Water Chestnuts Stewed Mushrooms (chilled)*
The increased production of the biologically active phytochemicals in raw vegetables is consistent with the studies that show a radically lower risk of cancer in people who consume more raw greens in their diet.2 For those in the know, eating lots of raw greens is the most important nutritional intervention to prevent common human cancers.3 Eat not only lots of raw greens every day but also big portions of cooked green vegetables. Remember, if it’s a vegetable with the color green, it is rich in micronutrients and low in calories. It’s a green light to eat more of it. The more greens you eat, the increased likelihood you will eat less of something else that is higher in calories. When you fill up with high- volume, high-nutrient foods that have a high micronutrient content, you will not feel the need to overeat foods that sabotage your health and weight. The added benefits include protection against heart attacks and cancer. Of course, green vegetables are the food that shows the most protection from diabetes too.4 How great is that?
With the growing popularity of nutritional supplements, more and more Americans are looking for accurate information about nutrients that can make a real difference in their health and their lives. However, the reality is that the most powerful thing people can do to improve their health is eat more green vegetables. Americans eat a piddly amount of greens, but if they ate much more, disease rates of all types would plummet. Not only are vegetables rich in discovered vitamins and minerals, but as discussed, they also contain thousands of phytochemicals that are critically important to our health.
The more we get a better understanding of nutritional science, the more we learn that individual nutrients taken as supplements do not have the same healing and protective powers of high-nutrient, superfoods. Supplements can be used to supplement an area of potential suboptimal intake, such as B12, iodine, zinc, vitamin D, or DHA, but they never can take the place of eating healthfully. Not all vegetables are created equal, and one of the most fascinating areas of research in the last ten years has been the therapeutic value of cruciferous green vegetables.
provides a protective effect against cancer and that cruciferous vegetables are the foods with the most powerful anticancer effects of all foods. Cruciferous vegetables are those in the broccoli and cabbage family and include such foods as bok choy, radishes, and watercress. While eating fresh fruits, beans, vegetables, seeds, and nuts have been all been shown in scientific studies to reduce the occurrence of cancer, cruciferous vegetables are different. Instead of a one-to-one relationship against cancer, they have a one-to-two relationship with a wide variety of human cancers. In other words, as plant food intake goes up 20 percent in a population, cancer rates typically drop 20 percent. But as cruciferous vegetable intake goes up 20 percent, cancer rates typically drop 40 percent.5
Cruciferous vegetables contain phytochemicals that have a unique ability to modify human hormones, detoxify compounds, and prevent toxic compounds from binding to human DNA, thus limiting toxins from causing DNA damage that could lead to cancer. Sulforaphane, an extensively studied compound, is an isothiocyanate that has a unique mechanism of action. This compound blocks chemical-initiated tumor formation and induces cell cycle arrest in abnormal cells, meaning it inhibits growth and induces cell death in cells with early cancerous changes in a dose-dependent manner. Recent studies show that the amount of sulforaphane that can be obtained from eating a reasonable amount of broccoli can have dramatic effects to protect against colon cancer.6
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RUCIFEROUSV
EGETABLESKale, collards, broccoli, broccoli rabe, brocollina, brussels sprouts, watercress, bok choy, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, mustard greens, arugula, kohlrabi, red cabbage, mache, turnip greens, horse radish, rutabaga, turnips, radishes
Most micronutrients that we read about (vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, lutein, lycopene) function as antioxidants in the body, meaning these compounds neutralize free radicals, rendering them harmless. But the phytochemicals in cruciferous vegetables do more. They enable the body’s own antioxidant control system. When we take in direct antioxidants such as vitamin C and E, they fight a one-on-one war against free radicals but not much more. Their effects are gone in a few hours. Synthetic or isolated fractions of vitamin E, beta-carotene, or vitamin C can also cause pro-oxidant behavior, creating more free radicals. So instead of having a short-lived benefit that gets used up quickly, the unique compounds in cruciferous vegetables cycle over and over, protecting the body
for three to five days after consumption. They fuel body systems already in place so that they function more effectively, but they also induce many different systems to defend against many different types of damage.
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RUCIFEROUSV
EGETABLES• Repair and protect
• Detoxify toxins and carcinogens, rendering them harmless
• Regulate the liver’s ability to remove toxins
• Remove free radicals to prevent oxidative and DNA damage in cells
• Transform hormones into beneficial compounds that inhibit hormone- sensitive cancers
• Enhance and protect against age-related loss of cellular glutathione
• Enable cell death in cells that have abnormal mutations and DNA damage7 A study on prostate cancer shows that it takes twenty-eight servings of vegetables a week to decrease the risk of prostate cancer by 33 percent, but just three servings of cruciferous vegetables a week decreases the risk of prostate cancer by 41 percent.8 The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes for Health recommends nine servings of fruit and vegetables per day. I recommend eight servings of vegetables a day, with at least two of those being cruciferous vegetables, one raw and one cooked. Do you eat green cruciferous vegetables daily? Do you eat both raw and cooked green vegetables? Let’s all make sure we do.