Eating/Drinking "What's Good for You"

Thanks to all of you who have offered ideas about nourishment that would be helpful during my therapy regimens. There's a lot about nutrition -- especially during therapy -- that I don't understand, and frankly, I got pretty spooked when I found out where antioxidants fit into the picture:

General wisdom has it that antioxidants are good things. They catch up free radicals, which are bad things. And this is probably true unless you're on chemotherapy.

As I understand it, at least one purpose of the chemo regimen is the creation of free radicals to attack and kill the fast-growing cancer cells. So taking anything that reduces the number of free radicals or interferes with their "work" can substantially reduce the effectiveness of the chemo treatment.

All of my docs speak in unison by saying that any herbal supplements during this treatment is a Bad Idea. As my chemo doc put it: "If you take a handful of blueberries, you get micrograms of antioxidants. If you take an herbal supplement, you are probably going to get milligrams of antioxidants. [That is to say, ten times the amount of antioxidants -- or more.] So just eat normal, healthy, sensible meals."

So I imagine that the occasional bowl of miso soup (which I'm rather fond of) would be fine, but taken because you want some miso soup and not because you're trying to influence the course of treatment.

At least that's how I understand things right now...