Cancer is vastly complicated and diet is I feel is a hotly debated topic in the cancer world. To me, it seems that everybody, from every angle adds to it, and muddles it. Unfortunately there is so much money involved by large scale farmers, food manufacturers, stores, marketers, and stock holders/investors, it’s not a pretty picture for your health. Most food companies (not all) are in the business to make money, PERIOD. Make it cheaper, make it taste better, make is last longer on the shelf. Your health is not a big concern.
If you are reading this, then I feel like your health is a big concern for you. Please please please take a interest in what you eat.
I love this quote by B. J. Palmer because it’s so true.
Many of us take better care of our automobiles than we do our own bodies… yet the auto has replaceable parts.
B. J. Palmer
To borrow another one, this time from Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth”. He was talking about the environment, but it holds true for the body environment. What we are eating is killing us, it’s not the only thing (looking at you anything plastic related), but it’s a big contributor.
I recently saw an article about people tightening their budgets because of the economy and inflation. A woman in it was talking about shopping for food at the dollar store and buying more canned food. I’m not judging, you have to do what you have to do. She said she was going to cut corners and buy the cheap stuff, despite knowing it was not the best for her. But, when it came to her dog, “nothing but the best, no corner cutting, he deserves it.” Humans are weird (Judging here).
I fully get it, it is so much easier to take something off the shelf, already prepared and eat it, than to make it, but it can be so much worse for you. What is a cancer cell? It’s a cell that can’t die. Or you could call it a preserved cell?? Preservatives? Food for thought.
Full disclosure as far as myeloma goes. I’ve poured through the books and internet. I’ve never come across anything or anybody that has cured their myeloma from a specific diet (or anything else). There has been some information about certain things like, curcumin, that have put people into remission. Certainly, I can find long term remissioners (20+ years), that point to diet.
What I feel like this diet does for me and my myeloma is, it seems to keep the myeloma moving very slowly. It’s gotten me healthier and helps keep my whole system healthier. It has kept my CBC numbers in normal range and my liver and kidneys functioning well. I feel it also has taken the odds of me getting a secondary cancer from treatment and made that smaller.
I do feel like this diet has the potential to get rid of many other cancers. It’s not anything new, nothing I invented. It’s just a whole food, plant based diet.
One additional benefit is, you will automatically lose weight and all you have to do is eat real food, no dieting. Speaking from my experience, I lost 20+ pounds of extra weight, my wife lost 15+ pounds and I know other heavier people who were on it that lost 30+ pounds. My wife and I weight evened out smack dab in the middle of the bmi chart (for whatever bmi is worth?). It seems like our bodies know what we are supposed to weigh and will hit that weight if we feed ourselves the right things.
A different reaction happened with my children. They put on healthy weight and tissue. Their skin and hair started to glow. They moved to the top of the growth chart at the Doctors. Cavities stopped happening.
My wife and children do eat on occasion “healthy” packaged foods. Diet is still a challenge in our household, due to my teenagers. Kids will be kids, but they eat what my wife and I want them to eat 90% of the time and they on their own avoid the really junky stuff.
Myeloma specialists are also now coming out and talking about the importance of diet for long term survival. Dr. Urvi Shah from Memorial Sloan Kettering is one myeloma specialist who studies diet and myeloma.
We know and there has been clinical studies done, that show that if you are obese, you will do worse with myeloma and treatment with myeloma, including stem cell transplant. If you’re obese, you will do worse across all cancers. This is very real and a very hard truth and there is no sugar coating it (bad pun for this topic).
You can go to pubmed.gov and search diet and cancer and it will pull up 50,000+ studies done by doctors on the importance of diet. Here is an article/study published by the International Journal of Cancer, showing decreased rates of cancer by eating a plant based diet versus a red meat/ processed meat diet.
I read a staggering stat the other day, in regards to prostate cancer. In the US, 140 men per 100,000 will develop prostate cancer. In Europe and South America, 20-50 per 100,000, will. In China, 3 per 100,000. Makes you sure go Hmmm….diet may be an important clue here.
I feel like diet is so important, which is why my website is named carrots over cancer.
Diet has to be a lifestyle choice. You are in control of what you put into your body and the consequences of that are yours. What do you want to become part of you?
My diet summed up is:
I seek out Organic Plant based foods, more vegetable variety, the better, high protein, nutrient dense carbs, fruits, healthy fats and healthy nuts and seeds.
I avoid meat, dairy, sugar, processed foods, junk food, junk carbs and inflammatory foods.
I’ll get into specifics in Part Two.
Carrots Over Cancer 