauseous. Stress can make you nauseous. And also if you're pregnant, that can make you nauseous. Early months of pregnancy. So what do you want to do about it? The very first thing that I'm going to talk to you about is ginger. Ginger is like the bee end and end all of healthy foods that you should have in your kitchen. Ginger looks like this in this kind of form. It's a little bit difficult to deal with sometimes. Usually you don't eat this skin, but you can just take a peeler, a vegetable peeler, and it will peel that skin right off. So if you want to make your own ginger tea, you just want to take boiling water. About a two inch piece of ginger, sorry. Like that knob right there would be great. Slice it very thin. Make sure it's clean. I would wash it off underneath the veggie brush and underneath the spigot. Make sure it's clean. Slice it thinly. And then just add honey if you'd like. Maple syrup if you'd like. A pinch of cinnamon if cinnamon is fun for you. And you have ginger tea. You made yourself. You could also make iced ginger tea, you know, that would be refreshing in the summer hot months. But there are also products out in the market if you don't want to go to the chore yourself. Bigelow is a very well-known tea company that's been around for years. And this is a lemon ginger tea with probiotics. So it's great. It's very healthy for you. We know lemon is healthy for you if you're trying to recover. Ginger is great as far as settling digestive issues, settling your stomach, keeping your vitals in a good way. So if you don't want to make your own tea, there are various products on the market for you to just get a tea bag and go to it. But making it is kind of fun too. You smell this ginger aroma. It's really fun. So ginger is way up there for me. Super food. Another thing that's great as far as nausea are bland bananas. Bananas kind of like soak up that bile that's in your stomach. Bananas are also really easy to digest. They're also nutrient packed. So if you're eating a banana and you don't feel well, you're going to get some nutrients that you're losing through vomiting or whatever. You're also going to kind of tamp down that bile action in your stomach. And bananas are pretty cost effective when you buy them. They're not really that expensive and they're easy to use. So also your mother might have set you up when you were ill with a tummy ache, with ginger ale and saltine crackers. So dry bites. Toast is great. Saltines are great. Pretzels are great. White pasta is good. Anything that's going to help to kind of like contain that action in your stomach and relieve the kind of spasmodic stuff going on, the bile creation in your stomach is great. And you just want to try and eat something. Empty stomachs are not good because they just keep creating that bile. So try a dry bite. Try some ginger tea or ginger ale. Stay hydrated. It's really important because if you have been sick with vomiting or you have been sick with just nothing taste right at all and you're not drinking, you're losing all of your electrolytes or you're losing fuel. It's just dangerous to get too dehydrated. So water is a good go to. But also there's popsicles out there that are 100% fruit juice that are very tasty. Gatorade is also an electrolyte replenisher. Miso soup is a really good probiotic warming kind of very easy. You make it like bouillon. Miso is a paste that's fermented from soybeans. You add water to it. You stir it. It dissolves. It's too salty and more water. It's really a non-recipied recipe to use Miso. But it's very strengthening for you and it just gives you a comfortable feeling and really helps to deal with nausea. So you want to stay hydrated with either cold, odorless liquids or warm, nourishing broths and tea. Ginger tea is not the only herbal tea that will calm your stomach. Chamomile tea is great. Peppermint tea is great. Even chewing on peppermint if you're in the garden will help your stomach to kind of rest. When you get to the point where you can start taking small bites when you've tamped down that nausea enough where you feel like you may be able to keep something down go for really soft things. Applesauce is a good thing to start with. It also has vitamins. It also has fiber even if it's in an applesauce form. Yogurt is very replenishing as far as protein goes. Your protein forward with yogurt and it's also very available. You can buy single serving sizes of yogurt now to where you don't feel like you're going to be wasteful. Lots of people like Jell-O because it's very easy to eat. It can be flavored. It can have items like fruit put into it. So you want to start with taking small bites throughout the day. Don't necessarily just confine yourself to a certain time of the day for eating but let yourself enjoy food once you get an appetite back. So once we've knocked out that nausea and we feel like we're back to wanting to eat one way that we can increase our appetite increase our calorie level is to actually set an alarm for meal time. You don't have to eat in the morning, at noon, at dinner. You should eat when you feel hungry. And if you don't remember to eat, schedule it on the clock and go for five to six small meals and snacks a day. If you feel up to it, just eat. So eat more often. Five to six small meals and snacks a day at least. Because if you've been ill your body has not been getting that nourishment and it's trying to catch up to getting better. So you want to help it along. You want to smart small but get started. Get started at breakfast time if you can. Whether that's with a toasted English muffin or a slice of whole wheat bread but you want to get started. I can't say enough in the promotion of oatmeal. Oatmeal has great fats. Oatmeal has protein. Oatmeal is super easy to make. The evening before you can take oatmeal, put it in your bowl, pour boiling water over it, set it aside with something on the top. And the next morning you're good to go. Add some blueberries, add some strawberries, add some maple syrup, add nothing at all. But that's going to be soothing for you. That's going to promote digestion for you. It's going to give you protein for energy and cell building. So oatmeal is great. And start building that plate size throughout the day. So if you start with something small in the morning are able to keep it down, stay hydrated. Eat a little bit more mid-morning. Eat a little bit more at lunchtime. Try and eat a little bit more as the day goes on. But just stay eating. Keep snacks available for you. Keep good healthy things available for you. Because you're building yourselves back up, you want to try and eat protein at every meal or every snack. You want protein-driven forward foods. And it's very easy to find protein-driven forward foods. Now in the supermarket, it's like everywhere you look. But we know proteins come from animal products. They come from dairy products. They're in nuts and seeds. They're in cheese and dairy. They're available. So the availability should be there for you to find something that your body will be able to take in and enjoy. You want to go nutrient-dense and high-calorie. So if you're able to, enjoy nut butters. If you can't do peanut butter, now there's almond butter. There's sunflower seed butter. There's all kinds of variety. If you don't feel like you can just munch down on an apple or apple sauce, dried fruit is really good. Dried fruit you can suck on, gives you energy, gives you sweetness if you're desiring sweetness and helps you get through your day as a good snack. Avocados, cheese are also high protein, high fat, getting you back to normal. And granola bars, like this product right here, protein across the top. It is a sugared product. It's not as healthy as you'd like, but it has oats. It has, this one has coconut and almonds. Almonds we know are a powerhouse of nutrients. So if it comes down to eating something that maybe isn't 100% the healthiest product and not eating, go for what you like. Just make sure you try to eat something. And you want to indulge in those whole fats. Like I was talking about the dairy foods or gravy or cream sauces or chocolate. So just go for it. It's when you don't feel well and you're trying to get back to feeling well, allow yourself to break out of that necessarily healthiest, healthiest routine. Because if you're able to keep a food product down, you want to eat that food product. So you want to drink before or after your meal. You don't necessarily want to sit down and have an 8 ounce glass of beer or wine or with your meal when you're recovering because that will take part in filling you up. So you actually want to fill up on real food first and then have something to drink or have something to drink about 30 minutes before you eat. And then the other thing that can increase your appetite is actually moving your body. When you don't feel well and you don't really want to get up because the TV's on or you're just able to sit there, you're not going to create an appetite. Moving your body will help you get to the point where you're going to feel hungry. And once you start to feel hungry, that's kind of your body's signal to you that maybe it's ready for food. So even if it's just taking your walker down the hallway, even if it's just taking the elevator down and coming back up on the steps if you're able, try and make that happen. Set yourself a challenge if you're watching TV or have the TV on. Try to say after the 20th commercial that you're going to get up, even if it's just getting up from your chair and doing something like this. Even if it's just moving your body like this, try to make some movement happen that your body recognizes that you're creating appetite. Because just being sedentary really doesn't allow your body to really use calories so you can't build up an appetite if you're not doing anything at all. I guess if you're doing brain work, you're still doing some calorie burning, but we really want to move our body somehow or the other. And while we're enjoying food, you want to actually be conscious of enjoying food. You want to savor every bite. You want to chew it up. You want to swallow it. You want to start that digestion process in your mouth while it's happening. Don't just gulp down. Don't just disregard. Actually have a level of gratitude. Have a level of mindfulness. Be aware that if you've been ill, this is your way to get healthier. This is your way to maintain health by actually eating and putting in nutrients. So be aware of that and enjoy it and take your time with it. Nobody's going to set a clock watch if you don't finish something or there's no reason really to rush. So savor every bite. Let's talk about specific foods now that do reduce pain or hurry healing or speed recovery. So I talked about ginger before. Ginger is one of those go-tos. Ginger can help you with sore muscles and joints. And ginger in the medical world is also known as panof. P-O-N-V. Ginger is known as prevention and reduction of post-operative nausea and vomiting. So it's really kind of exciting to me that it's recognized so well for what it does that it has kind of like a medical label to it and can be prescribed. Again, if you don't want to deal with ginger in this kind of form, there are ginger teas, there are ginger capsules you can take, there is ginger in a little tablet that's kind of like a ginger chew. It's actually more available than you would know and easy to go and include in your diet. So ginger is way up there as far as something to take care of yourself with. Cherries. People are not so knowing of cherries, but cherries are great for tired muscles. They really act as a natural, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. They also are called a mace ad. So black cherry juice and you want to try and get something that's 100% juice, not with a lot of fillers in it, but it can act like an anti-inflammatory just like aspirin. So black cherry juice is really healthy for you and it's not hard to find. I found this on the grocery store shelf. So again, it's a good product. If it's too strong for you, you can dilute it with water. But I do encourage you to enjoy cherries. If you don't like cherry juice, cherries are in season now. Maybe you don't want to mess with a stem in a pit, so there is juice available. But they really promote cherries as something for muscles that are tired and achy. The turmeric is getting a lot of press now. This is what turmeric looks like. It's very similar to ginger. It's a little rhizome or root that lives under the ground and is harvested like this. But we don't usually see turmeric in the root form. We oftentimes see turmeric as a spice to use in our kitchen. It's a brilliant orange color. It's very similar to curry. It's used in a lot of curry cooking. If curry cooking and curry flavoring is not necessarily your favorite go-to, you may want to look into turmeric capsules or a turmeric vitamin addition. And I even saw the Bigelow products also have turmeric and ginger tea that you can take. So turmeric is out there in different forms for you to enjoy and incorporate in your diet. Cherries, berries, garlic and ginger, hot peppers. Now hot peppers are not everybody's go-to, but hot peppers are really impressive in terms of how they can help you if you have arthritis pain. Hot peppers contain capsaicin and that stimulates your nerve endings. But also while it does that, it depletes a chemical that relays pain signals. So you're kind of, if you eat hot peppers, it kind of is like playing a trick on your brain where it stops those pain signals and makes you feel better. So if you can't tolerate hot peppers, bell peppers are also incredibly healthy for you. So they have a lot of vitamin C, a lot of vitamin A, and they're very colorful and tasty. So maybe forgo the hot peppers if it's too spicy for you. But bell peppers as well are tasty and good for you. Yes, and I forgot to tell you that in turmeric it contains a natural anti-inflammatory called curcumin and that blocks genes and molecules that cause inflation. So I think what I'm trying to get across to you is that a lot of things that make us feel not 100%, have a food product out there that we can include in our diet that will help alleviate that and get us back to feeling 100%. It's just a matter of knowing what those food items are. That was about reducing pain. Let's talk a little bit about hurrying the healing process up and speeding our recovery. So if you have a bone or if you have a surgical incision that's very traumatic for your body. If you break a bone, our bones are made of calcium and so we want to look for calcium rich foods to kind of bring that bone back together and speed that healing. So eggs are calcium rich, cheese and milk and that great probiotic product which helps us with digestive issues. Again, if you have hurt yourself in a serious way or you are coming from the hospital or you are being treated in some manner you first want to discuss with your care plan team what is good for you to eat. I don't want you to necessarily start bulking up on everything that's on these posters without having some reassurance from your doctor that it's okay to do. But there's nothing on here that really is a dangerous sort of food product. I guess if you were to go overboard on yogurt you may have difficulties in some sort of manner or if you were to go overboard on bananas or maybe lacking out of something else because we want to eat that rainbow we want to have a lot of variety in our diet but you do want to verify with your health professional before you necessarily start changing up your diet too dramatically. Go slow, get yourself back to being 100% and speed your recovery with iron rich foods if you are anemic or have low blood pressure iron rich foods will help you get back to a stable situation. Omega 3 foods help very much to tamp down inflammation inflammation is one of the leading causes of back pain and what happens is that the blood vessels at the bottom of our back at the end of our spinal cord tend to become dilated and you would think that that would let more blood flow through but actually what happens is it kind of becomes dilated too much and it squeezes the blood so that it doesn't get down to that particular part of your back and you have deterioration of your spine because it's not getting the blood that it needs so Omega 3 foods help with that inflammation plant sources of Omega 3 are Brussels sprouts and walnuts but also those fatty fish that we talk about all the time sardines I love this can but if it's not your favorite go-to fatty fish there is also salmon now that was under $2 so it's already it's wild caught pink salmon so you don't have to worry about farm raised antibiotics or just salmon being fed like gruel in a farm this is wild caught salmon that's already been cooked all you have to do is open up the package flake out some into a cream sauce or flake out some onto the top of a salad or flake out some on top of your rice pilaf and get yourself some good protein going on and some good Omega 3 going on I was really excited to see this actually to tell you the truth because you can use as much as you want and it's also a really clean product and it was also remarkably inexpensive so why not why not include that in your diet right here it says 15 grams of protein so it's getting you back into shape also speeding recovery we know all about the greatness of vitamin C foods and vitamin C is in all of our citrus foods it's in this beautiful bell pepper vitamin C is high in tomatoes vitamin C is in grapes zinc is in our orange vegetables so zinc is also something zinc is in every cell in your body so if you have cells that have been depleted because of being sick or under the weather we want to replenish that zinc and get it back working in those cells and the orange vegetables squashes, sweet potatoes, carrots carry that zinc with them and really bolster us up so and this is some breakdown as to what all those guys that are up here on this table actually do for us why we want to include them just know that eating dark leafy greens good for you including eggs in your diet great for you eggs used to kind of get a bad rap from the medical community but now they're saying that an egg a day is good an egg is what they call a complete protein so if you eat an egg you're getting a direct protein shot that your body that your cell can use right then and there it doesn't need anything with it you can buy hard boiled eggs in the grocery store now and I also saw just yesterday these incredible little things called egg bites many as little quiches ever they're sealed in plastic which is not great but they're just like two or three little bites and it's egg and cheese and spinach or egg and cheese and mushroom or egg and no cheese but called egg bites so if you can't really bring yourself to make scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs because you don't want to crack them you can buy them on the east salmon we talked about the omega-3s how they promote wound healing and enhance our immune response this selenium is the inflammation and immune response yogurt that probiotic that's going to balance our digestive system and then bananas very nutrient dense they help our digestion and they're an antioxidant all good stuff so if you are getting chemotherapy or if you are under some sort of treatment regimen that depresses your diet hopefully you by now figured how we can increase our appetite figured out some foods that may reduce our pain quicken our healing process quicken our recovery but food is an essential part of who we are and how we spend our time and when you lose desire for all food it's kind of hard to come back from that spot so I really want you to just consider setting a mood not every time you eat a meal not necessarily for these five to six small meals every day but maybe once a week treat yourself to setting a lovely table or have your caregiver set a lovely table or have a friend over and you set a lovely table together have flowers, have a table cloth, have a nice wine glass even if you're just pouring water in that wine glass for before or after the meal but make it an occasion so that you'll be encouraged more to eat if you don't have a companion turn on music, turn on the TV have some diversionary thing going on so that you're actually eating but maybe not giving your attention to the plate so that you kind of are creating a situation where you're actually diverted from your plate because maybe you don't feel so good but you're actually eating at the same time if you had a companion across from you and maybe not even realizing how many bites you're taking but enjoying that food and that nutrients that are going into that plate make your plates colorful we love to talk about eating a rainbow have that represented on your plate even if it's just one piece of broccoli two salting crackers and a wedge of cheese it can still be a dramatic plate it can still look beautiful and it still can be encouraging to eat that so just treat yourself in that way also maybe have pleasant aromas so if you make a slice of toast how that smells in your kitchen is a pleasant aroma as to maybe cooking cabbage which is not, I'm not going to say cooking cabbage is unpleasant because of cabbage but it might trigger non-appetite in you to smell that cooking so try to think of pleasant aromas when you're making your menu and it doesn't all have to be on you you have a care team that's helping you get healthy you could have a companion care person that's coming in bring them into the mix help them help you create a menu create a dinner help them help you get healthier so don't take it all on yourself so set the mood with food and a food experience snack all during day if you want to if you have a little bit of appetite go for it this is the time that you really need to be building back up those nutrients in yourself metabolism to keep going forward so cheese and crackers are a good protein rich snack like I said, hard boiled or deviled eggs which are already made that you can buy in the grocery store yogurt and berries if you are not interested in anything crunchy quite yet we talked about yogurt, applesauce, jello things that kind of have a cooling or calming effect in our mouth but still give us nourishment if you are into crunching go for that pretzel get some dip and go for that pretzel or go for chips cottage cheese fruit slices, dried fruit hummus and vegetables or hummus on a cracker nut butters are really good and healthy very protein dense and rich or fruit leathers fruit leathers are something that you might think that your grandchildren are going to have in their lunchbox but you can also enjoy fruit leathers they are very supple, they are very fun so find those things that work for you and that are available easily and that you can just keep around and have and enjoy if you have favorite foods enjoy your favorite foods if you are the mac and cheese queen eat mac and cheese if you eat mac and cheese for a week nobody is going to shake their finger at you enjoy mac and cheese it's a protein dense occasion and it will make you feel better to get something on your stomach if you like pudding or custard now is the time to allow yourself to enjoy pudding or custard or butterscotch chocolate, chocolate, chocolate again just get some calories if you can tolerate ice cream enjoy some ice cream smoothies and power shakes and milkshakes are also something that you might want to consider we are going to look at a recipe about making power shakes it's almost a non-recipe recipe because it's just what you enjoy in a blender, most people own a blender if you don't own a blender, borrow a blender go to the thrift store, buy a $2 blender very easy to do and they can give you back a lot of nutrients and they can be an easy go-to as far as getting something back in your stomach are they? Super easy you just want to take 1-2 cups of liquid and that can be liquids that you enjoy you can be a juice if you are able to tolerate juice if the acid in juice is not too strong you can use juice, you can use coconut water coconut milk is a bit thick and rich it may be too much if you are recovering from a nausea or a painful situation but they have coconut water that is very tasty all kinds of milks are out there now if you can tolerate full fat milk, go for it otherwise there is oat milk almond milk, soy milk so quite a variety of milks, I think there is even cashew milk so there are definitely different liquids that you can choose you can even use insure or boost as your base for your power smoothie these have a lot of vitamins and nutrients in them but you can make them even more tasty and more vital of food by using them as the base for your power shake so once you have your liquid decided upon any number of fruits or vegetables you want to kind of think about am I going savory, am I going sweet what seems most attractive to me is on my palate sweetness, bananas, berries, pineapple all of those healthy fruits that are bringing antioxidants and calories and proteins if you want to go savory all is great, kale is like so full of iron here and very healthy for building back our cells if you have leftover roasted vegetables that you did the night before they can go in your power shake spinach which can be from the frozen department so you don't even have to wash or mess with it you have a liquid you have a fruit or vegetable you have a little bit of protein especially if you're not able to do say one of these milk products or if you're not adding necessarily a cooked vegetable that might have a protein source to it I'm sorry I forgot avocado is great in shakes too so a protein that's really easy to put in a power shake is going to be your nut butters and like we spoke about before there's quite a different variety if you're not able to tolerate peanuts so you could have sunflower seed butter almond butter also protein in the form of tahini which is a sesame seed paste but similar in consistency also full of protein and fat or you can add yogurt if you're able to tolerate that dairy so you have liquid, you have your fruits and veggies you have your protein going on also there's a variety of protein powders out there they're not inexpensive protein powders are good if you feel like you're lacking in protein because they're usually just a powder that's dissolved in water or in whatever product you like to drink they're not totally cheap there's products that are specifically for power lifters and that's where they kind of I think originated and power lifters wanting to kind of like get back whatever they had lost during an intensive workout but protein powders are available healthy, you know, if you need protein because you're replenishing those depleted cells protein being one of those cell building blocks protein powder is very accommodating because it's in the stores and it's really easy to use so these are kind of the basic things that go into a smoothie and then there's all kinds of extra stuff that you can put in a smoothie if you so desire you can put in chia seeds or flax seeds which are very healthy and also flax seeds actually have some omega 3 in them which is surprising you can also add in cocoa powder if you want a little chocolate hint to your power smoothie and of course the sweetener if you don't have enough sweetness in your fruit you can add some honey, you can add some maple syrup or if you really want to get an iron boost you can add blackstrap molasses now blackstrap molasses is probably going to overpower every other taste in your power shake so just be aware that blackstrap does have a very definitive flavor and that if you like that flavor great, if you don't like that flavor maybe kind of do a little sampling before you just dump a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses in there it is very healthy for you but it is also very strong so there are a lot of different ways that we can help ourselves to get back to that 100% spot and a lot of it is nothing that is out of kind of the realm of any adult person being able to do especially if it is just like unscrewing a cap opening a box pouring some juice taking a slice of cheese the grocery stores now are trying to be as accommodating as they can for the single user so you are able to find a lot of things that are just sometimes even without a lot of extra trash or waste but you are able to find a lot of things that are packaged for the single user so go for it just enjoy yourself but also enlist the help of your care team or if you have a care companion coming in or if you have a relative or if you have a friend that has also been running for our bug or has gone through the same medical procedure so don't just feel like you are solitary in this there is lots of information out there most of this information came from the American Cancer Institute the American Heart Association studies done at John Hopkins studies done at Harvard Health so there is lots of information out there for you to kind of like share and get your life going again hopefully this was helpful enjoy, see you in the kitchen