Food Questions
I always get asked this question. You didn't get cancer from eating too much fruit. You didn't get fat from eating too much fruit. You didn't get diabetes from eating too much fruit. Fruit was not the problem. Most people are hardly eating any fruit anyway, and then they get some kind of health problem and they're like, "Oh, I don't want to eat too much fruit now." You weren't even eating fruit to begin with! According to the 2012 Global Burden of Disease Study--this was a massive study involving 50 countries--the number one dietary risk factor for death and death is not eating enough fruit! They concluded that lack of fruit in our diets is responsible for nearly 5 million deaths per year.
You know what food feeds cancer? Meat and dairy. The cultures that eat the most vegetables and fruit—and the least amount of meat and dairy—have the lowest rates of Western diseases including most cancers. So, I think you need to eat tons of vegetables, starches, and enjoy as much fruit as you like.
The sugars in fruit are wonderful; they're good for you. I know people who have healed cancer on an all fruit diet—100% fruit! Whether or not that's the best diet for your type of cancer, I can't say. But everyone should know that's an option. SQUARE ONE gives you a starting point. Jump on it, do it 100%, and measure your progress. If it's working, don't change anything, keep doing what you're doing, and stay the course. If it's not working—let's say the tumor is growing at the same rate it was before you started—then you have a lot more options. So, you could go all fruit for a month and measure your progress again, and see what happens. That's total methionine restriction, all fruit.
Some people, whether it's the cancer, their body, their physiology—who knows why—they need a more restrictive diet. You always have options. If you're not getting the results you want, don't assume that nothing else will work for you. You have to be determined to find the solution to your problem—which may involve trial and error. I didn't have much fruit in the beginning until I realized how wonderful fruit was, because I was scared of sugar, too. But after a very short time, within a couple of months, I was having fruit smoothies every day. In the very beginning, I was only eating low-sugar fruit like green apples and grapefruit. But then, once I realized how wonderful fruit is, especially berries, I started having more fruit every day. Now I eat as much as 10 servings of fruit per day.
Where does a gorilla get their protein? From plants! Many of the largest animals in the world are plant-eating herbivores like gorillas, giraffes, rhinos, and hippos. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Every fruit and every vegetable contains amino acids that your body uses to assemble proteins. Protein deficiency is nearly impossible unless you are malnourished, severely underweight, and starving—like third-world starving. Most adults need 30-50 grams of protein per day. You will get all the protein you need from eating fruits, vegetables, and starches—like rice, beans, potatoes, and oatmeal. Most people don’t need to supplement with protein powder, but if you feel like you do, go with an organic plant-based protein powder from Garden of Life, Sunwarrior, or Orgain.
Everyone loses weight when they start eating super healthy (plant-based diet, lows of raw foods, juices, etc). That’s normal. Your body will lose weight in the beginning. But then it will find a resistance point where it levels off, where the number of calories you're consuming matches the number of calories needed per day—that will be your new normal. The main thing to look at is your Body Mass Index. Google “BMI calculator” and figure out what your normal weight range is for your height. If your BMI is in a normal range, then you are fine and you don’t need to worry about your weight. Most people, I’ve found, who think they’ve lost too much weight are still within a normal BMI range. If your BMI is clinically underweight, then you need to eat more cooked food and starches. Start with my Supercharged Oatmeal Recipe for breakfast and add hemp, flax, chia seeds, and almond butter to it. As for starches, beans and potatoes are wonderful. Rice is great. Go with brown, black, or red rice. They're more nutritious. Preferably not from China. Organic is best. White rice is the least nutritious; skip it. Black beans, garbanzo beans, navy beans, kidney beans, split peas, and lentils are amazing. So, a variety of cooked legumes are wonderful. Also, sweet potatoes and yams are terrific. I talk about this in Module 4: The Anti-Cancer Diet Part 2. If you need more calories, you just need to eat more cooked foods. So, definitely add those healthy starches: oats, beans, rice, quinoa, potatoes, and even organic corn.
Dr. Gerson has a long track record of success with nutritional therapy. He died in 1955; but before that he published a book called A Cancer Therapy. There's 50 case studies in there of people that he helped reverse their cancer with nutrition. He had a very specific nutritional protocol that eliminated all processed food and pretty much all animal food. It was all juices and plant food, for the most part. And he eliminated oils because he thought they were difficult for the liver to process. And the only oil he allowed was flax oil—we know flax oil is great.
Generally speaking, I avoid oils. A little bit of flax oil or olive oil on salad is okay, it can also help with the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins in vegetables. As for coconut oil, you just don't really don't need it. I know it's super hyped-up, and there was a point in time when I thought it was a miracle food, too, because everyone said it is. But it's not really that important of a food. I experimented with many different diets after I was healed from cancer, and I used to consume a ton of coconut oil and coconut milk. Then I looked at the science and saw a significant link between saturated fat consumption and heart disease and diabetes. The people groups around the world with the lowest rates of heart disease also consume the lowest amounts of saturated fats and oils. Years ago, when I was consuming tons of coconut oil and coconut milk, my blood work came back pre-diabetic. I suspected it might be due to the high amount of saturated fat I was consuming, so I eliminated coconut milk and cut way back on oils, and my blood work went back to normal. Oils are a processed food. It's not natural food, it's a processed food because they extract it from a whole food. Your best sources of healthy fats are whole foods: nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, whole coconuts, etc. (Eat olives sparingly; too much sodium.)
We aren’t completely oil-free. We use a little oil here and there in cooking. Like I said, I still recommend olive or flax oil on the Giant Salad because a little bit of oil can help the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins in vegetables. Just keep it to a minimum: 1-2 tbsp. My wife also keeps coconut oil, grapeseed oil, and sesame seed oil in the pantry for use in certain dishes.
Since we’re talking about oils, black seed oil is an exception. It is not a cooking oil or an oil you would eat for enjoyment because it doesn’t taste good. Black seed oil is from black cumin seeds, and has incredible research behind it. It is an anti-cancer powerhouse. I talk about it in Module 9: Cancer Healing Herbs, Teas & Supplements. I take black seed oil regularly for prevention and if I had cancer, I'd be taking two tablespoons twice a day. And, like I said in SQUARE ONE, it tastes like something you would buy in AutoZone, so you may need a chaser.
Based on the existing research I’ve seen, CBD oil may have some benefit for cancer patients. But Cannabis oil, which contains THC and is illegal in most states, is the most beneficial. I would be inclined to take it if I had cancer now.
If you're worried about methionine, don't eat anything from an animal and don’t eat beans. Very simple. Some grains have methionine, but most cancer patients that are doing a hardcore diet like this pretty much get off all grains, too. Just focus on fruits and vegetables.
Beans have more methionine than most fruits and vegetables; but far less methionine than meat, dairy, and animal foods. I think beans are wonderful. We know that beans are a staple food in the longest living cultures around the world, and they're directly related to longevity. In other words, the cultures that have the longest lifespans also eat the most beans. I think beans are awesome.
Is the methionine in beans a problem for a cancer patient? I feel like it isn't. But if you want to be on a methionine restricted diet, like a hardcore no methionine diet, then yeah, you would want to eliminate beans. Do I think it's necessary to get well? Probably not. But if what you're doing isn't working, and you're eating beans, then you might need to restrict a little more and just get a little bit more hardcore. We're all a little different; there are 200 types of cancer, and you just never know. Generally speaking, beans are wonderful and I think they're great and healthy for a cancer patient; but in some cases, maybe not. I eat beans every day, by the way.
I have a lot of respect for Dr. Russell Blaylock. He's an MD, and I read his book years ago, Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients. I ate a lot of mushrooms. And we know there are a lot of studies that mushrooms boost immune function in the body. They're immune boosters. I feel really good about them and ate them every single day in the Giant Salad. That's why they're in the Giant Salad recipe in SQUARE ONE.
If you're concerned that maybe they're feeding the cancer, or whatever, then it's not a big deal to take them out of your diet. But, again, they were in mine. I still have a lot of confidence in mushrooms and think you should eat them. But this is your life and your journey, and if they make you nervous and they're causing stress and anxiety, then just leave them out.
Dr. Gerson had a very restrictive diet for cancer patients. He basically eliminated berries, nuts, beans, and many herbs and spices. The Gerson Diet is 13 juices a day—mostly alternating between carrot apple juice and a green juice. Those recipes are in the SQUARE ONE Recipe Guide. As far as the solid food they could eat, it was a lot of potatoes every day. The Hippocrates Soup recipe is also in SQUARE ONE—that's a potato-based soup. A variety of cooked vegetables and salad, too.
But Gerson died in 1955, and we've had a lot of amazing nutritional science come out. We know that there are powerful anti-cancer compounds in berries, cinnamon, basil, and even nuts and pineapple—everything that you mentioned. I think if Dr. Gerson had lived two or three more decades, his opinion probably would have changed as all this amazing science was published about the anti-cancer contents in these foods that he excluded from his diet.
That’s all I can say about it; it's totally speculative. The Gerson Therapy diet is one of the most restrictive diets for cancer. It restricts a lot of foods that I feel like are powerful and beneficial. But I know many people who have gotten well on the Gerson Therapy—lots and lots of people. It's another option. If you don’t get the results you want with SQUARE ONE and you want to get even more hardcore, you can do Gerson Therapy.
I know a lot of people who've healed cancer, and none of them consumed bone broth. So, I don't think it's necessary. Beyond that, bone broth has the amino acid methionine which can fuel cancer growth. So, I don't think that's a good thing. Bone broth comes from animals. Animals have to be killed to get bone broth, and the process is really pretty disgusting on a large-scale manufacturing level…if you really think about it. I just don't think it's necessary for optimal health. I don't think you need the extra protein. You get tons of amino acids—which are converted protein—when you eat fruits and vegetables. So, I just don't think it's necessary at all. Plus, there's some risks. Bone broth is known to be contaminated with lead and other environmental pollutants.
Beyond that—now this is the crazy thing—I was having a conversation the other day with a friend of mine, who is a scientist (and whose name I cannot use). He sent several of these popular bone broth protein powders to a lab to be analyzed, and he found out that many of these bone broth proteins appear to be synthetic. They're not even from real animals. Bone broth protein is the hottest craze right now, and there's no way they have enough supply to meet the demand. So, most of these brands of bone broth protein are all coming from the same manufacturer; they just have a different label on them. These large-scale bone broth protein manufacturers may be doing some shady stuff. Anyway, hopefully I’ll have hard data and proof to share with you soon. But that's all I can talk about right now. You don't need it.
I wish I knew. The problem is, you just have to trust at some level. You just have to trust that if it says “USDA Organic” on it, that it is, in fact, organically grown. And hopefully, it is not contaminated with lead or arsenic or some other environmental pollutant. If food is organically grown in a polluted area, even if they don't spray toxic chemicals on it, then it could be contaminated with toxins from the soil.
I've never seen a study where they took Certified Organic produce from different regions and then tested them to see if they had contamination issues. I would love to see that because I want to know too. Right now, the best we've got is the Certified Organic label. Is it perfect? No, it sure isn't. If it's grown in third world countries is there more of a risk of environmental contamination? Maybe. But it could be contaminated grown in the US, too. If it's grown in a farm field next to a nuclear reactor site, who knows? It's very easy to kind of spiral down this rabbit hole of paranoia and food fear. So, I don't let my mind go there, because then everything is a potential threat and your only option is to grow all of your own food and many people don’t have that option. I didn’t. If you can't trust the organic label then you can't trust anything. We just have to trust it and bless your food before you eat it.
I think dried fruits are wonderful in oatmeal. Apricots are great (and Gerson approved). Raisins are wonderful. Black currants—which are a lot like raisins—are amazing. I love to chop up some figs and put them in there. Date sugar is great, too. Date sugar is a whole food. It's just a dried date ground into a powder. So yeah, feel free to stew any kind of dried fruit you enjoy in oatmeal. Of course, fresh fruit is wonderful too—especially berries.
We don't really do rice pasta. We buy brown, black, and red rice; and we use black and red rice the most. I haven't really seen any reports of arsenic being a problem in black and red rice, as much as brown rice. It’s a good idea to stay away from Chinese brown rice.
Organic corn tortillas are okay on occasion. White flour tortillas, not so much. Ezekiel tortillas are fine. They are organic sprouted whole grain tortillas. Olives are wonderful, but the problem is olives are preserved in salt, and the sodium level is just through the roof. I didn’t eat olives much when I had cancer. Now we have them occasionally with a meal. I think it’s best to soak olives overnight to remove excess sodium. Ghee is dairy, so I would skip it. I would avoid fake cheese or fake meat products.
It depends on the labeling. If it says 100% organic and has the USDA organic label, it is 100% organic. If it says “made with organic ingredients” then it is not 100% organic and you should check the ingredients list to see which ones are organic. Beyond that, packaged foods are also often processed foods; that's not good. Make sure all the ingredients are whole foods, not a bunch of isolates, additives and preservatives. Your best bet is to stay away from boxed or packaged food, unless it's a boxed whole food. If it's processed stuff like organic cookies and candies at Whole Foods, I wouldn't recommend that.
The complete protein idea is a myth. You do not have to have a complete protein at every meal. When old cells die off, your body recycles proteins from those cells. There are 20 amino acids, but your body can synthesize 11 of them, so you only need 9 from food. Let's say you eat five of those essential amino acids for breakfast and the other four for lunch—your will body store them all and use them to build complete proteins. So, you don’t have a “complete protein” at every meal.
Okay, as far your kids not liking some of the stuff you mentioned, like quinoa, I don't even like quinoa by itself. It has no taste. It’s better when mixed with rice... Try adding chia and hemp to granola, oatmeal or a smoothie. As for buckwheat, they might like buckwheat pancakes. As for tempeh and nattō, I've found that most kids don't really like tofu, tempeh, and nattō. So, I'm not surprised your kids don't like that stuff.
But you know what your kids probably do like? They probably like potatoes, they probably like rice, and they probably like beans. So, all types of rice, beans, and potatoes: legumes, lentils, split peas, chick peas, black beans, green beans, pinto beans, white beans, black eyed peas, green peas, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, yams, purple potatoes, new potatoes. All of those are awesome. Kids love that stuff. Kids love starches. And, of course, red, black, and brown rice.
So, that's the kind of food I would be feeding them. And fruit, tons of fruit. Then try to encourage them to eat raw or cooked veggies. If you can get them to eat some raw cruciferous stuff like cauliflower and broccoli, or salad with kale or spinach, or cooked spinach, cooked collards, or mustard greens. I'm getting hungry thinking about all this stuff! You have a lot of options there.
I restricted animal protein intake to 0 for the first 90 days. Then my nutritionist recommend I eat salmon or lamb 1-2 times per week. As I’ve discussed in Module 4: The Anti-Cancer Diet Part 2, knowing what I know now, I think adding animal food back into my diet that soon was risky. I can’t say whether or not it was helpful or if it just wasn’t enough to be harmful.
Soy milk and almond milk are okay on occasion. It's a processed food, but it’s okay. You need to eat legumes. You need to eat beans, peas, lentils, split peas, and chickpeas. Beans are wonderful, so I wouldn't be afraid of beans—that includes soybeans. Even though soybeans have been demonized and many people think they're bad for breast cancer, studies have shown that breast cancer patients who eat more soy have better survival rates. Soy consumption is associated with the lowest rates of breast cancer around the world. Women who eat more soy have lower rates of breast cancer! The phytoestrogen in soy (genistein) is not the same as the estrogen produced in your body and the estrogen you get from eating animal protein. Plant-based estrogens—phytoestrogens—are good for you.
The real problem is that we are eating tons of animal protein. And many women are carrying excess body fat, which produces excess estrogen in the body. And they're getting estrogen from their diet. Your liver dumps excess estrogen into your colon to be pooped out. But when you eat tons of animal protein, junk food, and processed food, you become constipated. Your colon moves slowly and your body reabsorbs the estrogen that it's trying to get rid of, and you end up in a cycle of autointoxication and reabsorption of estrogen. So, your estrogen levels stay high constantly. That creates an environment where cancer can grow. You want to be able to efficiently eliminate excess estrogen. If you eat a plant-based diet, high in fiber from beans, peas, potatoes, starches, fruits, and vegetables, then you will poop three times a day and that will flush out excess estrogen. If you're worried about soy, you can avoid it. But, again, there are studies that show that soy is really good for endocrine-related cancers like breast cancer and prostate cancer. America is a nation that eats very little soy. We eat a lot of soybean oil in processed food. But as far as eating whole, healthy forms of soy, we aren’t even close to how much soy they eat in Asia. And breast cancer rates are six times lower in many Asian countries than the US. Make sure the soy you eat is organic because if it's not, then it's likely GMO.
I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Test and monitor your progress. See how your body responds. Cruciferous vegetables didn't give you hyperthyroid. Most people I know with thyroid issues weren’t eating much cruciferous vegetables to begin with. I know there are people online saying, "Don't eat cruciferous veggies if you have thyroid issues,” but I think you should. As I discussed in the Module 3: Implementing the Anti-Cancer Diet, cruciferous vegetables are some of the most potent anti-cancer foods.
A better question would be what grains don't I eat...and there really aren't any. I eat all grains. I eat oats almost every day—like 350 days a year. Sometimes I have organic sprouted whole grain bread, like Ezekiel Bread or Manna Bread. I love the cinnamon raisin Ezekiel Bread; it's delicious. Manna Bread is almost like a raw bread. It’s cooked at low temperatures, they don't use yeast, and they press it into a really dense loaf. It's more like bread you would have with a meal, not the kind you would make a sandwich with. Manna Bread is delicious. My favorite flavor is Date & Nut. I started eating Manna bread back in 2004 and I still love it. It's in the frozen section of Whole Foods, and other grocery stores, as well.
I love rice, teff, millet, and buckwheat. I don't really do much with spelt, but not for any particular reason. So, yeah, I like grains. But they need to be organic because they're sprayed with glyphosate if they're not. That's really important.
Our ancestors thrived on grains, and many of the longest living cultures around the world still thrive on grains. And yet they've been demonized in a couple high-profile books by American authors. Whole grains are not the real problem in the American diet. It's ridiculous amounts of white flour, meat, dairy, sugar, salt, and oils that's the problem. It's not like, “Oh, you're eating too much whole wheat. That's why you're not healthy.” That's just not it. Unless you have celiac...but that's such a very small percentage of the population.
How about some rice or beans? People eat rice and beans for breakfast all over the world. How about some fresh fruit, like bananas? How about three or four bananas? How about a few oranges? How about a huge melon? An entire cantaloupe or a honey dew or as much watermelon as you can eat? As for hot cereals, they make them from rice, quinoa, and lots of other grains you can try. There's a lot of options out there. Try buckwheat flakes or even organic corn grits. Put fruit in there, and just do it up with as much good stuff as you can throw in. Sometimes I alternate grits for oatmeal.
I've made nut milk in the past, but it's more work. We buy organic almond milk, and I love the taste of organic Rice Dream. But I don’t have much use for “milks.” The only time I really ever consume almond milk or rice milk is if I have a bowl of granola or something—like a little snack before bed. But if you want to make your own, go for it.
Organic tofu and tempeh are fine. I eat them sometimes. They have to use a lot of sugar to ferment kombucha, so I think you're better off with sauerkraut, kimchi, or apple cider vinegar—those kinds of fermented foods—versus kombucha. I just don't think it's really necessary. And, again, there's a lot of sugar in it.
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