More Juicing!

Yesterday I talked about the benefits of juicing for optimal health. For those of you with juicers (or, potential juicer-owners), I’m going to provide a few more recipes today for good juices that target certain health issues. Enjoy!

Anxiety, Stress, & Panic Attacks

Healing fruits and vegetables for those who suffer from occasional or even chronic anxiety include apricots, bananas, broccoli, carrots, celery, fennel, leafy greens, onions and watercress. Some herbs that are helpful include alfalfa, borage, garlic, chamomile, lavender, lemon balm and parsley. Other helpful foods include almond milk, dulse, honey, kelp, almonds, tofu, and oats.

Foods rich in B-vitamins, such as leafy greens and whole grains, will help support the nervous system, which helps us cope with stress and anxiety. Some foods to avoid during times of anxiety or stress include caffeine, alcohol, refined flours and sugars, artificial flavors and colors, and any foods you may be allergic or intolerant of.

Juice for Anxiety, Stress & Panic Attacks

1 cup spinach leaves

1 cup kale leaves

1 beet

2 celery stalks

1 apple

Optional: dandelion root or blackstrap molasses

Cancer Prevention

The risk factors for cancer, as most of us know, include tobacco and alcohol use; exposure to toxins in food and/or environment; and family history of cancer. A diet of mainly whole foods that includes large amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables can be a powerful tool in cancer prevention, along with exercise.

Foods that help with cancer prevention include apples, apricots, berries, citrus fruits, figs, grapes, kiwis, mangoes, peaches, watermelon, asparagus, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, leafy greens, onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and watercress. Herbs that are helpful include burdock root, calendula, echinacea, garlic, green tea, parsley, sage and turmeric. Other great cancer prevention foods include extra virgin olive oil, fish oil, flax, legumes, nuts, seeds, wheat grass and whole grains.

Juice for Cancer Prevention

¼ head cabbage, chopped to fit juicer tube

2 carrots

2 celery stalks

1 clove garlic

3 sprigs fresh parsley

1 beet

1 apple

1 spear broccoli

Hangover

As many of us know, a hangover can include things like headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, depression, cravings, and more. Alcohol severely dehydrates the body, increases acidity in our digestive system, causes the loss of potassium and other vitamins, and affects our liver.

Healing fruits and vegetables for a hangover include apples, bananas, lemons, limes and leafy greens. Herbs that can be helpful include cumin, evening primrose oil, ginger, chamomile and lavender.

Hangover Helper Juice

2 apples

1 small piece gingerroot

1 lemon

Optional: 2 starfruits, crushed lavender buds

Note: Much of the above information was adapted from The Juicing Bible, by Pat Crocker

Beets: Health (and other) Benefits

It was brought to my attention that I neglected to include any information in yesterday’s post about the health benefits of beets. This is too important to let slide so here they are:

Beets actually have the highest sugar content of all vegetables, which is one reason they make such a good choice for homemade baby food. Babies will be drawn to the sweetness and the bright colors.

Beets are very high in folate, magnesium, potassium, fiber and vitamin C.

As many of you mothers know, folate is a very important nutrient during pregnancy. 1 cup of boiled beets provide about a third of your daily recommended folate intake. Folate helps ensure normal tissue growth for your baby, and is required for spinal column development.

The magnesium in beets helps increase calcium absorption, which is important for prevention of osteoporosis. I think I’ve mentioned before that without proper levels of magnesium, calcium is not absorbed and therefore you do not get the health benefits associated with it. Many people eat plenty of calcium but not enough magnesium, so still suffer from calcium deficiency.

The vitamin C in beets is beneficial in many ways, including the prevention and treatment of asthma symptoms and supporting healthy structure of capillaries.

Beets are known to help protect against heart disease and certain types of cancers. Like many other brightly-colored fruits and vegetables, beets contain high amounts of antioxidants. These help to eliminate toxins from the body inside the liver (the body’s primary detoxification organ). Toxin buildup is what eventually leads to cancer and other disease. Some studies have even shown that beet juice can slow down formation of tumors in the body and inhibit cell mutations in the stomach. The antioxidants are also helpful in prevention of cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Many of you have expressed interest in more information about cholesterol. Consumption of beets is associated with a lowering of cholesterol, lowering of triglyceride level and blood pressure, and increase in HDL (good) cholesterol. If you or someone in your family has high cholesterol, beets may be a good food to add to your shopping list.

Golden beets have a milder taste than red beets, but are very similar. My mom has become famous in the St. Paul area for a golden beet recipe she has perfected. Maybe, if we’re lucky, she’ll share it with us soon! Another great golden beet recipe, which even Ed, the beet-hater, liked, is just a simple salad consisting of any type of greens, roasted or boiled golden beets, goat cheese (the more the better), all topped with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of herbs.

Home Remedies?

Beets detoxify the blood and renew it with minerals and natural sugars. This may be why beets were traditionally used to treat fevers. Beets are also good home remedies for constipation and digestive disorders, and beet greens are sometimes used on wounds to aid in healing.

Speaking of beet greens…

The beet greens contain high amounts of iron, calcium, vitamin A and vitamin C. Only eat them if they look healthy. They will keep for 4-5 days in your fridge in a plastic bag. Use them as you would any other type of greens. This morning, I put them into my smoothie along with avocado, banana, flax meal, tofu and kefir.

Sugar

About 30% of our sugar today comes from sugar beets (the other 70% from cane). Beets are harvested, the sugar is diffused out of the vegetable, and goes through a refining and crystallization process to turn it into sugar.

Other Uses?

Meet Daniel:

Daniel lives in St. Louis, and brought to may attention an alternative use for beets. Apparently, the Gateway to the West has been receiving some snow lately, and the salt they are using to de-ice the roads is not working. They have tried adding beet juice to the salt, and have seen some success. They are using a byproduct of the extraction of sugar from sugar beets, which is a thick, syrupy molasses. This sticky substance helps keep salt confined to the roads for longer time periods, resulting in more melting of the ice. It’s a rather new technique that is mainly used in the Midwest. So to all my St. Louis readers, I’d watch out for sticky shoes, boots and pant hems if I were you!

Baker's Yeast: A New Cancer Treatment?

I hope you have enjoyed the information and recipes for cancer healing this week. In my opinion, diet and lifestyle choices are such an important part of the cancer prevention and treatment processes. The importance of nutrition is gaining credibility in the world of science, and cancer prevention or treatment diets are becoming more widely practiced. Throughout this week, I have received e-mails from many of you who know someone who has used nutrition as part of a healing process for cancer. I think this is great, and I hope you will encourage your family and friends to make some dietary changes, in addition to any other treatments they are doing, if they are suffering from cancer.

Last night, the girl in my Nutrients class who presented “Nutrition in the News” talked about some natural ways to treat cancer. There is a doctor, Dr. Mamdooh Ghoneum, who has spent the past two decades researching one of these natural cancer treatments. He has been experimenting with non-pathogenic baker’s yeast and has found that cancer cells, when exposed to the yeast, engulf it and then self-destruct.

First, Dr. Ghoneum used test tubes to experiment with breast, skin, tongue and colon cancer cells. Upon being introduced to the baker’s yeast, these cancer cells ingested it and died. Dr. Ghoneum’s next step was to inject the baker’s yeast into mice with larger cancer tumors. Again, the size of the tumor decreased greatly. The final step, which has not been taken yet, will be clinical trials.

Dr. Ghoneum’s experiments have been repeated and results confirmed and published by many scientists. It is exciting because the baker’s yeast could be successful in treating not only tumors, but also cancer that has spread throughout the body. Researchers are continuing to work on this study, in hopes that someday we can use baker’s yeast as a more natural method of treating cancer.

Below is a video of Dr. Ghoneum’s research and results, and other medical professionals’ viewpoints on it. It’s really interesting and encouraging that these doctors are so enthusiastic about continuing cancer research and focusing on more natural methods. They recognize how toxic and harmful conventional treatments, like chemotherapy, can be, and are eager to improve on how they help their patients. I think Dr. Ghoneum’s results are very promising and we should expect to hear more about baker’s yeast in the future!

Note: If you receive PWN blog by e-mail, this video may not show up. Click here to go to the site to see it.

Therapeutic Meal: Cancer – Antioxidant Fruit Salad

This is the last recipe from the meal we served in class last week. My sisters Alice and Madeline discovered this recipe a couple years ago when they were planning a wedding shower for me, and it was so bright, beautiful and delicious! I adapted it a little for my cancer meal presentation so it would contain more of the important cancer-fighting nutrients.

The pomegranate seeds and berries contain many antioxidants. Antioxidants help eliminate free radicals inside the body, which contribute to cancer cell growth if not kept in control. Pomegranates and berries are particularly rich sources of ellagic acid. Ellagic acid is a type of antioxidant that inhibits cancer formation and mutation.

Lemons and limes contain flavonoids that have both antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. These flavonoids can stop cell division in cancer cells. The vitamin C content in lemons and limes helps to eliminate free radicals inside the body.

Raw honey can act as an antibacterial and antioxidant in our blood. It is a good source of B-vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, potassium and many raw enzymes. Read more about the health benefits of raw honey here.

This recipe is great for summer bbqs or parties. It meets my mom's expectation of having lots of color at every meal, and is a perfect touch of sweetness after a good meal. Enjoy!

Recipe

1 cup strawberries, slice strawberries as desired

1 cup blueberries

1 cup blackberries

1 cup raspberries

2 medium apples, diced

2 pomegranates, remove seeds and include with fruit

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup raw honey

1 lime, juiced

1 TBSP orange zest

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Combine all ingredients right before serving.

Therapeutic Meal: Cancer – Zesty Lentil Veggie Soup

This soup was the main course of our cancer meal. It was a big hit – I recommend giving it a try. Also, the girl in our group who made it mentioned that it freezes well, so make extras! Again, sorry about no photos…

Recipe

1 lb brown or green lentils

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups yellow onion, chopped

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 cup carrots, chopped

½ cup celery, chopped

1 tbsp smoked or regular paprika

¼ tsp ground cumin

8 cups vegetable broth

3 sprigs fresh thyme (or ½ tsp dried)

1 bay leaf

3 cups tomatoes, chopped

¼ cup parsley, chopped

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

Wash lentils, sort, drain and set aside.

Heat olive oil and sauté onions, garlic, carrots and celery for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper, cook one minute. Stir and mix in broth and lentils. Bring to a boil.

Tie thyme and bay leaf together with kitchen twine and put in pot. Cover and reduce to simmer and cook for thirty minutes.

Add tomatoes and cook uncovered for another 10-15 minutes. Stir in parsley and lemon juice. Add salt to taste (optional) and garnish with plain Greek yogurt and remaining parsley. Serves 12.

Carrots are high in potassium and calcium, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin K, carotenoids, B vitamins and iodine. Carrots’ antioxidant compounds help protect against cancer.

Onions are high in chromium, Vitamin C, vitamin B6 and potassium.

Garlic as an excellent source of manganese, vitamins B6 and B1, vitamin C, calcium and potassium.

Tomatoes have large amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin K. They are also a very good source of potassium, magnesium, dietary fiber, and vitamins B1, B2 and B6. One interesting fact we found is that chopping and heating actually makes the cancer-fighting constituents of tomatoes and broccoli more bioavailable, meaning easier for our bodies to recognize and absorb.

Celery is an excellent source of vitamin C, potassium, calcium, B-vitamins, vitamin A and magnesium.

Lentils are a very good source of dietary fiber and a good source of iron, protein, B-vitamins and potassium.

Tomorrrow: Antioxidant Fruit Salad!

Therapeutic Meal: Cancer – Super Green Salad

The first recipe we came up with is a salad with raw veggies and a homemade roasted red pepper dressing. It is always good to start a meal with something raw, because it gets your digestive enzymes working.

Sorry about no photos - I forgot to take them during our presentation!

Recipe:

½ roasted red pepper

1-inch wedge sweet onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 medium plum tomato, seeded and chopped

¼ jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

1 tsp raw honey

1 tbsp vegetable broth

1 tsp red wine vinegar

½ tsp sea salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 bunches kale, chopped

1 cucumber, sliced

2 plum tomatoes, sliced crosswise

1/8 red onion, thinly sliced

In blender, blend red pepper, onion, garlic, tomato, jalapeño, honey, broth, vinegar and salt until pulpy. With motor running, mix in oil. Set dressing aside while making salad.

Wash greens. Tear kale into bite-size pieces and whirl in salad spinner to dry. Place kale in salad bowl. Add 1/4 cup dressing and toss until greens are just coated. Add cucumber, tomatoes, mushrooms and onion rings. Toss lightly, and serve immediately.

*If possible, roast pepper yourself. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Place seeded pepper half, cut-side down, on oiled baking sheet and roast 20 to 30 minutes until skin is well-blistered. Place pepper in small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes. Using fingers, remove skin. Roasted peppers may be tightly covered and refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Kale is a super food for cancer fighting. It contains high levels of vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, calcium and fiber. Chewing raw kale can actually trigger the liver to produce enzymes that detoxify cancer-causing chemicals.

Onions are garlic are said to be protective of many cancers. Onions are high in vitamin C, fiber and manganese. Garlic is also high in manganese and vitamin C, as well as vitamin B6.

Tomatoes are high in vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium, manganese and dietary fiber, all extremely important cancer-fighting nutrients.

Cucumbers are high in vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium and manganese.

Shiitake mushrooms are a symbol of longevity and are high in vitamin C and protein.

Red peppers are high in vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin B6.

Therapeutic Meal Report: Cancer

One of the projects for my Food Therapy class was to choose a disease, identify which nutrients someone with that disease is deficient in, and come up with a meal that contains large amounts of those nutrients. My group chose cancer.

We did not focus on one particular type of cancer. Someone with breast cancer may be more likely to be deficient in certain nutrients than someone with pancreatic cancer. However, we did identify eight main nutrients that someone with cancer is likely to be deficient in, and we used these to create recipes for a “therapeutic” meal.

All cancers begin in the body’s cells. To understand cancer, it's helpful to know what happens when normal cells become cancer cells. In a healthy body, cells grow and divide in a controlled way to produce more cells, as they are needed to keep the body healthy. When cells become old or damaged, they die and are replaced with new cells.

Certain things, such as environment and other lifestyle factors, can cause this orderly process of cell division to go wrong. The genetic material (DNA) of a cell can become damaged or altered, producing mutations that affect normal cell growth and division. When this happens, new cells form when the body doesn’t need them, and they can create a mass of tissue, or a tumor. These mutated cells begin to divide uncontrollably and eventually can invade other tissues and spread throughout the body.

Some of the environment and lifestyle factors that can cause these gene mutations include tobacco and alcohol use, diet and nutrition, UV radiation exposure, and exposure to carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) in the workplace or environment. Some gene alterations can be inherited, although this does not mean one will automatically develop cancer. Rather, it means their chances of getting cancer are increased. This is why it is so important for people with a history of cancer in their family to make their health a priority.

Top Therapeutic Nutrients for Cancer

1. Vitamin A – an antioxidant; may inhibit binding of carcinogens to DNA; stimulates immune function; sources: darkly colored orange or green vegetables and orange fruits.

2. Vitamin C – an antioxidant; has ability to block formation of nitrates, which are carcinogens formed in the stomach from one’s diet; helps eliminate free radicals inside the body; sources: red berries, kiwi, lemon, limes, red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, and juices made from guava, grapefruit, and orange.

3. Vitamin E – an antioxidant, blocks formation of nitrates similar to the way vitamin C does this; enhances immune function; sources: nuts, green leafy vegetables, avocado, wheat germ, and whole grains.

4. Calcium & Magnesium – calcium binds free fatty acids and bile to form insoluble compounds, which reduces toxicity in the colon; magnesium is necessary for calcium absorption and other bodily functions; sources: dark greens, soybeans, almonds, sea vegetables, fish, whole grains and berries.

5. Selenium – an antioxidant and component of several essential enzymes; can inhibit cancer of mammary gland and colon; sources: brazil nuts, tuna, whole grains, garlic, turkey and swordfish.

6. Zinc – combats oxidative free radicals and plays major role in DNA repair; has anti-inflammatory effects; sources: beef, lamb, venison, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, beans and mushrooms.

7. B-Vitamins – vitamin B3 can help prevent DNA damage in cells and supports genetic processes; vitamin B6 helps maintain red blood cell health and supports immune system; sources: tomatoes, spinach, kale, chicken breast, salmon, onions, honey, red berries, pomegranate seeds, and mushrooms.

8. Potassium – a potassium deficiency is very common among people with cancer; sources: sea vegetables, garlic, parsley, dark greens, carrots, lentils, and raw honey.

Up next: the recipes from the meal we prepared!