10 ways to fight cancer with food

Could eating more chocolate lower your risk of cancer? Including cancer-fighting foods into your daily meals is easy with delicious options like flax seeds, citrus fruit and yogurt.

Read the following excerpt from Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer (McClelland & Stewart, 2007) to find out how you can improve your diet and lower your cancer risk with these cancer-fighting foods: 

1. Certain mushrooms, such as those of Asian origin (shiitake, enokiatke, and maitake) as well as boletes (oyster mushrooms) are especially rich in anti-cancer molecules that slow tumour growth and the progress of cancer.

2. Seaweed is the prototype of an ideal health food. It is very rich in essential minerals, especially iodine potassium, iron, and calcium (some algae contain up to ten times the calcium in cow's milk, and five times the iron found in spinach), and rich in proteins, all of the essential amino acids, vitamins, and fibre.

3. Flax seeds must be ground to increase the absorption of omega-3 fatty acids and to favour the transformation of lignans into active phytoestrogens.

Since omega-3s are extremely unstable and prone to chemical degradation, purchase whole grains that you can then grind.

4. A recent study shows that some individuals are more susceptible to developing lung cancer because their immune system falters when confronted with carcinogenic substances. A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts), however, was able to reverse this tendency to develop cancer.

5. Many studies have suggested that the regular consumption of soy-based foods, such as the beans themselves (edamame), the bean curd, or tofu, roasted beans, and miso soup, significantly lowers the risk of being affected by breast cancer, and this preventative effect is amplified if regular soy consumption begins at a young age, before the jump in hormones that accompanies the onset of puberty.

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6. Citrus fruits exhibit some of the strongest anti-cancer activity on record. Numerous studies have shown that the consumption of citrus reduces by half the risk of developing certain kinds of cancers, in particular those of the digestive system (esophagus, mouth, and stomach).

7. Two squares of 70 per cent dark chocolate provide an adequate amount of beneficial polyphenols.

8. Drink green tea brewed from real tea leaves in an attractive teapot; avoid stainless steel tea infusers that do not allow tea leaves to fully absorb water and thus express their full flavour. Choose Japanese green teas, richer in catechins, over Chinese teas; and brew the tea for eight to ten minutes, to extract the maximum quantity of these molecules.

9. It is important to eat cooked tomatoes. They should ideally be prepared in olive oil, as sauce. Cooking tomatoes in oil increases lycopene content and allows the lycopene to be more easily assimilated in to cells.

10. To have a beneficial effect on the intestine, yogurt must be fortified with lactic bacteria, usually bifidobacteria and lactobacilli.

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Excerpted from Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer by Richard Béliveau, Ph.D., and Denis Gingras, Ph.D. Copyright © 2007 by Richard Béliveau, Ph.D., and Denis Gingras, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of McClelland & Stewart. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher..