Health

With so much talk in the media about cancer, Denise Sweeney looks at how diet may help to strengthen your immune system to avoid cancer and also how it can aid treatment of the disease.

There is no doubt that cancer cases are increasing. There are many possible reasons why this is happening, but what we consume certainly plays a large part. Anti-cancer diets vary widely but all have detoxification and immune systemboosting in common.

The food we eat today is radically different that it was 20 years ago. Then we ate more simple foods (even though they were not all necessarily good for us!), composed of largely basic and unaltered ingredients. Today the shelves of the supermarket are filled with processed foods, Enumbers, additives, artificial sweeteners, genetically modified ingredients and vegetables that should never look as good as they do or last so long.

In short, we no longer know what we are eating and to what extent it has been modified or tampered with. In addition, so many items are packaged in longlife plastic containers that add further chemicals and potential harm to what we put in our mouths.

So what can you do to avoid this problem? The solution is to almost go back to the way we ate 20 years ago. I say almost because we knew less then about what a balanced, healthy diet consisted of, and we ate too much meat and fats. Today we know that the centre of any balanced diet is variety, small amounts of meat, dairy and saturated fat, and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

With this in mind, the anticancer diet contains a few simple principles:

1. Go organic. The demand for organic produce is constantly increasing as people reject perfect-looking but tasteless and toxic fruit and vegetables. As a result, the prices are coming down all the time and most areas now have organic farmers’ markets. Try to buy produce in season as this ensures freshness and hence maximum benefit to you.
2. Avoid processed foods, enumbers, additives, artificial colours and sweeteners. Many products will claim in large letters on the front: “Free from artificial colourings” and when you read the ingredients, you find it has sweeteners, preservatives and all sorts of other nasty toxins.
3. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables (organic where possible) and ensure variety and colour – include vegetables like peppers, sweet potatoes, carrots, berries, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Eat garlic regularly. It provides very good immune system support. Juicing provides a great way to get maximum benefit from raw foods.
4. Avoid goods packaged in plastic, or remove them from plastic as soon as possible, and avoid re-warming foods in plastic containers. Certain chemicals in plastics may pass into foods and prove harmful.
5. Include good sources of fibre.
6. Reduce your intake of fried and fatty foods.
7. Keep meat and dairy consumption low.
8. Don’t smoke or expose yourself to smoke.
9. Drink little or no alcohol. No more than 3-4 units per week

Above all, keep your diet simple, fresh and varied, and enjoy your food!

Denise Sweeney is a registered Homeopath. You can email any queries to
www.denisesweeney@eircom.net

A full list of registered Homeopaths is available through the Irish Society of Homeopaths,
phone 091-565040 or see www.ishom.com

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