DIET TO COMPLEMENT TREATMENT

About ten or more years ago I remember reading a book called “Cancer Proof your Body” by Ross Horne.  He recommends and follows a pure raw fruit and vegetable diet, this was a bit too much for me, I like to have some of my food cooked but I did increase the amount of raw food that I ate.  More recently following my own diagnosis I started to read up on the subject and found three very useful books which I will use as references for this blog.  These books are:

Book A – Fighting cancer with knowledge and hope – Richard C. Frank, MD

ISBN 978-0-300-15102-2 (paperbound)

ISBN 978-0-300-14926-5 (clothbound)

Richard C. Frank, is director of cancer research, Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk, CT and medical director, Mid-Fairfield Hospice, Wilton, CT.

Book B – Anti cancer a new way of life – David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD

ISBN 978-0-670-02034-8 (hardback)

David Servan-Schreiber is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  He was diagnosed with brain cancer and by encouraging his body’s own cancer fighting capacities he has survived since his diagnosis in 1992.  He is now a leading proponent of the integrative approaches to the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Book C – Foods that fight cancer – Richard Béliveau PhD & Denis Gingras PhD

ISBN 978-1-74175-010-2 (paperback)

Richard Béliveau is a leading authority in the field of cancer research. He holds the Chair in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer at the University of Quebec at Montreal, where he is a Professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. Dr Béliveau is the director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory of UQAM.

Denis Gingras is a researcher in the Molecular Medicine laboratory of UQAM.

I will be using the above books as references for my blog.  My references will be in the form of *^A123+2 which means Book A page 123 paragraph 2, *^A123-3 means Book A third paragraph from the bottom of page 123.  Hyperlinks will be used for Internet references.

Most of the time I will try to give a brief comment on the subject and let you use the reference for full detail.

All the above books are available at Chatswood Library, anyone can join, you do not have to live in the area.  I purchased mine, second hand from Amazon and Borders over the Internet, all of them looked brand new when they arrived but the cost was around $10, much less than the postage which was about $16.  Dymocks in Sydney will give a discount to seniors on most books.

There is a companion book to Foods that fight cancer, Cooking with foods that fight cancer, I did not obtain my own copy because I’m a vegetarian and this one had too many meat dishes for me but it could be a good book for carnivores.

The following comments generally do not apply to just lung cancer, they are really a dietary supplements that should compliment any treatment, they should be useful to any form of cancer and could actually have much benefit, as a preventative, to those who have do not have cancer.

JAPANESE GREEN TEA

Like everyone else we'd heard that Green Tea is good for you and will help in controlling many diseases including some types of cancer.  We had been drinking a form of green tea for twenty years or more but now realise that the kind we had bought was not really much better than any ordinary tea.

Since being diagnosed with cancer my wife and I have been reading many books on the subject of beneficial food. One of the first was "Anti Cancer A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD".  He is a scientist and doctor who had been diagnosed with brain cancer and has survived.  His book mentions various foods including green tea that can complement treatments.  Another couple of books on the same subject are "Fighting Cancer with Knowledge & Hope by Richard C, Frank, MD" who is a director of cancer research at Whittingham Cancer Centre and Medical Director at Mid-Fairfield Hospice along with "Foods that Fight Cancer by Richard Béliveau PhD & Denis Gingras PhD".  I've been unable to find the latter book on discount anywhere, they don't have to do this with top sellers, however, I've managed to find the others in Borders USA and Amazon's used book sections, the price is usually around $7 but even with postage they are still bargain and the ones that I've bought look as good as new.

There are many other books on this subject and most seem to say pretty much the same things about green tea and the various beneficial foods.  The useful properties of green tea are the anti-oxidants, detoxifiers and the polyphenols.  There are many different types of green tea from the basic Tikuan Yin from China to the more expensive Japanese teas of which the most popular seems to be Gyokuro.  The one with the highest concentration of polyphenols is Sencha-Uchiyama but this does not seem to be imported into Australia and it is only marginally better than the best of the Gyokuro.

These three books and many others describe the benefits of green tea far better than I can, they also explain and discuss the active ingredients along with a summary of how to brew it.  If you would like a tongue twister try the epigallocatechin gallate-3 often abbreviated to EGCG, even the acronym is hard for me.

Very briefly Gyokuro is collected from trees that are less than 12 years old, at some stage of the growing season they are placed under a bamboo screen, this causes them to produce extra chlorophyll and a few other substances, after the first crop is collected the screen is reduced and eventually removed altogether once the second crop has been taken.  One of these crops seems to be far more beneficial than the others but I am not sure if it is the first of the last, my guess at the moment is the first.  There are websites that give more information, some with videos.  Some farms have the trees used for Gyokuro growing in planter boxes which can be moved from one type of screen to another.  Green tea is treated with something like steam straight after harvest to prevent it from fermenting like black tea, oolong tea, pronounced yewlong is part way between green and black tea.  We are seriously thinking if visiting Japan sometime during the tea harvest season so that we can get some first hand information.

We had bought green teas at several places in Sydney, most of it was labelled Japanese Green Tea but we suspect that some of it might not have been the best quality.  I've since discovered Taka Tea Gardens in the Strand Arcade, Sydney.  They have a whole range of teas along with the correct equipment to make it.  The lady in the Tea Gardens gave me a demonstration with Gyokuro tea; I was able to tell from the appearance and taste right away that it is superior to any other green tea that I had tasted.

The following is the equipment that we are using.  Because we are aiming to maximise the amount of polyphenols rather than just the antioxidants a brewing time of 8 to 10 minutes is needed.  The water should be at a temperature of 70-75C and for the teapot shown, which holds 500mls we add two teaspoonful of Gyokuro Green Tea.

We boil the water then add it to the glass jug, this drops the temperature from 100 to 80C, only a small amount of water is needed to bring it down to 70-75C.  It should be possible to make three brews from each portion of tea leaves, to be honest we find that the third brew is getting a bit weak.  The tea leaves,which are held in a filter, should be removed to prevent a bitter taste.  Some literature recommends eating the finished tea leaves but we did not enjoy them.

Incidentally the Taka Gardens website has a free 36 page booklet on green tea, it is in the form of a PDF file which, can be read, downloaded or printed.  The people at Taka Tea Gardens also advised me that I should not drink Green Tea on an empty stomach nor after about 4:00 pm, although it has very low caffeine it does stimulate and can cause sleep difficulties.


A DIFFERENT KIND OF JAPANESE GREEN TEA.


Further research around the Internet led us to Matcha Tea which is the powdered version used in the traditional tea ceremonies.  It has a slightly lower polyphenol content that even Gyokuro #4 but because you consume all of it in one brew the amount of good bits that you drink is much higher, the taste is unusual at first but we very soon developed a strong liking for it.  The following is a 500mls cup of Matcha all ready to drink.

This one has quite a kick and definitely should not be taken on an empty stomach.  Some websites recommend spreading the consumption throughout the day until about 4:00 pm.

Matcha tea is a fine green powder than tends to clump together forming lumps, to avoid this we use a fine small metal sieve sprinkling the tea direct into a jug of water at 75C.

The following illustrates the small sieve that we use to ensure that the Matcha Tea is in a fine powder form:

The sieve is a small one that I think is really designed for filtering hot cooking oil but it does seem to work well with Matcha Tea.  We place one quarter teaspoon of the powder in the sieve and rub it through with the rounded side of the measure holding the sieve a few inches above the hot water.  In the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony they would next agitate the brew with a traditional Japanese Bamboo Whisk stirring it until it becomes frothy like a cappuccino, this process takes several minutes and requires a fair bit of learned skill by the person preparing the tea.  I use the following Traditional Australian Electric Hand-mixer, it does the same job in a few seconds much better than I could do it manually:

I could probably purchase the powdered tea from the shop in Sydney but it is rare for me to go down there, we are quite some distance away.  I did a fair bit of searching on the Internet and found many Japanese Farm Websites that told me that they grew the best tea, had more expertise than anyone else and I should only buy it from them, when I clicked on the "Buy Now" button I was connected to a website in Canada, this happened from several different Japanese Websites.  There is a name for this type of marketing, I have my own word for it but cannot show it here.  I persevered and eventually found the Hibiki-an website based at Uji in the Kyoto Prefecture south of Tokyo, well away from the radiation problems in the north of the country.  The site covers both the farm and the retail side of the business.  I have now made purchases from them three times and each time the order has been delivered within a few days, an order placed at the weekend will usually arrive on Thursday.  You can use credit cards or Pay Pal with them and you don't have to spend much to reach the post free minimum.  Their website is very useful giving lots of useful information on the way that Green Tea is grown and processed.  There is also a section on the radio activity problems in northern Japan where there give very convincing assurances that the problems do not affect their Uji area, these are supported by many references and figures.

 

 

Liquidised Fruit & Vegetable Drink including Herbs & Spices.

Earlier I mentioned a book “Cancer proof your body” by Ross Horne ISBN 0 207 18900 5.  Ross Horne is a strong believer in a total diet of raw fruit and vegetables with nothing cooked at all.  This was a bit too much for me so I did not follow that diet.  I was already a total vegetarian which I’ve been for well over 20 years, included in my diet is a large amount of fresh fruit, though that we eat is still tasty and pleasant meals.   Here’s some pictures of an average meal:

 

 

More recently and just after I’d been diagnosed with cancer I started to read many on the subject, many referred to foods that could fight cancer and although they alone would not cure it they would be a very good compliment for standard medical  treatment.  Really a matter a good diet that as well as containing cancer fighters avoids the dangerous foods containing things like trans fatty acids and large amounts of refined sugar.

At *B95 Servan-Schreiber has a chapter on “The Anticancer Foods”, it is well worthwhile reading these 35 pages.  These foods alone will not cure cancer but they will set up better conditions for any medications to increase their effect.  He also comments on foods that should be avoided.

At *C65 Béliveau describes the benefits of phytochemicals, he continues at *C77 describing many other foods that have other benefits, when combined all these different foods have a greater total benefit than does the sum of the individual parts, in other words they are complimentary to each other and should be combined to maximise the benefit.

With the above in mind I tried to devise a meal that would provide as much benefit as possible to me.  It was not my own idea to produce a cocktail of several fruit and vegetables with added herbs and spices, these ingredients are raw, as fresh as possible and liquidised in a food blender; similar concoctions have been mentioned by many authors and I just tried to devise something that I could make with the minimum of effort which would be beneficial to me.  The recipe is constantly changing depending on which fruits and vegetables are available, there are also new processes that I have discovered during the evolution of this recipe.  A couple of the original ingredients were garlic and ginger; both of these take a fair bit of preparation.  By accident one day I discovered that the garlic does not need to be crushed and the ginger did not have to be grated with the risk of including parts of my fingers in the mixture.  I was not concentrating one day, I’d chopped the garlic into smaller pieces to go through the crusher when I placed the lot in the liquidiser, I found that the machine took care of it and later I tested it with the ginger which also worked just as well.  This discovery saves me about 15 minutes.

After much reading I arrived at the conclusion that the main ingredients of my drink would be raw fruit, raw vegetables, soy and turmeric. 

Many are aware that the Japanese have below average cancer rates when compared with the rest of the world, there are numerous reasons for this but the most obvious main reason is their regular consumption of soy in various forms.  Further reading indicated to me that the people of India also have below average rates of cancer and this can be attributed to their high consumption of Turmeric which they eat daily, the most beneficial component of turmeric is curcumin.  *B105+2; *C115 which has among other things anti-inflammatory properties.

By taking ideas from the three main reference books I came up with the following ingredients to make about one litre of the liquidised concoction every other day:

300 gms of assorted vegetables

150 gms of assorted fruit

Turmeric & ground black pepper

50 gms of Soy

Herbs and spices

Garlic & Ginger

Fresh Parsley

300 mls cold green tea

As previously recommended at *C65 Béliveau discusses the combined benefits of Fruits & Vegetables, he refers to them as “So much more than vitamins” and “The phytochemical cocktail an arsenal of anti-cancer molecules.  I would urge you to read this entire chapter taking note of the various tables and diagrams.

The Cancer Council produces some very interesting and useful leaflets, one of them is “Vegetables & Fruit” and one section asks “Which is best – raw or cooked?”  The reply is that it is best to include both in your diet because some useful substances are absorbed better from cooked items others from raw items, so it seems that as well as consuming the raw vegetables in this recipe it will maximise the benefit if you can also eat a good selection of cooked fruit and vegetables.

At the time of writing my selection of vegetables is usually made up of a slice of red cabbage, half a large red onion, a couple each of broccoli and cauliflower, a couple of brussels sprouts and half a carrot.  The fruit is about a dozen blueberries, a couple of strawberries, a kiwi fruit and about half a dozen grapes.  The combination does vary depending upon what fruit and vegetables are available.

Fruit and vegetable selection.

Turmeric has several references *B120-3; B104+2; C115 with an interesting table at C118 which compares incidences of cancer in India with the USA, compelling evidence that turmeric is an effective cancer fighter.

All the references indicated that to be assimilated into the body in an effective way the turmeric has to be blended with ground black pepper in some kind of vegetable oil for at least two hours, without the pepper turmeric will have very little effect and only add a bit of taste.  I have found that two teaspoons of turmeric mixed with half a teaspoon of ground black in a small quantity of linseed (flax seed) oil seems to work well, after a couple of hours a good suspension is achieved which will blend well with the fruit and vegetables.  There are different recommendations for the amount of pepper from a generous pinch up to 50% which was too hot for me, I found around 25% to be quite pleasant.

Incidentally you should hunt around for a good supply of turmeric along with other herbs and spices.  The supermarkets do supply them but in small containers which tend to work out to be rather expensive.  I found an Indian Bazaar in Hornsby which sold all of these products along with many herbs and spices at very reasonable prices, they also seemed to be much fresher than any others, most suburbs have similar small shops.

Originally I was using Tofu as my source of Soy but I found that the smallest packet of tofu was far too much and once opened it did not keep too long.  In the reference books I saw mentioned that the Japanese eat large quantities of dry roasted Edamame Soy Beans, I was unable to find any of these but I did mange to locate some frozen ones:

These are a very high quality soy beans containing all the good molecules that we want for this drink.  I weigh out the quantity, about 50gms and allow them to defrost before adding them to the drink.  I have also read that in their dry roasted form they are very popular in Japan where they consume large quantities in much the same way that we eat nuts.  I did find a recipe that recommended frying defrosted beans in a small quantity of oil with added flavour such as Wasabi, Chilli or Rock Salt; one day I hope to try this recipe.

There are many of the small Asian shops that supply these frozen Edamame Beans but beware, some are shelled others are not, the shelled one are so much more convenient and much better value.

Turmeric *B120-3; B104+2; C115 is probably one of the more important ingredients but it does need some help to make it work, on its own it will only add some flavour.  To be assimilated into the body it needs to be mixed with ground black pepper and placed in vegetable oil for at least two hours, some say that it dissolves but to me it seems to make a good suspension.  Any vegetable oil can be used, we use virgin olive oil but many claim that by far the best is Flax Seed Oil, this has to be refrigerated.  I would first dry mix two teaspoons of turmeric with half a teaspoon of ground black pepper, mix them well together and then add just enough oil to cover them, give the mixture a really good mix and place in the refrigerator for two or more hours.  Beware Turmeric can cause severe staining to clothes, furniture and just about anything else nearby.

At first I laboured a bit more than necessary with both the garlic and the ginger until I discovered that these items can be in small lumps, they do not need to be crushed or grated; the model of liquidiser that I use will take care of them.  If you do not have such a machine you will have to crush the garlic and grate the ginger to produce a heaped tablespoon of each. Similarly whole heads of fresh parsley can go straight into the liquidiser, I use about one standard cupful of fresh parsley:

Almost any herbs and spices *B108-2 will work well in this drink, at the time of writing I add two teaspoons of Cinnamon, one tablespoon of Ground Hazlenut then one teaspoon each of Rosemary, Oregano and a Chinese Mixed Spice.

All that we need now is about 300mls of Japanese Green Tea that has been allowed to cool, some of the phytogens and maybe some other molecules will become less active as they cool but we do not want to heat or even cook the raw fruit and vegetables.

Next I place all the ingredients in a blender, hopefully remembering to secure the lid, one the machine has reached full speed I allow it to run for about a full minute, this produces a nice smooth but thick drink.

Don’t forget some red onion and celery, both seem to be important.

It will make about one litre.  

I drink half right away and save half in the refrigerator for the next day:

When I remember I place food wrap over the mug that goes into the refrigerator to prevent the odour spreading into everything else.

Bon Appétit.

9APR12 - I have now created a winter version of this gunk.  It does seem that the most important ingredients are the turmeric and the black pepper.  I now make a simple vegetable soup, mainly carrots, potatoes and anything else that is available.  I make about two litres at a time adding 12 teaspoons of turmeric and three teaspoons of ground black pepper which have been mixed together.  I liquidise the soup in a blender.  This makes sufficient for nine days which means just over a teaspoon of active ingredient every day.