Gone for Awhile
If you happen upon this site, thanks for stopping by. I have been working to add more content, but things will be static for a month or so. My wife and I are planning to go overseas tomorrow. I will start adding more when we return.
My Cancer Diet
I figure I should give you an idea of my diet both when I got started, and now.
One of the few commonalities in everything we have read about fighting cancer is the importance of a vegetarian diet. When it comes to fighting disease, a vegetarian diet seems to give the body what it needs better than a diet heavy in meat.
Proteins are composed of enzymes, and in order for the body to use any protein it must first break it apart into its enzymes. Those are stored to be later combined into whatever type of protein the body needs.
Animal proteins take more energy to break apart into the enzymes, and maybe that is the simple reason a vegetarian diet is best for disease recovery. The real reason is probably a lot more complex, but we don’t need to explore that here.
Suffice to say, I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian before I got cancer, with occasional consumption of chicken if it happened to be in the dish in a restaurant. After I got cancer, until very recently, I was very strict about keeping to the vegetarian regime with a couple of exceptions allowed me by the Ayurvedic cancer doctor in India. They are paneer, the unfermented Indian cheese, and cottage cheese and yoghurt, which I use in the Budwig diet.
Protein in a Vegetarian Diet
If you are concerned about getting enough protein in a vegetarian diet, don’t be, provided you are sensible. Don’t go for a very restrictive diet except for a short period of time for a fast or cleansing.
The Mexican favorite of black beans and rice just happens to provide all the amino acids you need to make up complete proteins. The partial proteins in the rice complement the partial ones in the beans. You don’t even have to eat them in the same meal, or even the same day. Your body stores the amino acids until it has all the various ones it needs.
The best plan is to eat a good variety of UNPROCESSED vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains – organic is best.
The Budwig Diet
You can all kinds of information on the Budwig diet on the internet. Suffice to say that Joanna Budwig, a doctor in Germany (who died a few years ago), was getting remarkable results with terminal cancer patients by feeding them a special diet of flax seed oil and ground flax seeds blended with quark. Quark is a sort of cream cheese that forms when you leave whole milk standing at room temperature for about 36 hours.
Flax seed oil is rich in essential fatty acids that are vital for human health. When flax seed oil is blended with quark, the sulfur in the quark makes the fatty acids more available to the body, giving the immune system a boost.
The good thing about this diet is that it is simple and relatively cheap. You don’t have to even use quark if you can’t find it. Cottage cheese or ricotta cheese are excellent substitutes. Plain yogurt can also be used, but some people claim it is not as good.
Buy refrigerated, organic flax seed oil in an opaque or very dark container. Be sure it does not smell rancid! If it does, take it back and try another brand. This is important because rancid oil will do you more harm than good.
Buy organic flax seeds, if you can get them. Buy the quark or one percent cottage cheese.
If you don’t have one, buy a seed mill (coffee grinder) and a blender.
Important! Flax seed oil oxidizes quickly when exposed to light and air, so keep it refrigerated with the cap on. You will be grinding the flax seeds in the seed mill, and they deteriorate in about 15 minutes when exposed to air. So, get everything ready before you start.
Got all that? Good. Here’s what you do:
Add to the blender, in this order:
Enough pure water (probably about a cup) to make the mixing process go reasonably easy – about a cup or so.
A couple of tablespoons of quark or cottage cheese.
Grind 2 – 4 tablespoons of flax seeds (about 1 tablespoon for every 50 pounds of body weight) and throw that into the blender.
2 – 5 tablespoons of flax seed oil (about 1 tablespoon for every 50 pounds of body weight).
Start blending and add more water, if needed, to get it to mix.
Blend until all the oil is thoroughly mixed and you can’t see it anymore.
Dump it into a bowl, slice in some fruit, add some whole grain cereal (cooked or uncooked), and enjoy. Or, add the cereal and fruit first, then pour the mixture over it.
The Daily Food Routine
One problem that I have that you, hopefully, aren’t saddled with is that I have no lower teeth and only false teeth for uppers. (With only half a jaw, I would have to have titanium implants to hold lower teeth in, and I am not ready for that, yet.) My teeth were in pretty bad shape and it was felt that they might be killed by the radiation. So, any that were in the line of fire were pulled first and the gums given time to heal. The fear was that if they were left in, they might die and have to be pulled but, with the radiation causing so much damage to the tissues, the gums wouldn’t heal. In addition to that, my jaw is constructed in such a way that I cannot close my jaw far enough for my upper teeth to meet my lower gums, so I can’t chew food except by squeezing it between my tongue and my teeth.
The result of all that is that I have to have soft food, or the food has to be blended up. So, I present the following as a possible guideline for you to modify as you feel is best.
Breakfast
Hot oatmeal – one cup of slow oats (I like the flavor better than quick oats) simmered in 2 to 3 cups of water, depending on how runny you want it to be.
A banana and at least one other piece of fruit blended up and poured over the oatmeal.
A few slices of whole grain or sprouted grain bread.
I don’t recommend fruit juice unless you make it yourself, and even then in small quantities. Commercial juice is cooked and that destroys all the good things and leaves you with a hit of sugar, which is best avoided especially if you are fighting cancer.
If you would like something hot to drink, decaffeinated green tea would be a good choice. It is best to have it without a sugar sweetening and the only “artificial” sweetener I would suggest is stivia.
Lunch
An egg “omelet” cooked in water. When I first started the Ayurvedic medicine, I was not allowed egg yolks, but I am now.
Mix a quarter teaspoon of turmeric (it has potent anti-cancer properties, but too much isn’t helpful), chopped onions, garlic, and any other vegetable you care to throw in (I am not allowed tomato while taking the Ayurvedic medicines), and mix it together with a fork.
Put about a half inch of water in a pan or small pot, bring it to a boil and pour in the egg. DO NOT STIR! Just let it sit at a simmer until it is done. You could put a lid over it to make sure the top is cooked. When it is done, carefully pour off the water and dump it onto a plate. Some more water will drain out and you can pour it off carefully, too.
While that is cooking, blend up the flax seed oil, ground flax seeds and cottage cheese. I add a banana at the end to sweeten it up a bit.
I also have some whole grain or sprouted grain bread if I am hungry.
Supper
Because of my need for soft food and my need to avoid tomatoes, I usually make a lentil or bean soup and cook up some rice for my supper. When I make soup, I like to make a big pot so it lasts a few days. I make the rice every day as I have heard that fresh-cooked rice is best.
A typical soup is as follows:
- Wash a couple of cups of lentils (red lentils will cook very fast and give a good flavor) or beans (black-eyed peas give the soup a meaty taste) until the water runs clear.
- Throw in a large pot and fill the pot at least half full of water. Beans absorb a lot of water and swell up. Bring to a boil and simmer until cooked. Red lentils will take about half an hour, other will take longer. If a scum or foam forms on the surface of the water, spoon it off. That might save you from producing a lot of gas. DO NOT add salt at this time.
- When the beans or lentils are about done start chopping up onions, garlic, green peppers, zucchini, egg plant, a little hot pepper, if you like, potatoes, and about anything else you might like to have in it. Obviously, you don’t need to have everything. Vary it from pot to pot to change the taste. Add about half a tablespoon of salt (better to under salt, you can add more later) and throw the chopped stuff in and let it cook.
- Cook up some organic brown rice. The standard ratio is one cup rice to two cups water, but I like to use three or even four cups of water. It takes much longer to cook, but it makes the rice softer.
- When the vegetables in the soup are cooked, put a bunch in the blender, blend it smooth, and add it back to the soup. This makes it creamier. I have a “stick” blender and stick it in the pot and blend it all up.
- Put together a salad made of fresh, organic lettuce and other vegetables.
There you have it. Dinner fit for a king!
Or, if you are like me and now have no teeth, I blend in banana or other fruit to sweeten, two raw organic eggs and a scoop of whey (NOT SOY!) protein powder. That’s a fast, very filling breakfast. I also pour it over slow-cooked oats, which is easy to chew!
