CC Health Counseling                      
the way to live

January 2016 
In This Issue

1-2-3 To Staying Cancer-Free

First Key Action: Eat REAL Food

1. Prepare your meals

2. Watch your sugar

3. Buy only quality meats and dairy

4. Eat cancer-fighting foods every day

How To Implement The First Key Action Successfully?

 
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Carol Chuang

CC Health Counseling
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1-2-3 To Staying Cancer-Free (Part 1)

By Carol Chuang, MS, CNS, CMTA, FDN

More and more people have cancer these days. It is almost like the plague that no one wants to talk about, and it keeps getting worse.
  • In the early 1900s, one in 20 developed cancer.
  • In the 1940s, one in 16 developed cancer.
  • In the 1970s, it was one in 10.
  • Today, it is one in three!
Conventional medicine is no where close to finding a cancer cure. Cancer, in fact, is huge business for the pharmaceutical companies. It is a US$125 billion industry! The typical cancer patient spends $50,000 fighting the disease. Chemotherapy drugs are among the most expensive of all treatments, many ranging from $3,000 to $7,000 for a one-month supply.

The cancer industry spends virtually nothing of its multi-billion dollar resources on prevention strategies, such as dietary advice, exercise, and obesity education. Instead, it pours its money into treating cancer - chemotherapy drugs, radiotherapy, surgeries, and diagnostic technologies. 

Why? Many people believe if the drug companies find a cure, the patient base goes away. It is much more profitable to keep a steady stream of cancer patients alive, but sick, so that they will keep going back for more drugs. Is this not the same formula for many other modern chronic diseases, such as diabetes?

Do not ever believe that if you get cancer, it is merely the draw of bad luck or it is inevitable. The most common cause of cancer, in 90-95% of all cases, is acquired mutations, which are directly caused by dietary and lifestyle factors. Even if you have inherited the types of genes that are linked to cancer, which only makes up about 5-10% of all cancers, there is ample evidence that genes interact with their environment. In other words, if you eat and live right, you still stand a good chance of preventing the development of cancer.

Therefore, you need to take preventive steps NOW. It is much easier to prevent cancer than to treat it once it takes hold. In this three-part series, we will discuss the three key actions to cancer prevention.


First Key Action: Eat
REAL Food

A recent study found that Americans obtained:
  • 63% of their calories from highly processed foods (e.g. hots dogs, margarine, frozen entrees, baked goods, ice cream, and candies), 
  • 30% from moderately processed foods (e.g. white rice, pasta, peanut butter, jam, canned produce, processed dairy products, and processed meats/cold cuts), 
  • only 7% from unprocessed or minimally processed foods (e.g. fresh or frozen produce, beans, nuts, eggs, brown rice, milk, and fresh meats).

For thousands and thousands of years, human beings have been making food from scratch. Never in human history have we eaten so much convenience food products, microwave meals, packaged snacks, and fast food. 

The cancer "plague" is a wake up call for all of us to change our mindset and lifestyle. Yes, it is really tempting after a long day's work to open a package and stick it into the microwave, or to pick up a pizza or take-outs on the way home. But as we all know, these are not nutritious food and in the long-run, they may result in detrimental consequences to our health. 

We need to eat REAL food. Processed and packaged foods are not only nutrient deficient (low in antioxidants and phytochemicals), they also contain unhealthy ingredients, such as processed vegetable oils, high fructose corn syrup, excess sodium, preservatives, and additives. The more we eat, the more health problems we develop.

1. Prepare your meals

  • Cook your food from scratch but avoid deep frying or charbroiling as these cooking methods create carcinogenic substances. If you don't have time to cook during the week, prepare your food on weekends and freeze in individual containers. Reheat on the stove or oven.
  • Use only good oil for cooking. Restaurants and processed foods generally use cheap vegetable oils derived from canola, corn, soy, safflower, or sunflower. Some may use grape seed oil or rice bran oil. All these are processed, refined oils that are relatively high in omega-6 which promotes inflammation, an instigator for cancer. The best oils to use for cooking are coconut oil and organic animal fats, ghee, and butter. Reserve extra virgin olive oil for low heat cooking and salad dressing.
  • Incorporate some raw food into your diet as they are rich in enzymes which can be easily destroyed by cooking. Not everyone can tolerate a lot of raw food in the diet, therefore, it is important to find your own balance.
  • Stay away from packaged snacks. It is one thing to bake home-made cookies using organic butter, whole grain flour, and may be a bit of natural sugar like maple syrup or honey. It is a totally different thing when you buy commercially baked goods and cookies. These packaged snacks are often made with processed vegetable oils, some even with trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, and all kinds of additives and preservatives.
 
 
2. Watch your sugar

  • Processed and packaged foods are usually very high in sugar. Look at the boxed cereals you eat every morning, the packaged snacks you eat in mid-afternoon, or the fruit juice/soda that you drink. Add everything you eat and drink in one day and see how much it is. Know that a teaspoon of sugar is equivalent to 4 grams. On average, Americans consume 20 teaspoons of sugar a day!
  • More than one out of three Americans aged 20 and older has pre-diabetes, a condition in which your blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as full-blown diabetes. A recent meta-analysis that included data from nearly 900,000 people show that those with pre-diabetes have a 15 percent higher risk of cancer, especially cancers of the breast, endometrium, liver, pancreas, and stomach. 
  • People who have pre-diabetes generally have higher levels of insulin as well as insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 plays a key role in cell growth and proliferation. This is why diabetes and pre-diabetes raise your risk of cancer.
  • Sugar is the ideal food for cancer cells and promotes their growth. If you currently have cancer or are pre-diabetic, you must absolutely avoid all forms of sugar, both natural and refined. You should also refrain from eating refined carbohydrates as they are broken down very quickly into simple sugars. For healthy people, keep your sugar intake to a minimum and use it only as an occasional treat.
  • Some names for added sugars include agave syrup, brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, sugar molecules ending in "ose" (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose), high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, honey, invert sugar, malt sugar, molasses, raw sugar, sugar, and syrup.
  • People who have diabetes and pre-diabetes should particularly pay attention to their fructose intake. While every cell in the body can use glucose, the liver is the only organ that can metabolize fructose in significant amounts. The liver turns the fructose into fat, which is exported as VLDL cholesterol, resulting in high blood triglycerides and cholesterol, fat around the organs, and ultimately heart disease. Fructose increases uric acid in your blood and contributes to gout and high blood pressure. Deposition of excess fat in the liver leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Too much fructose brings on insulin resistance, which gives rise to elevated insulin and IGF-1 and may eventually cause cancer.
  • Some forms of sugar are especially high in fructose. Agave is the worst, with a fructose content ranging from 70-97%, depending on how it is processed. High fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose, table sugar is 50%, and honey is about 40%.
  • Fruits, obviously, contain fructose or fruit sugar. Those who have blood sugar issues or have cancer should limit their fruit intake to just berries as they are much lower in fructose. If you are healthy, you can eat whole fruits but do not drink fruit juice. With juice, it is too easy to overdose and reach a harmful level of fructose.

3. Buy only quality meats and dairy

  • Choose grass-pastured, sustainably-raised, organic meats to reduce your exposure to antibiotics, hormones, herbicides, pesticides, and genetically-modified animal feed. 
  • If you are on a budget, buy grass-fed ground meats or cheaper cuts of meats that require longer cooking time.
  • With dairy products, it is best to buy organic and/or grass-fed. 
 
4. Eat cancer-fighting foods every day


  • A recent study shows that a typical American eats less than 4 tablespoons of vegetables (both cruciferous and dark leafy) every day. Iceberg lettuce, which Americans eat tons of, does not count as a green because it is far too low in nutrients.
  • Incorporate more of these cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, and spices into your daily diet - cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale), dark leafy greens, asparagus, tomatoes, berries, pomegranates, green tea, oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, turmeric, garlic, ginger, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. 

 
How To Implement The First Key Action Successfully?

Most people know that eating REAL food is good and processed food is bad. Most people, at some point in time, have good intentions to eat better and be healthier. Yet, how come only one-third of the Americans are at a healthy weight and cancer rate is still climbing?

The number one thing that is probably preventing you from changing your health habits is YOUR OWN MIND.


Many times when you say you cannot do something, it is because a limiting belief is holding you back. For example, you do not have enough time or you are too tired after a day's work to cook, or you are just not a good cook. 

Limiting beliefs are formed through repeated thoughts and overtime they become your identity. The only reason they hold any weight is because you have decided or agreed that they are true.

Once you recognize and accept this ingrained thought pattern and get past the limiting belief, you will actually be able to make some concrete changes in your life.

  • Know that eating healthy requires planning. Impulsive decisions are often not as healthy.
  • Do your grocery shopping and meal preparation on your days off. Freeze them in individual containers. This will substantially cut down the time you need to spend on cooking when you get home during the week. All you need to do is make a simple salad or some vegetables to go with the meal.
  • If you are not a good cook or that every time you cook, it becomes frustrating or takes a substantial amount of time, then taking some cooking lessons or learning a few simple cooking techniques will help mitigate the problem.
  • Start with simple recipes that require only a few ingredients instead of something too complex and time consuming.
  • Instead of saying "I can't eat the donuts", say "I don't eat donuts". It changes something restrictive into something empowering. You are the one making the decision to improve your health by ditching junk foods.
  • Every day, make the effort to add more cancer-fighting foods to your diet. Eventually, they will crowd out the less healthy options.

For the second and third key actions to cancer prevention, please read the February and March newsletters.



© Carol Chuang 2016

 
 

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 Due to genetic differences, each person has his or her distinct metabolism and dietary requirements. This explains why "one-size-fits-all" diets might work for some but not for others. Human beings are not created equal. One man's food can be another man's poison.


Optimal health always begins with the diet. In my nutrition practice, I use Metabolic Typing, an advanced nutritional technology to help determine the specific dietary needs of an individual. If you are currently experiencing any of the following symptoms, a metabolically appropriate nutrition regimen can help correct your underlying imbalances:  

  • Weight issues
  • Low energy
  • Mood swings
  • Poor concentration
  • Hormonal imbalances
  • Digestive problems
  • High cholesterol
  • Blood sugar abnormalities
  • High blood pressure
  • Allergies
  • Anemia
  • Arthritis
  • Other chronic ailments

If you want to know more about this nutrition program and learn how to use food as a means to achieve optimal health, contact me today. This conversation could very well be the turning point in your life.   

 

About the Author 
Carol Chuang earned a Master of Science degree in Nutrition from Huntington College of Health Sciences. She is a Certified Nutrition Specialist from the American College of Nutrition, a Certified Health Counselor from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, a Certified Metabolic Typing Advisor, a Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist, and a Certified Gluten Practitioner.

Carol is a Professional Member of the American College of Nutrition and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. Apart from having her private practice counseling individual clients, she writes a monthly nutrition newsletter, and conducts regular seminars on various topics of nutrition and wellness.  
  
Carol Chuang, MS, CNS, CMTA, FDN 
415-652-9942