Nutritional Supplements

Nutritional supplements can provide energy to those with eating difficulties or poor appetite. They can also be served as meal substitutes.

Balanced nutritional formulas can be divided into general, disease and high-calorie formulas. They are made in different flavours for patients to choose from based on their preferences. One may consult a dietitian for the choice and usage of nutritional formulas.

To enhance the flavours of nutritional supplements, one may try:

• Adding Horlicks, Ovaltine, Milo, almond milk, coffee, tea or oats to nutritious milk.
• Adding fresh milk or soy milk to nutritious milk, in order  to reduce sweetness.
• Using nutritious milk to make stewed eggs
• Mixing it with fruits such as papaya, along with condensed milk or cream to make a milkshake.
• Making jelly with the nutritious fruit juice
• Making congee or porridge with the nutritious broth
• Adding the nutritious broth to cream soup, or mixing egg drops with the nutritious broth.

Tenderising Foods

Patients of palliative care tend to find tender foods or fluid easier to consume. It is recommended that carers try to prepare foods in the ideal consistencies, such as:

• Plain congee, congee with meat, fish or egg; oats in nutritious milk and baby food.
• Soft rice, thick congee, alphabet pasta, rice flat noodles, macaroni, rice vermicelli and rice rolls
• Cooked potatoes (with skin peeled), carrots, yam, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and bulbus lilies.

• Meat stews, minced meat, fish, meat stew for babies, yuba, steamed fish, fish fillet, finely chopped meat, steamed eggs, stewed eggs, steamed tofu and egg tofu.
• Use a blender to mince cooked meat into pastes

• Finely chopped wax gourd, winter melon, pumpkin; boiled tender leaf vegetables and vegetable soups.
• Use a blender to make pastes out of cooked melons and vegetables

• Soft fruits, such as mangos, kiwis, dragon fruits, melons, watermelons, papayas, ripe bananas and ripe pears.
• Apple puree, canned fruits and fruit puree for babies
• Use a blender to make fruit puree or juice

Do cancer patients need to have nutritional milk for supplements?

No, this is not a must. Extra nutrients, e.g. protein, minerals, fish oil, and artificial seasonings are added into the nutritional milk, making the milk not very tasty.

If cancer patients do not like the taste, they can have some other drinks instead, such as milk, Horlicks, chocolate milk, etc., which also have high nutritional value. If you find those canned or bottled nutritional milk too sweet or too strong, you can add some water to dilute it. Moreover, you can be creative with fix and match. For example, making chocolate milk by adding chocolate powder into vanilla-flavoured nutritional milk, making breakfast with oat, corn flakes with nutritional milk, or making creamy pasta with chicken, mushrooms and nutritional milk, etc. 

Please be reminded that patients who have already recovered may gain weight and body fat after completion of anti-cancer treatment. If your body weight or BMI is in the normal range, i.e. not underweight, you may not need nutritional milk as supplement. In addition, patient with diabetics or chronic renal impairment must pay attention to the glucose and electrolytes content in the milk to avoid hyperglycemia or electrolyte imbalance.