I thought that this was strange, but he explained to my dad that it might permanently ruin his liking for those foods if he ate them when he was in the midst of a reaction to the chemo.
My father acquired a liking for some foods he had not liked before. Yogurt, something he had never liked before, comes to mind.
Immediately after the chemo, he had an appetite and no nausea. He insisted on going to a restaurant immediately following a session and did well with that food. The dose of anti-nausea medication that was included in the treatment enabled this according to his doctors.
When he was feeling bad, I would make chicken or turkey broth with well cooked vegetables and/or a starch. Stewed apples with some cinnamon or mashed sweet potato with a touch of maple syrup would often whet his appetite. Sometimes he said things were tasteless and we spiced up baked fish with lemon, garlic and pepper and it became palatable. We could never make beef taste good during these bad times. We also kept a variety of nutritional beverages on hand, Ensure is one brand, and he found some flavors OK.
I often had trouble with wanting him to eat and him not wanting to. There was a fine line between me being helpful and a pain in the butt. We learned to communicate a lot better during those times.
I talked with other caregivers when I waited for his chemo session to be over and their experiences with food varied widely.
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