Keep The Cancer Away With Your Diet

The key to averting cancer-causing foods is knowing which ingredients are cancer promoters (carcinogens) and then reading food labels to permanently avoid consuming those ingredients. Cancer tumors develop by feeding on sugar in the bloodstream. If you eat lots of sugary snacks loaded with simple carbs, you're loading up your bloodstream with the chemical energy needed for cancer cells and tumors to proliferate. No biological system can live without fuel for its chemical processes, including cancer cells.

One of the best strategies to pursue for any anti-cancer diet is to eat low-glycemic diet. No refined grains like white flour, no heavy use of sweeteners and the lifetime avoidance of sugary sodas. Aside from starving tumors, eating foods low in sugar and avoiding simple carbs will also keep your weight under control while helping prevent blood sugar disorders such as type-2 diabetes. Avoid high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, sucrose, enriched bleached flour, white rice, white pastas, white breads and other "white" foods. Also avoid hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils which are developed from otherwise harmless, natural elements. To make them hydrogenated, oils are heated in the presence of hydrogen and metal catalysts. This process helps prolong shelf life but at the same time creates trans fats, which only have to be disclosed on the label if the food contains more than 0.5 grams per serving.

To avert listing trans fats, or to claim to be "trans fat free" on their label, food manufacturers simply adjust the serving size until the trans fat content falls under 0.5 grams per serving. This is how you get modern food labels with serving sizes that essentially equate to a single bite of food. Not exactly a full "serving" of food, is it? Besides being a cancer factor, trans fats promote heart disease, interrupt metabolic processes, and cause stomach fat that crowd the organs and strain the heart. The essential fatty acids that the hydrogenation process removes are responsible for a number of actions in your body. When trans fats replace these essential fatty acids, they inhabit the same space without doing the same job. The "anchor" portion of the fatty acid is in place but the chemically active part of the fatty acid is twisted, distorted, and missing vital parts. After the hydrogenation process, the fatty acid can't biochemically function in the same way. Things like brain cell function, hormones, gland function, oxygen transport, cell wall function and digestive tract operation are adversely affected. Food manufacturers don't tell you this on their product labels.

Your body needs essential fatty acids and you're programmed to keep eating until you get them. If you're only eating trans fats, you'll never feel full, because your body will never get the fatty acids it needs for essential function.

Since cancer needs high blood sugar and low oxygen levels, a person with lots of belly fat who just can't seem to put down those trans fat cookies or crackers presents the ideal environment for the development of cancer.

Food companies add sodium nitrite into certain foods by design. This carcinogen is added to processed meats, hot dogs, bacon, and any other meat that needs a reddish color to look fresh. Decades ago when meats were preserved, it was done with common salt. However in the mid 20th century, food manufacturers started using sodium nitrite in commercial preservation. This chemical is responsible for the pink color in meat to which consumers have grown accustomed. Today the use of refrigeration is largely what protects consumers from botulism and bacteria, manufacturers still add sodium nitrite to make the meat look pinkish and fresh. The nitrites themselves are not the problem. People get more nitrites from vegetables than they do from meat.

During the digestion process, however, sodium nitrite is converted to nitrosamine, and that's where the cancer problems begin. Nitrosamine is a carcinogen, but since it is not technically an ingredient, its presence can be easily overlooked on the packaging. Nitrosamines are also found in food items that are pickled, fried, or smoked as well as in things like beer, cheese, fish byproducts, and tobacco smoke.

Knowing about all these ingredients doesn't mean there's simply a "short list" of foods that should be avoided. You have to vigilant and read labels constantly. However here are some of the things you should be aware of to start.

Hot dogs: The Cancer Prevention Coalition recommends that children shouldn't eat more than 12 hot dogs a month because of the risk of cancer. If you must have your hot dog look for those without sodium nitrite listed among the ingredients. Also, processed meats and bacon almost always contain the same sodium nitrite found in hot dogs. You can find some without nitrites, but you'll have to search for them in natural grocers or health food stores. Bacon is also high in saturated fat, which contributes to the risk of cancers, including breast cancer. Limiting your ingestion of processed meats and saturated fats also benefits the heart.

Doughnuts: Doughnuts contain hydrogenated oils, white flour, sugar, and acrylamides. Fundamentally, they're one of the worst cancer foods you can possibly eat. Reader's Digest calls doughnuts "disastrous" as a breakfast food, and many experts agree it's probably one of the worst ways to start the day any day.

French fries: Fries are made with hydrogenated oil and fried at high temperatures. Some chains even add sugar to their fry recipe to make them even more irresistible. Not only do they clog your arteries with saturated fat and trans fat, they also contain acrylamides. They should be called "cancer fries," not French fries.

Chips, crackers and cookies: These generally contain white flour and sugar as well as trans fats, but it's not enough to simply look for these ingredients on the label, you have to actually "decode" the ingredients list that food manufacturers use to deceive consumers.

Besides avoiding these foods, what else can consumers do to reduce their risk of cancer?

The main things are simple like eating unprocessed foods and base your diet largely on plants. Consume foods that have omega-3 fats and other essential fatty acids. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables; many common ones have known cancer-fighting properties. Get regular vigorous exercise, since tumors can'tt thrive in highly oxygenated environses. Keep your blood sugar stable to avoid being an all-you-can-eat buffet for cancer cells. Eat foods high in natural vitamin C, a nutrient that deters the conversion of nitrite into nitrosamine and promotes healthy immune function.

Make sure you get adequate amounts of cancer-fighting vitamin D through exposure to sunlight as we have often discussed, the minimum amount should be about 10 to 15 minutes each day if you have fair skin, or ten times as long if you have dark skin pigmentation. And be sure to stay well hydrated to ensure that your body rids itself of toxins.