Color Up Your Diet
Eating a colorful dark blue, green, purple, red, yellow and orange, diet doesn’t only make for beautiful meals; it is also a good way to make certain you’re getting a variety of vitamins and nutrients that can help prevent cancer and support patients during cancer treatment. Foods in particular colors may contain special chemicals that have unique effects on the risk of cancer. The variety of antioxidants (chemicals that help zap cancer-causing free radicals) that you get from a colorful diet won’t guarantee that you’ll avoid a cancer diagnosis, but it is an important tool in helping you fight it.
According to Dr. Mao and Licensed Acupuncturist Frances Lam’s book, Live Long Live Strong: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care and Prevention, dark blue and purple foods contain potent antioxidants called anthocyanins that not only activate tumor-suppressing genes in cancer stem cells but also trigger apoptosis (cell death) by manipulating signaling between cancer stem cells and tumors. Antioxidants are found in dark blue and purple foods include blueberries, blackberries, bilberries, grapes, red cabbage, red onions, eggplant, and green tea.
Red and yellow beets contain protective pigments called flavonoids that protect against cancer by inducing cell death and shutting down genes that activate cancer growth and survival. In addition to eating cooked beets, you can also enhance your health by adding beets to your vegetable juice. The lycopene found in red fruits and vegetables disrupts the cancer cell’s communication signals and has preventative effects on leukemia cells as well. Fruits and vegetables that are high in lycopene include goji berries, pink grapefruit, blood oranges, tomatoes, rosehips, and watermelon.
The easiest and most efficient way to the enjoy full benefits of colorful nutritious vegetables and fruits is juicing. Because of the massive infusion of nutrients, juicing can boost immune function, eliminate cancer-causing toxins, and decrease the likelihood of developing cancer. In addition to the vegetables and fruits introduced above, add few more healthy ingredients to your juice like kale, celery, chard, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, ginger root, carrots, parsley, basil, and cucumber. Start with ½ glass of juice a day and slowly increase your intake over a month to 2-3 full glasses a day.