Diet and Cancer (...or WWKRD?)

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Below is a guideline provided my ND (Naturopathic Doctors) with regard to cancer and nutrition. In my situation, I have been following these guidelines for the majority of my adult life. All I can say is that if I hadn't been so vigilant, my health issues could have been a lot worse??? Or, I could have followed Keith Richards' guideline for health & longevity (a decade of heroin chased with his special recipe for bangers & mash).

Healthy Food Choices

Knowing what to eat can be confusing. Here are some basic guidelines that will help.

• Make sure that at least 60% of your plate, at every meal, is comprised of salad and/or raw or lightly steamed or sautéed, fresh vegetables.  (I have always been a broccoli, steamed asparagus, raw spinach fan. And don't get me started on berries.)

• Choose whole grain foods over processed grain products. Keep gluten to a minimum and replace pasta with quinoa or rice based products. (Always an Italian food fan, over the last decade I had replaced traditional pasta with whole grain pastas; love quinoa - both red and white. Trade Joe's has some good recipes; and brown rice rules. Indeed, I have my ancient grain and red quinoa curried salad for lunch today.)

• Include beans and legumes in your meals. Chickpeas, lentils, adzuki, white beans, black beans, limas and pinto beans are the easiest to digest. (Hummus has been a dietary staple of mine for 30 years. Can't say I am intimate with adzuki.)

• Incorporate nuts and seeds into your diet as an addition to your meals or as in-between meal snacks. (I am eating my sea salt and olive oil almonds as I type.)

• Reduce the consumption animal protein to 2-3 times per week. No processed meats. (I can't remember the last time I ate anything resembling processed meat. I am more of a pescetarian. Red meat is not on the menu - unless I can get ahold of buffalo; or if that cow has been a grass-fed organic moo-er all its life. Not a huge chicken fan due to the hormones in those old birds either. Yes there are organic options, but what do they feed those fowls?)

• Reduce your dairy intake to a minimum including milk and cheese. Almond milk is a protein-filled, nutritious alternative to cows milk. Dairy causes mucus buildup and has been linked to a variety of illnesses, from asthma to arthritis to Crohn's disease. (Two words: LACTOSE INTOLERANT...all my life.)

• Choose water instead of soda (diet or regular), fruit punch, sweet tea and other sugar-sweetened drinks. Drink lots of clean, purified water, all day long. Limit alcohol and caffeine intake to one drink per day maximum.  (I am chasing down my almonds with a litre of alkalized water; my alcohol intake is a glass and-a-half of red wine 1x per week; I started drinking coffee after age 40 (THANK YOU S.B.!) - and I am a one cupper in the a.m. kinda gal.)

• Keep vegetable oils to a minimum (Fav cooking oil is ALMOND oil)

• Remove sugar, as much as possible, from your diet. This includes drinks with sugar, white flour, white bread, cookies, candy cake, muffins, crackers, and chips. White sugar fuels cancer and Candida, spikes your blood sugar, taxes your im­mune system, robs you of minerals, is highly addictive and floods your body with excess insulin and IGF1, which stimu­late the growth of cancer cells. (NEVER been into candy or white flour-based foods. I do love my salt n' vinegar chips, however - but only 1x per month. [Btw, this peri-menopausal thing has me down to every 60-67 days and it lasts 10-27 days -- totally blows the chip craves!]) 

I am the last person to insist or advocate that the above guidelines be stringently followed. After all, I am NOT the poster-child for "Clean Holistic Living = Disease Free Life." WWKRD???