Cancer on My Mind - November 1, 2012

Part 6 – Fighting Cancer with a Plant Based Diet, November 1, 2012

I’ve been a vegan for more than seventy days now, and the part of the transformation most surprising to me is that I’ve made the change with few misgivings – it might be somewhat due to the fact that I like beans, any type of beans, cook a big pot nearly every week, and can eat them every day – my substitute for meat. I’ve discovered that beans are some of the most nutritious in the vegetable diet. They supply a higher quality protein (meat is over-rated), and three types (red, kidney and pinto) are listed in the top four of those plant foods having the most antioxidants (wild blueberries are #2). Pintos are my favorite, so I tend to choice them more often. Having cancer has, of course, been the primary incentive toward my transformation.

I continue to feel quite well, have a lot of energy, and noticed that the swallowing difficulty that alerted me to the problem has greatly diminished over the last few weeks. I harbor no doubts about my decision to skip surgery – time will tell if I’m right. According to statistics I have less than one chance in five to be alive five years from now. That’s if I elect to have surgery, the final procedure of three that the medical establishment recommends. I recently completed the other two (five weeks of chemo and thirty-three sessions of radiation). Tests had shown that very little metastasis had occurred (the Chemo was to kill any wandering cancer cells), and I wanted to shrink the tumor to nothing (so I opted to have an additional five radiation treatments).

My Oncologist, Dr. Spencer, said I was the first she had heard of to opt out of surgery. She had seen the video Forks over Knives, was quite impressed by it, and seemed curious and supportive of my one-man experiment. Doctor Spencer appears to be very religious and we got into a short discussion about the Bible. She mentioned that the Garden of Eden had two trees, the other being the Tree of Life and she recited scriptures in the book of Genesis: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” It seems that Adam and Eve started out as vegans.

My naturopathic doctor, Markian Babij, is also supportive of my decision. I think he occupies a sensitive position since he works within the medical establishment of oncologists and radiation therapists, and has to walk a fine line of balance between his own philosopy and theirs – which at times must be in conflict. He was the one who told us about the video Forks over Knives. At a later appointment, I told him I’d read the book The China Study, and he said I need not look at the video as the book was in more detail. We told him we had bought the video and were lending it to interested friends. He has made many valuable suggestions of suppliments that I might take during the different stages of my treatment. I think that is mainly why I came through the Chemo and Radiation with so few negative side effects.

There may be others like myself who have opted out of surgery, but I assume their numbers are small, and it is unlikely that any studies have been conducted, so no statistics are available to calculate my chances of survival over the coming years. My story will be anecdotal.

My thinking is really simple and straight forward. I reason that an animal based food diet caused my cancer, and to continue that diet after treatment is to invite its return. I decided to eliminate all animal based foods from my diet; I even cut out fish. I’m as complete a vegan as its possible in this modern world of refined foods, food additives, and genetically altered foods. For example, I love chocolate and have tried to switch to dark variety, but have been unable to resist milk chocolate now and then. I consider myself a 99 percenter - economically, politically, and veganly. Peruse any grocery food isle and notice how much the selection is limited if you are vegan. The shelves might as well be empty, and there are far more choices today than there was just a few years ago - people are catching on. The Natural Pantry here in town has just broken ground for a large new store on 36th Avenue. It will do well.

Conversely, a whole food plant-based diet offers more than just changing to a nonpoisonous food source. The diet is vastly superior, not only in the variety, but also the quantity and quality of nutrients. Animal foods are mainly protein and fats – not really a whole lot more – not when compared to plant foods. There are literally thousands of nutrients in the world of plant foods that are not to be found in the animal based diet. The problem seems to be that no one knows which nutrients do what. That’s because most money for cancer research goes into studies to cure the disease; little to nothing is directed into research that might demonstrate how cancer can be prevented or even cured by a nutritious diet. This is also typical for research into the other major “diseases of affluence”.

I think this is why one reads and hears of the many anecdotal stories about miraculous cures credited to specific plant foods, or extracts from exotic tropical plants. Many despairing people fall victim to scam artists promising salvation. I am certain there are curative nutrients out there, but like everyone else, I don’t know which ones they are, so the solution for me is to eat great variety, to awash my body in the most nutrition mixtures of food and spices that I can discover.

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of antioxidants in the world of plant foods. It was long thought that they functioned mainly to latch onto and deactivate free-radicals, thus preventing them from damaging cells. Now researchers are beginning to think the chemical behavior inside cells may be more complicated, that many of those antioxidants may work in unison, a choreographed dance, while others regulate gene expression. So I am, little by little learning to cook vegan. We attended a seminar a few days ago on, “Spices: A Key Ingredient for Cancer Prevention and Treatment”, and I checked out a library book about cooking with spices, The Spice Merchants Daughter.
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,