Containing Coronavirus: Going Off Topic to Meet the Lamiaceaes

Dear 3000plus followers,

Please read this— practical advice to prevent COVID-19 from one of the foremost experts on nutrition and disease. Then go out and purchase some lemon balm and other Lamiaceaes and prime your respiratory passageways to reject the nasty buggers. 

Inhale essential oils. Eat lots of herbs. Bathe your throat with tisanes.   with love, Harriet

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Plantastic Kitchen®: How to Tame Your Naughty Testosterone

Anti-cancer dietary advice

Got milk? Got prostate cancer?

Psst, men–and all of you who care about men, growing boys or your own hormonal balance.  How’s your DHT? That’s the powerful male hormone driving adolescent acne, then early hair loss, then later in life, Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Onions: Plantastic Kitchen®’s Peeling Tips

IMG_1255“Again with the onions,”  you’re probably screaming.    Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Swap: Frozen Matcha-rita

 

frozen matcharitaWhile everyone else is taking to alcohol this Cinco de Mayo, dare to be different with an anti-cancer alternative: frozen matcha-ritas. Here’s the messipe:

Continue reading

Your Anti-Cancer Mother’s Day Gift: Myricetin

walnuts public domainMyricetin may not yet grace your doctor’s anti-cancer tool kit, but put it on your prescription pad. Among all the phytonutrients, it’s what I call “plantastic”– blessed with a chemical structure that works some anti-cancer wonder.  

Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Strategies: How to Stock Your Plantastic Kitchen®

anti-cancer dillToday, on World Cancer Day, go out and buy some cancer-fighting plants. Here are some musts for your anti-cancer kitchen: Continue reading

Ring Around the Belly: 5 Keys to Ringing out the Old

Is it my imagination or has Pillsbury’s Dough Boy shed a bit of belly fat?

Wonder what he’s been eating for lupper? Continue reading

Anti-Diabetes is Anti-Cancer: And Butter is not Back

Today, on World Diabetes Day, it’s time to set the record straight: The cause of Type 2 diabetes and its precursor, insulin resistance, is saturated fats. They muck up your cells and the ability of your cells to use insulin.  

Choo choo on that! Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Diets: Why I’m Ditching Brazil Nuts

anti-cancer diets and Brazil nutsAs if Brazil didn’t have enough to worry about, now comes a new study that exposes the shady side of selenium. The selenium in Brazil nuts, it turns out, is not the kind associated with anti-cancer qualities.  Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Have a Berry Merry Tea Party!

anti cancer recipes teas and berriesNow that the holidays are behind us, let’s get back to celebrating life with some simple, health-promoting anti-cancer recipes.  Instead of wine and canapés, treat yourself to a Berry Merry Tea Party—a handful of goji berries along with a cup of the finest tea.  Here’s the black and white—and green and red—on your tea choices.     

For any of you with cancer, please read the last three questions first. Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: How to Make Turmeric More Potent and Tasty

turmeric with rainbow and plate 006 to considerHere’s your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: an anti-cancer recipe for a Turmeric Concoction. Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: So Many Alternatives to Cow’s Milk

milks for an anti cancer dietNow that you’re eliminating mammary secretions on your anti-cancer diet, how do you decide which alternative to buy?  It took a spreadsheet to figure out the answer. Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: How to Handle Garlic, Part 1

anti cancer properties of garlicYearning to know the best ways of preserving garlic’s anti-cancer properties? Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Should you Cook Cabbage?

anti cancer cabbage tipsNovember 2013 update: Please read the groundbreaking news about crucifers! Scientists have recently discovered that lightly steamed cabbage has more anti-cancer compounds than raw cabbage (with one exception:  qing gin cai is best raw)–and that you can cook any cabbage any way you want as long as you eat a little raw crucifer in the same meal. Radish, mustard, watercress, wasabi–any raw crucifer will do.     

Most people will tell you to eat cabbage for its anti-cancer compounds, but they don’t explain that how you prepare it is key. If you want to get the anti-cancer benefits from cabbage, then heed this advice: Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: No Sugar, Lots of Spice and other Zesty Thoughts

Note: Writer-Producer Harriet Sugar Miller has been a health journalist and cancer survivor for almost two decades. In her past life (before children), she practiced law in NYC. 

Although Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month wraps today, the disease remains– and will always be the beast that roused this anti-cancer blog.

In the words of McGill University’s Dr. Gerald Wiviott, we all need a trigger to help us get off our bums (Canadian for “butts”) and make changes:  Inspiration, Motivation, Provocation and Support.   Continue reading

Anti-Cancer News: RIP Rice, even Brown Organic

anti cancer news RIP riceThe news this past week—that some rice and rice products are contaminated with arsenic—should spark a change in your anti-cancer eating habits.

Here’s the short version of the story: Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Here’s to a Berry Good Year!

anti cancer berriesSummer’s waning. It’s your last chance to gather these anti-cancer wonders and preserve their pleasures for those long, winter nights. Get out today, and buy a bushel or four along with a large cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer, then Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Pick Leeks

anti cancer leeks in groundWhen it comes to anti-cancer properties, some vegies tower above the others. Put leeks on top of that list. Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Breakfast Recipes: What Grain is Best for your Blood Sugar?

anti cancer breakfast oatsHint: For an anti-cancer diet, one of these tops your choice of grains:

a/ steel cut oats       b/ oat flakes       c/ oat bran.     Which one?

    

Continue reading

Anti Cancer Recipes: How to Grill Surprisingly Great Sardines

anti cancer sardines from recipe2recipe.comGills down, this anti-cancer recipe wins the tastiest meal of the summer— Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Can Flaxseed Stave off Prostate Cancer?

anti cancer flaxseedWe know that flaxseed appears to be an anti-cancer food for women and it may just do wonders for our sex drive, but what about for our men: Does it fight prostate cancer, too? Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Can Flaxseed Stave off Breast Cancer?

anti cancer recipes flaxseedKnow anyone who has breast cancer? Doing your best to avoid it? Then consider this: Studies are showing that flaxseed can protect against breast cancer and prolong survival in women who have it. Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: Beware the Roasted Chicken

roasted chicken is far from anti-cancerYikes. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you might want to reconsider Grandma’s precious recipe. Roasted chicken, it turns out, is more pro- than anti-cancerous. Here are two reasons why: Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: What’s for Drinking?

If you’ve been following the anti-cancer recipes in this blog, then you already have some ideas. Besides good old- fashioned water (not from a plastic bottle, especially if it’s been sitting around in heat), here are some healthy options: Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipes: What’s for Breakfast?

anti cancer mung bean soupHey, guys. It might be a bit difficult at first to wrap your new anti-cancer brain around this one, but you’ll get used to it: Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Recipe: Lemons, Limes, Limonene

anti cancer limonene

Note: One of the pitfalls of a plant-based diet is that some foods can soften the enamel on teeth. The acid in citrus can definitely do that,  As a reader suggests, the solution is to rinse your mouth with water. And wait an hour or so before brushing. You don’t want to brush enamel that’s been softened. 

D-limonene, to be precise. Put it in your anti-cancer vocabulary.  It’s a member of a very fragrant class of molecules that abound in citrus–terpenoids or terpenes. And they’ve been shown to inhibit cancer cell progression and induce cell death.  Continue reading

How to Eat Out on an Anti-Cancer Diet

anti cancer Eat out Thai currySure, we’re trying to stick to an anti-cancer diet, but we still have to enjoy ourselves, right? And that means eating in restaurants every so often, indulging in some Kaeng Red (Red Thai curry, pictured here), but hold the chicken, lots of broccoli, please. Continue reading

Salmon Says, an Anti-Cancer Investigation: What Kind is Healthiest? A Summary

This article first appeared in Huffington Post Canada.

And the winner is…

Good news for consumers: Pink salmon — yes, the cheap, trash salmon you buy in cans — is tops when it comes to cleanliness, according to research by Dr. Michael Ikonomou of Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And if you don’t like pink, then sockeye — yes, even in cans — is also a healthy choice, assuming you select the right cans. Continue reading

Should you Worry about Toxins in your Tuna?

This week scientists announced they’d found small amounts of Fukushima radiation in tuna caught off California’s coast. Any reason to worry?

Read the long answer in my piece on Huff Post Canada.

The short one? Continue reading

Grapefruit and Estrogen: Pro or Anti-Cancer?

grapefruit anti or pro cancer

Winter 2014 Update: Dr. Kristine Monroe’s most recent study (discussed briefly in the post below), which looks at the effects of grapefruit and its juice on healthy postmenopausal women, has just been published. She found that the whole fruit led to an increase in “the major form of circulating estrogen in postmenopausal women,” that grapefruit juices had no effect on that form of estrogen, but that they did lower another very potent form of estrogen. 

“The take-away message from this pilot study is that the process of hormone metabolism and absorption is complicated,” Monroe said, and more research is clearly needed.

The few studies on grapefruit—and whether it has an anti-cancer benefits or promotes cancer—are definitely at odds.

It’s clear that grapefruit juice contains natural substances that can inhibit an enzyme system (called CYP3A4) responsible for metabolizing certain meds. The result: an increase of medication circulating in the blood, with potentially toxic side effects.

But can grapefruit also increase your estrogen? Continue reading

Salmon Says, an Anti-Cancer Investigation What Kind is Healthiest? Part 6: Canned Salmon

salmon says anticancer patties 2 cans

January 2016 update: New research suggests that restricting the amino acid methionine may be a very important anti-cancer and anti-aging strategy.   “ If I had cancer, I would certainly seek to restrict methionine in my diet, probably to 1 gram a day ” says Australian researcher Dr. Paul Cavuoto.  Animal muscle is rich in methionine. A half a small can of salmon has around 700 mg.  If you have cancer, limit animals, including salmon.      

Pink salmon–yes, the trash salmon you find in cans– is the cleanest species, according to research by Canadian scientists, and two small cans a week will satisfy omega 3 recommendations.

How about canned sockeye?   Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Strategies: Squelching Inflammation!

anti cancer ginger on fire

Ginger root seems to help smoulder inflammation associated with cancer.

Inflammation “contributes to tumor proliferation,  angiogenesis, metastasis and resistance to hormonal and chemotherapy.”—cancer researchers, 2009

Continue reading

Anti-Cancer Foods: Cherries and Estrogen

anti cancer cherries in snow

Cherries from Chili spotted in Canada in January. Worth breaking the “eat local” guidelines?

Next time you need a nibble on something sweetish, grab a handful of fresh tart cherries. They could help control your estrogen levels.

Continue reading