Natural Cancer Prevention and Treatment
There is much information available about cancer prevention and treatment using natural methods and nutrition. The web has thousands of articles, research findings, practitioners from both Western Medicine, Eastern Medicine and everything in-between. One could spend months doing nothing but searching the word cancer and finding new and interesting things to read. While, on the one hand this information and the people presenting it can be fascinating reading, it can also be extremely confusing to the person doing a search for answers. This, of course, not only goes for a person with cancer, but also individuals trying to gather information that will help them to be more focused on prevention.
As we initiate this cancer link on our website, we are keeping it simple and presenting basic concepts. Our goal on these pages is to cull valuable information that hopefully will help you as you make sound decisions about how to live more healthfully, both in diet and lifestyle.
We suggest you check back periodically since we are updating and adding information often.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Five Steps for Macrobiotic Beginners by Jessica Porter
2. Healthy Food Tips for Everyone by Dr. Marsha Woolf
3. Great How-To Macrobiotic/Seasonal Cookbooks
Five Steps for Macrobiotic Beginners from Jessica Porter
1. Eat Whole Grains
When I say “whole”, I mean it. These days, huge corporations (and even the USDA food Pyramid) are understanding that not all carbs are bad. So now your favorite breads and cereals include whole grain flour. But when you pulverize a grain into a powder, it’s not actually whole anymore.
Whole grains are cheap and easy to cook. To start, put a pot of brown rice (or barely or millet, or quinoa–variety is important) on the stove and let it cook while you take a shower and get ready for work. Easy peasy. Eat some with lunch and dinner for two days.
2. Chew Well
I know I sound like your mother here, but “CHEW YOUR FOOD!!: And not just because it will slow you down. Complex carbohydrates (whole grains, vegetables,) need a particular enzyme in your saliva in order to be absorbed completely. Without this enzyme, all the other enzymes in your stomach and small intestine are compromised.
By chewing well (50-100 times a mouthfull–gulp!), your body absorbs the food (and its essence) as a liquid, leaving you a calm, serene, and beautiful DYNAMO!
3. Give Up Dairy and Pick Up Sea Vegetables
Think about it. We wean ourselves off our mother’s breast at a certain age. Even calves get off the udder and start eating grass after a while. So what the heck are we doing perched under a cow as human adults? It makes no sense to the mind, and even less to the body.
Neither China nor Japan have ever included dairy food in their daily diets, and they seem to be doing okay; much less breast cancer than in the West, very little osteoporosis and obesity a downright rarity. A huge percentage of Africans have lactose intolerance–their bodies literally reject the stuff!
The whole idea that milk is the Perfect Food for combatting bone loss is not only wrong, but some people would argue that dairy food is a major contributor to the problem. The truth is that we need good-quality minerals and they come from a variety of foods such as: sea vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and grains. And, the minerals in these foods are much more easily absorbed than the minerals found in dairy products.
Getting off dairy can take a little while and you might want to try some soy or rice substitutes while you make the transition. Once you let go of dairy (and its factory-produced imitators) you will feel a whole layer of sludge releasing from your body. You will feel energized and sensitive. As you eat sea vegetables (like the one in the recipe below) your brain will speed up and your intuition will become razor-sharp. Sea vegetables may take a little getting used to, but you’ll know it’s worth it when people begin to comment on how beautiful your skin is!
4. Try Natural Sweeteners
I have a sweet tooth, so I was unbelievably happy to discover that barley malt, rice syrup and amazake (a sweet rice drink) were all REGULAR ingredients on the macrobiotic diet. Even a little maple syrup passes muster! Unlike white sugar, which behaves much more like a drug than a food (and has as many deleterious consequences), natural sweeteners contain minerals which helps them to be abosorbed more gently by the body. They don’t take your blood sugar for the roller coaster ride that white sugar does. So try the recipe below and really know that being healthy doesn’t mean being boring. Life is SWEET!
5. Be Patient with Yourself
It took three years for me to go from dabbling in macrobiotics to eating 3 macro meals a day–happily and consistently. If you are not using macrobiotics to recover from a serious health condition, you have the privilege to experiment. Use your body like a chemisty set, really learning the effects that different foods have on you. Maybe you need a Twinkie hangover to really appreciate a brown rice buzz. By doing this research, your body will begin to choose what it prefers over the long haul.
Trust whole foods and trust nature to steer you back on course after falling off the wagon. Read macrobiotic books. Take a cooking class. Getting back to nature is a lifelong adventure. Be nice to yourself and have fun.
About Jessica Porter
Jessica Porter is the author of The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics (Avery, 2004). She is also a macrobiotic chef, cooking instructor and hypnotherapist. She completed her macrobiotic training at the Kushi Institute in Becket, Massachusetts. She hosts a weekly radio show in Portland, Maine, where she also does standup comedy. She was featured in Simon Doonan’s recent book, Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons from Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women.
In a letter sent from a patient to Dr. Marsha Woolf, director of Alternative Resources Unlimited, renowned Natural Medicine cancer and immune system consultant for 36 years, Cris writes:
Dr. Marsha, Do you have any healthy food tips?
HEALTHY FOOD TIPS
Dear Cris,
As a teacher, I believe it is important to live what we profess. And so, I do work at keeping this diet myself. The most important rule of thumb for a cancer prevention healthy diet is to eat whole, fresh, and pure (clean and organic) food as much as possible. This goes for all foods you consume, whether meals or snacks. Whole means that the food should be as close to the way it was when it grew in nature. Fresh food suggests to buy and cook your food fresh, and avoid canned, frozen, and processed foods. Of course, there are a number of good companies now offering products that are organic either canned or frozen. When it is not possible to cook fresh food, these are good substitutes. Pure food should not have chemicals, preservatives, artificial coloring or flavoring added and not be adulterated in any way. When you read a label on a food product, if your can picture every item listed as it grew on earth that is a clean product.
WATCH SODIUM. There are a multitude of diseases and conditons that can be aggravated, if not caused, by too much salt in your diet- heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, cancer, fluid retention, only to mention a few. Read labels checking for products high in sodium. This goes for supposed healthy products as well. For example, Eden, Westbrae and Whole Foods are companies who offer organic beans with no salt, while Trader Joes beans contain salt. Trader Joes also have a lot of products high in sodium.
ALWAYS SEPARATE SUGAR (all forms) AND PROTEIN (all forms). When we eat sweet and protein together, it creates havoc in our bodies. It really does not matter which sweet and which protein. The process is the same. Our diets are riddled with this disasterous combination.
Sugar is assimilated quickly while protein takes more time to digest. When you eat the two together, the sugar bonds to the protein waiting for it to be digested. While it is waiting, the sugar ferments. That’s right, it rots in the gut. This is a big reason why people have digestive problems, gas, bloating, etc. Also, it is believed that by eating this bad food combination along with a high animal fat (including a lot of dairy) can contribute to polyps in the colon, weakness of the immune system, and what we call in Asian medicine impure blood which can lead to cancer.
In fact, we begin everyday by breaking this basic and important rule of health. There are few exceptions to this habit in all Western countries. The typical Western breakfast (as opposed to Eastern) consists of juice or fruit, bacon or some cured meat, eggs, bread with jelly or some sweet spread, and perhaps peanut butter. Or it could be pancakes or waffles with some cured meat and maple syrup or some syrupy topping, or, toast with cream cheese and jam or peanut butter and jelly. In France, every home has a cheese tray that gets passed around with a wonderful array of different cheeses to sample, perhaps some cured processed high sodium meats, along with fresh bread baked that morning (usually white flour), fruit and /or fruit juice, and coffee with cream and sugar.
What’s the solution you ask?
Separate sweets and proteins. This is not easy, but very effective. Once you try this for a while, you will notice a big difference in how you feel. Have your sweet, fruit, dessert, etc. in the middle of the morning, afternoon, evening at least one to two hours from your other food. It will be strange to do at first, but you will feel so much better.
Unlike eating a typical Western/American diet, if you eat consciously, reading labels, and keeping foods as whole, fresh and pure as possible, you are improving the likelihood of staying healthy longer and being more emotionally balanced and mentally alert. Many people feel the difference in as short a time as one month.
Try to avoid eating foods you know are not good for you, or for that matter, anyone. The temptation is always there, especially, when you have an event or a party to attend. Rarely will there be many good food choices. This same dilemma can come up when you go to eat in a restaurant. If you are with a person or people who have no food sense it can become difficult. You feel you are being tempted by the foods you know are terrible for you but taste so good. It can be very difficult to make sound food choices when others you are with are not. Actually, some people go so far as to dissuade others from eating well.
I maintain that there will always be foods available in any of these circumstances that are healthy choices. They may be few and far between but if you take the time to look, you’ll find something. A tip I have suggested to people for years is that if they are going out to an event where there is no guarantee there will good, healthy food to eat, eat a little meal before you leave home or work. It is easier to be around junk food on a full or half full stomach. Another trick (same party) is to drink 2 or 3 glasses of room temperature water.
With patience, slowly we learn ways to nourish and take care of ourselves. Many people have not had any good role models in their lives. Some parents try to be good role models for their children while others expect children to do what they say and not as they do. In addition, although some parents try, there is no guarantee that the messages the parents are trying to convey are interpreted in a child’s mind. And so, we all come out of our developmental years needing to do some degree of damage control and breaking down of old negative patterns. Often, these early impressions and negative patterns are not things we are even aware of unless we choose to look.
Now, in trying to eat well in order to think, feel, and be well, you have the opportunity to be your own most loving parent. As I mentioned, many of us have not ever experienced that in our lives. We no longer have to wait for outside help or approval. Cooking is a wonderful opportunity to learn to nourish ourselves. It impacts us on many levels of our lives. We feel ‘taken care of’, even, if only for a moment. When one makes the effort everyday to nourish and support the self, magic happens.
Just the simple act of packing a lunch or a snack that you have given thought to before dashing out the door to a busy day/life, is a very grounding thing to do for yourself. Taking the time to think about foods that will keep you replenished as you expend energy, can offer stability to your day and life.
If you want to go the extra mile, go see a Natural Medicine Practitioner or Natural Foods Nutritionist, in particular, with a specialty in Chinese or Asian Medicine, to get tailored advice as to how to balance your diet for optimum health. Ultimately, keep it simple. You do not need a regimen with hundreds of pills a week, you need to nourish yourself with dynamic food and less junk, salt, and sugar. Sometimes it is a challenge to be true to ourselves. However, if we can’t be, who else will or can do it for us?
Great How-To Macrobiotic/Seasonal Cookbooks
The Book of Whole Meals by Annmarie Colbin
Self Healing Cookbook by Turner
The Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking by Aveline Kushi