About the article in this week's Cancer Compass newsletter: "Tips To
Fight Cancer With Your Fork This Holiday Season," I just want to offer a few warnings about sugar and phytoestrogens:
Carrots, sweet potatoes and apples are very
high in simple sugars that feed cancer, especially when prepared with
added sugar (glazed or made into pie.) While the carotenoids and proanthocyanins in them are indeed good cancer fighters, these foods
need to be eaten in great moderation by ANYONE fighting cancer, e.g. 1
small - medium carrot/day or one small helping plain baked sweet
potato/day, 1 apple/day (2 absolute max)
So since it's a special occaison, if you want to have the baked/glazed yams or sweet potato pie, just take a very small helping, and savor every bite!
Pomegranates and sweet potatoes (yams) contain very strong
phytoestrogens. As such, they are NOT good food choices for anyone
with ER/PR positive breast cancer, or other cancers that feed on estrogen. Foods with weak phytoestrogens are
ok, as they tend to act like the estrogen blockers or aromatase
inhibitors. Foods with strong phytoestrogens are NOT ok - they act
like hormone replacement therapy, and will actually FEED hormone
positive cancers. People with hormone positive cancers might want to do
a little web searching about other favorite foods likely to appear at
holiday feasts, to make sure they contain either no phytoestrogens, or
only weak phytoestrogens. (Cranberries ARE OK!)
About apples, I would add
one thing: it is important to eat the skin, but everything about an apple is digestible and full of
nutrients except the stem. Especially important to eat the seeds, as
they contain proanthocyanidins that get into cancer cells and kill
them. Yes, many of us have been taught not to eat the seeds because
"they are cyanide." Not strictly true: while they contain a cyanide
precursor - it can only be converted to cyanide by a certain enzyme
which is found abundantly in cancer cells, but only a few other cells
of the body. It's only when apple seeds are eaten to excess that they
present a danger of poisioning. A good rule of thumb: don't eat any
more seeds than you are eating units of that fruit/day. (If an apple
has 5 or 6 seeds, that's ok - still equals one unit of fruit.)
Not likely that holiday apple dishes are cooked with the seeds, but for the other days of the year, yes, an apple a day IS a good thing - just make sure you eat both the skin and the seeds, cause that's where most of the cancer fighting nutrients are found!
Happy holidays to all!
Sincerely,
Tre