Rethinking Dairy

Picture credit: Julia Rubinic

I have been seriously rethinking dairy lately.

Since diagnosis and learning about Omega-3s and Omega-6s, I've been buying all organic, grass-fed dairy products, including eggs. But recently I learned that the fatty acid issue isn't the only reason to avoid commercial dairy. Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF) is a natural hormone that causes cell growth in young people, but there is so much of it in commercial dairy that it causes runaway cancer cell growth.

Please don't ask me to explain the science! I'll link to the articles and videos, but here is my takeaway -- organic dairy IS OK in terms of IGF. The problems happen with cows that are given Recumbinant Bovine Growth Hormone, which is converted to IGF in their liver. When we get that stuff, diseased cells grow like crazy.

Lindy has milk every morning with granola, and I like to top his fruit salad with whipped cream just for added calories, but everything I'm reading makes me want to give him lots of vegan, calorie-dense food like beans and nuts; not only does it deliver calories, but the nutrients that fight cancer.

But if the whipped cream on his berries makes him happy, and it is OK in terms of both the fatty acid type and IGF content, then I'll keep giving it to him.

Picture credit: Peter Galvin

As for eggs, I'm convinced now that eggs are not wonderful.  We eat very few a week, although Lindy has been enjoying a lunch I make with 2 eggs, a boatload of leftover swiss chard, and a small amount of cheese.

Lisa

Farm stand overload!

I'm so excited about all the freely available local veg that I stop at every farm stand I see. I also stop at all the organic veg stores JUST IN CASE I see something good. So here's what I got: 2 bags of baby swiss chard, 2 baby bok choys, 2 bunches beets with greens and a bag of spinach.

And Lindy isn't even going to be home until Friday.

What's a girl to do with all this veg?

Broccoli and Red Lentil Magic

This is the best thing I've cooked in awhile. Run, do not walk: Broccoli Dal Curry Remember not to overcook the broccoli for best nutrition.

With the anti-cancer magic of both the legumes and the broccoli, it is so good it also satisfies our weight-gain requirements because you have to have seconds. Please indulge in this healthy deliciousness and tell me how you like it!

Lisa

Lentil Crackers

Seems these days my experiments mostly fail. I made a white bean dip the other day that Lindy kind of hated. And yesterday I made a cauliflower korma but a. it had too much broth and b. the recipe said to put the yogurt in to boil so of course it split immediately. The flavor was good but it wasn't a wonderful dish.

So today I made Spinach Dip and it was terrific. I added a big dollop of sour cream to the recipe and used regular yogurt because I didn't have Greek.

I've been wanting to make crackers for awhile but didn't have all the ingredients for the multigrain cracker recipes I found so I came across this incredibly easy recipe for lentil crackers. I ground up the lentils in the coffee grinder in stages, and it worked really well! Roll it out between parchment paper and use a thin spatula to lift squares off the parchment into the pan.

This was a great find because legumes are apparently a huge anti-cancer food. ("Phytates for the Prevention of Cancer")






I used canola instead of coconut oil to fry the crackers because I just read something today ("What About Coconuts, Coconut Milk, & Coconut Oil MCTs?") about how despite the claims being made by coconut oil producers, it has the same affect on the body as animal fat.

Both of those articles are from NutritionFacts. This is my new favorite site. I've read most of How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger, the brain behind NutritionFacts. Take a look at the huge library of videos. I like this guy because it's his business to rake over the studies that I can't understand, and compile information and translate them into understandable language for people like me!

Lisa

It's not your taki it's MAITAKE

Yesterday I picked up a bunch of maitake mushrooms at the Natural Living Center in Bangor. Maitake is the most magical of the magic Asian mushrooms. I was a bit at a loss as to how to cook it, so I improvised. The last time I made maitake, Lindy was NOT interested, so I had to see if I could make it tasty and interesting.

I sauteed onions and sliced garlic in olive oil, then cut up bok choy (crucifers!) very fine and cooked that for awhile. Then I added cubed tofu (beans!) and browned it in a cleared side of the pan; shook a lot of crushed red pepper on the tofu. When the tofu was a little bit browned, I stirred it into the rest of the mixture. Salt and pepper.

I forgot to take pictures, but it was really good.

Then I made a huge pot of swiss chard and spinach that I got from a local farm stand. That, cooked with onions and adding lemon at the end, was also outstanding.

Problem: I keep forgetting to shake dried parsley on what I serve him. I'm supposed to add it at the end so it doesn't cook. It's for the apigenin, a phytochemical that is supposed to help the function of oxaliplatin, one of his chemo drugs. I even bought organic parsley. But I NEVER remember to use it.

The Checklist

I've been struggling to keep track of the most important nutrients in the anti-cancer diet.

In Anti-Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber, he tells the story of a distraught wife who approached Dr. Richard Beliveau looking for any way to keep her husband, who had advanced pancreatic cancer, alive.

Dr. Beliveau (who wrote Foods to Fight Cancer) is a researcher in biochemistry and professor at University of Montreal. According to Servan-Schreiber, Beliveau,

"...runs one of the largest laboratories for molecular medicine in the world, specializing in cancer biology. Over the past twenty years, he has worked with major pharmaceutical groups such as AstraZeneca, Novartin, Sandoz, Wyeth and Merck to identify the mechanisms that make anticancer medicines work. The goal in understanding these mechanisms is to develop new medications with fewer side effects."

In other words, Beliveau is a mainstream researcher. By the time the cancer patient's wife approached him, he had started to gain a reputation as knowledgeable about what he calls "nutraceuticals."

In response to her request, he spent 48 hours gathering articles about foods that had a demonstrated effect in fighting cancer. He worked out the details on amounts and bioavailability and presented her with the a list that includes the following:

Various kinds of cabbage
Broccoli
Garlic
Soy
Green tea
Turmeric
Raspberries
Blueberries
Dark chocolate

This started him off on the serious study of cancer-fighting nutrients that resulted in his book.

That list is the foundation of my checklist. I've added more from other books and other research. I try to give Lindy some or most of what's on my list every day.

Thoughts and comments welcome!

Smoothie Time

Anyone on the chemo drug oxaliplatin knows what cold sensitivity is like. I can't make Lindy normal smoothies out of frozen fruit. He's also not actually crazy about smoothies OR plain yogurt but I thought this might be a way to get some citrus into him.

Let's go back to our old standby, David Servan-Schreiber's Anti-Cancer:

"Oranges, tangerines, lemons, and grapefruit contain anti-inflammatory flavonoids. They also stimulate the detoxification of carcinogenics by the liver. 

It has even been shown that flavonoids in the skin of tangerines...penetrate brain cancer cells, facilitate their death by apoptosis and lower their potential for invading neighboring tissues."

I don't actually have any tangerines on hand, but I have heard that the skin of other citrus fruits is beneficial as well, so I grated some orange and lime skins into the smoothie as well. (Make sure the fruit is organic if you are grating the skin).

OK, so the recipe calls for 1 orange, 1 lime, 1/2 grapefruit, 1/2 cup plain yogurt. I used full-fat because, weight gain. And I omitted the 1/2 cup ice because, oxaliplatin.

It was so tart and full of pulp that I thought, no way. I added 1/2 teaspoon honey and blended the hell out of it. Pulp smoother but still too tart. I grated an apple and added our last banana. Now it is really quite good. 

I have always heard, juice your veggies and blend your fruits. This is because drinking fruit juice without the fruit "matrix" makes the sugar absorb just as fast as if you were drinking Minute Maid. My question is, why is this not also true of smoothies? You're still breaking down the matrix, even though it is mixed with pulp. Ah, these mysteries drive me nuts.

Lisa

P.S. I will let you know if Lindy actually drinks the thing. (Update...he tried it. He finds it excessively bitter but drinkable)

P.P.S. I wonder if I should add some spinach?

The latest from our oncologist

Yesterday I posted this in my Facebook esophageal cancer support groups. No reason not to share here. This is pretty bleak, so I should also mention that his cancer markers are way down. We take our good news where we can get it.

Yesterday before my husband's infusion we had a long conversation with his oncologist, a woman I admire a lot, who seems to be very much on top of the latest information -- even had more recent information than the Dana-Farber doc we went to see! I joined them about halfway through the conversation, at just about the time Lindy (my husband) was hearing the difficult stuff, that his cancer is just about the worst EC situation you can have. We first became aware of it because of a brain tumor, so it's metastasized, which means surgery, as difficult as it is, isn't indicated, as the cancer has gotten out of jail already. 

The current chemo might not shrink the tumor any more. It has stabilized and shrunk a little, and we're still going for the full 6 months, which started in I think early March. But she indicated that the next months of chemo might not have an impact on the tumor at all, since the drugs peak and level off in effectiveness. 

But they might have an impact, too. We don't know. The problem is his cancer is a game of whack-a-mole. Where is it going to pop up next? No idea. We're fairly sure the brain tumor site is clean, but it may turn up somewhere else in the brain...or anywhere else in the body. 

Other than his tumor, however, he is healthy, strong and fit. His weight is low but we're working on it. His immunity numbers are good, which even the Doc admitted is probably because of the nutrition work I do as well as the supplements. 

And by the way, there is a thread on this, forget where, about supplements, but the Doc said that the problems with supplements and vitamins during chemo has been disproved. 

It was hard because Lindy realized for the first time how heavily the odds are against him. He feels fine. His response to chemo is really mild. He even had a small pot cookie last night and got the munchies! I was so happy seeing him have cheese and crackers at 8 pm! 

All of these factors contribute to the possibility of a good outcome. The problem is I'm starting to think that a "good outcome" is having him with me for another 5 years. That is intolerable to me. I have discovered in the past 5 months since diagnosis how deeply my happiness with this man is rooted in the permanence of his presence. 

I'm going into therapy soon, and we're having couples therapy as well so we can deal with these issues together. Our kids will both be in college this Fall, so I will have an empty nest on top of it, thought I'm so happy that they are happy with their pathways. They are both being very supportive and more mature than their years with me. 

This is very long. Congratulations for making it to the end. I'm continuing to research alternative therapies, ways in which nutrition and other alternatives can treat the metastatic condition. That's when I feel most hopeful; when I'm actively working on taking the next best steps.

Update from the Maine countryside

Jan and my sister-in-law Heather, who was Jan's
primary caregiver.

Yesterday we returned from a 5-day trip to Austin, Texas for Lindy's mom's funeral.  It was an emotional time for all of us. Jan Davies chose to stop dialysis and lived 2 more weeks, mostly happily, leaving behind the treatments that had made her so miserable. All her kids were there with her during those two weeks. Lindy returned a few days before she died. We are all in awe of her strength, courage and love.

Yesterday I texted this to a friend:

"We all spent the past 4 days monitoring how everyone was feeling, asking and being asked, how are you feeling, how are you doing, what do you need, what can I do?"

My heart was with my father-in-law through the whole ... I won't say "ordeal" because it really wasn't. It was a bittersweet time for the family and I'm so proud to be a member of this emotionally intelligent, caring crew. 

But my empathy was with him, because of all the time I've spent over the last 5 months imagining what life would be like if Lindy dies of this disease. I can tell you despite my father-in-law's grief, he is functioning far better than I imagine I would, and he and Jan had a very loving and devoted relationship for 55 years.

She insisted that the dialysis had to stop. She was in control and everyone respected her for it. And that's what I can't give Lindy: control over his disease. This is what I struggle with and this is why we are in a constant "good food fight."

(And in spite of their own grief, my sisters-in-law had the emotional energy to care for me in my own fear and worry. Both cancer survivors themselves, they are empathetic and generous with me.)

My course is clear. I am going to have to make the effort to give up my position as Chair and majority shareholder of his cancer. I don't know how to do that, but we're committed to finding a way together.

Stay tuned.

Lisa

The Origin of Burrito Bowls Revealed!

News Flash: burrito bowls were  invented by a cook who failed to make adequate flour tortillas.

I followed the recipe, I swear I did, but the dough was brittle and tore. So I heated up a pan of oil and made tortilla chips. But that's not what I came to talk about.

I came to talk about the filling.

First of all, somehow I managed to run out of garlic. This is bad. But undaunted I cut up an onion, heated up some oil, added cumin seeds to the oil, (I'm not sure why, I was just afraid without garlic it would be bland) then added 2 diced tomatoes (if you are going to dice tomatoes by hand, which I suggest you do because of that whole toxins-in-the-lining-of-cans thing, sharpen it really well before you start. That makes it totally easy.)

Cook the tomatoes down a little bit than add black beans (I cooked dry black beans today; that toxic lining thing again). Add cumin and coriander to taste. I didn't measure but I sprinkled both to moderately cover the cooking veg. Stirred that up. Then I took a bag of spinach that I bought at my first veggie stand purchase of the year today, washed it and sliced it up. Added it to the veg and cooked it down.

I took a bowl and put a drained spoonful of the veg on one side, homemade chips on the other, sprinkled feta on top of the spinach, and added a spoonful of salsa and one of sour cream. It was really really delicious! Worth making again.

A bit about beans: I'm reading How Not to Die by Michael Greger (he also has a website, Nutrition Facts chock full of videos about nutrition. I find his manner of speaking annoying, but I am sifting through the videos because his whole thing is about research) and he talks a lot about beans. They are more potent anti-cancer food than I had thought. I'm going to try to cook and serve beans in some form every day.

By the way, dried parsley is supposed to contain ample amounts of apigenin in one pinch sprinkled on whatever you've made just before serving. I have not yet once remembered to sprinkle some on what I serve Lindy since I discovered its benefits, which are many. I have also not once remembered to bring my own bags into the grocery store since Belfast banned single-use plastic bags.

A Change in Breakfast

My daughter and my sister have convinced me that I need a breakfast with more protein and calories. I'm not sure why but I try to do what I'm told to by the women in my life.

So I have switched from my beloved oatmeal (which face it, gives me heartburn) to my own granola with some maple-sweetened plain yogurt (I put a tablespoon of maple syrup in my oatmeal, so I have stayed the same on added sweetener) my apple-blueberry sauce, a banana and/or defrosted berries. Today's includes defrosted mango. It's actually very delicious and satisfying.