Welcome To The Ultimate Cancer Diet And Nutrition Guide!

Thank you for your interest in The Ultimate Cancer Diet And Nutrition Guide! I hope you will learn a lot and know how to prevent cancer with your diet.

Our food is one of our biggest sources of energy. We need it to stay strong and survive. Unhealthy food, however, can be dangerous and destroy our health. 

The Standard American Diet makes us sick. It is full of animal products, fat, and processed food. To stay healthy, we need to absorb nutrients from what we eat. Processed food is void of nutrients and therefore make us weak.

Every animal on the planet has their perfect diet. Carnivores like lions and tigers thrive on meat.

Their anatomy makes them capable of ingesting meat without a problem. But if they eat vegetables, they become sick and weak.

Other animals like horses, elephants, and rhinos thrive on a plant-based diet. Many believe that humans are carnivores like lions, but that is not true.

Plants are our preferred source of energy. They contain all the protein, minerals, and vitamins we need except for Vitamin D and B12. We become strong and fit when we eat plants. Humans and carnivores have different anatomies as shown in the box below.

Animal products like meat, dairy, steaks, and pork chops make us ill. They increase our risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Vegetables from whole foods decrease our cancer risk. 

In this nutrition guide, you’re going to learn how to eat a healthy whole food low-fat plant-based diet. 

You will discover:

When you eat the HCLF-diet you have a better chance of fighting cancer. The first concept you have to understand is macronutrients. So what is it exactly?

Your body mass consists of up to 75% water. Water plays an essential role in our digestion, waste removal, and temperature regulation. Although it yields no energy, it is vital for life.

Water makes up a large part of our foods, too. Fruits and vegetables have high water content and can keep you hydrated. The human body can survive for long periods without food. 

Going without water for a few days can be detrimental. Dehydration may lead to dry skin, dizziness, fatigue, rapid heartbeat, and even death.

So what causes dehydration?

What Causes Dehydration? 

There are many reasons you can get dehydrated, one of them is stress. When you’re under pressure, your adrenal glands pump out stress hormones. As adrenal fatigue progresses, your body becomes dehydrated.

Many people don’t drink enough water. They can drink less than six glasses of water per day and replace it with unhealthy alternatives. 

Sodas, coffee, caffeinated tea, and alcohol, damages the body. Caffeine can trigger stress responses that have strong diuretic effects. Millions of people drink sodas instead of water.

Sodas have massive amounts of sugar and awful chemicals. One can of soda contains ten teaspoons of sugar. Soda has phosphoric acid, which interferes with the body’s ability to absorb calcium.

Ditching regular sodas for diet sodas don’t protect you from harm. Diet sodas add aspartame instead of sugar. Aspartame is behind almost one hundred different health problems including brain tumors and diabetes.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is another sweetener common in sodas. It's not better than sugar and is often genetically modified. Soft drinks do not contain any nutritional value. They are acidic, and bad for our health.

Alcohol has a detrimental effect on your body. When you drink alcohol, your liver needs to work in overdrive to get rid of the toxins. 

Excessive alcohol can scar and damage the liver, and increase the risk of liver cancer. Another thing to look out for in your water is fluoride and chloride.

The Toxins In Our Water Supply And How To Avoid Them

Many water supplies in America apply fluoride to the water. Sodium fluoride (NaF) is a toxic waste product from the aluminum production. It has damaging effects on any living organism. 

Fluoride in the water does not help your teeth. It also accumulates in the bones and causes a bone disease called skeletal fluorosis.

Many countries put chlorine in the water supply. Chlorine is a yellow-green gas with a strong odor. Soldiers used it during World War I as a chemical weapon.

Today we use it to disinfect everything from tap water to industrial waste, and swimming pools. The main reason for adding chlorine to water is to kill harmful pathogens. We use chlorine not because of its safety or efficiency, but due to its low price.

One of the best ways you can invest in your health is to buy a water purification system. A good brand is Berkey. It removes pathogens, heavy metals, pharmaceutical drugs, rust, and more.

With the Berkey, you can filter about 6000 gallons of water before you have to change the black filters. Drink about 6-8 cups(2 liters) or more of water every day.

Don’t forget to take more water when you exercise or the weather is hot.

Another macronutrient we need is protein. So let’s learn what it is and how to get it on a plant-based diet.

Protein is one of our macronutrients. It consists of chains of 20 different amino acids. Our stomach acids and intestinal enzymes convert protein into individual amino acids.

These components then go through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream. After these amino cells enter the body's cells, they convert back into proteins.

Proteins are structural materials that maintain cell shapes and enzymes. They also help cells signal between each other. Protein is essential for our health because it builds and maintains muscles. 

Our protein requirement goes up as we make muscles. What distinguishes protein from carbs and fats is nitrogen. 

There are eight amino acids that people cannot make themselves. Therefore we must get them from our diet. Plants and microorganisms can synthesize all individual amino acids to build proteins.

But wait a minute! Don't plants contain incomplete protein? Let's talk about this common myth and why it is not true.

Plants Contain All The Protein We Need

Contrary to common belief, plants contain all the protein we need so long as we eat enough calories per day. We don’t need to eat animal products to stay healthy. Plants are rich sources of protein. 

Huge herbivorous animals like elephants, horses, rhinos, and gorillas are not protein deficient. They are one of the strongest animals on earth.

Many people believe that plants don't contain enough protein and that you need to get if from meat. But that is a myth that started in 1971. At that time Frances Moore Lappé wrote the book "Diet for a Small Planet."

Lappé believed that plant protein was incomplete. She suggested that vegetarians needed to combine various plants to prevent protein deficiencies. Lappé retracted this statement in a revised edition of this book.

She said that you could get adequate protein from plants if consuming enough calories. But it was too late. People already believed that plants lacked complete protein.

If you eat enough calories on a plant-based diet, you will not become protein deficient. Just eat beans, fruits, vegetables, and grains and don't worry about it.

Here is a list of some plant foods with lots of protein:

It’s almost impossible to design a protein-deficient diet that isn’t also a starvation diet. Only plants can synthesize protein. When carnivores eat other herbivores, they use the protein that they got from plants. 

We don’t need to consume all the essential amino acids at every meal. Humans are good recyclers of amino acids. When we aren’t eating enough protein, we can reuse amino acids at 90% efficiency.

Too much protein in our diet can also be toxic.

What Happens When You Eat Too Much Protein?

There’s a limit to how much protein our bodies can use. Our GI tracts limit the amount of protein we can digest. Overconsumption of protein overworks the liver and kidneys and can cause protein toxicity. 

The liver and kidneys work best when we don't overconsume protein. Proteins consist of amino acids and are acidic by nature. Animal proteins are abundant in sulfur-containing amino acids.

These break down into sulfuric acid. It is abundant in hard cheese, red meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs. Your body uses calcium found in your bones to neutralize these acids.

As your calcium levels deplete, your bones weaken and lead to osteoporosis. Released bone materials often settle in the kidneys, causing kidney stones. Most fruits and vegetables are alkaline and preserve bone health.

So what is the right amount of protein you need per day? You will be shocked by the answer.

How Much Protein Do You Need Per Day?

Many people will be shocked at how little protein we need per day. The recommended daily allowance of protein is relatively low. The US government says that we need around 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body mass. 

The WHO recommends a more conservative level of 0.66 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body mass. Since the U.S government uses an elevated RDA level, the WHO number is closer to your real needs.

The most popular protein formula is 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight. This number may be appropriate for endurance athletes, babies, and the bedridden elderly.

They have higher protein needs than the general public. But for everyone else, 1 gram per kilogram is way too much. Most people use body weight as a protein denominator.

A better way to calculate your protein need is to use lean body mass. Lean body mass is your body's weight without the fat.

You can calculate your lean body mass by using one of these three formulas:

Measuring your protein intake by body weight is a mistake. Let's say that John gained weight by eating too much fat. He now weighs 200 pounds(90.71 kg). 

If we calculated his protein need based on weight alone, then that would amount to: 0.8 grams x 90.71 kg(200lbs) = 72,54 g protein per day.

John's protein requirements didn't change because he gained weight. He still only needs between 40.54-49 g protein per day.

Another macronutrient we need is carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are our most important macronutrient. It is a significant building block of plants. It is our brain’s primary source of energy.

Carbs consist of glucose or sugar. Plants use water, carbon dioxide, and sunshine to form simple sugars. The name of this process is photosynthesis.

The most basic carbohydrate is glucose. If you look inside the plant’s cells, you can see that they join together into chains. Some chains attach to a straight line called amylose. Others connect in many branches called amylopectin.

There are three basic types of carbohydrates, sugar, cellulose, and starch. Each contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in specific configurations.

The simplest of these sugars include sucrose, fructose, lactose, and glucose. Sucrose is the granulated sugar you use when you bake cookies. Fructose makes fruits sweet.

Lactose in milk is the only animal food that contains carbohydrate. Most adults can't digest dairy because it is food for calves, not humans. Drinking dairy leads to diarrhea, stomach cramps, and gas.

Glucose is the pure sugar that comes together in chains to make cellulose and starch. Cellulose consists of chains of glucose bonded together by indigestible linkages.

You can find cellulose in the cell walls of plants, wood, and other organic matter. Our digestive system doesn’t have the enzymes to break down cellulose for fuel.

Although we get no energy from them, they are valuable to us for their dietary fiber. Plant foods contain both simple and complex carbohydrates in various amounts.

Fruits are often more than 90% carbohydrate. Most of their carbs are simple sugars such as glucose and fructose.

Green and yellow vegetables store most of their calories as complex carbohydrates. Since they contain few calories, the number of complex carbohydrates are low.

Beans, peas, and lentils are about 70% complex carbohydrates. Whole grains, potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes contain large quantities of starch.

So what is starch and why do we need lots of it to succeed on a plant-based diet?

What Is Starch?

Human anatomy is herbivorous. We're meant to eat a diet consisting of plant foods. The natural diet of chimpanzees, our closest relative, is almost pure vegetarian. 

Human and chimp DNA is roughly 99% identical. But that 1% difference includes genes to digest more starch. We thrive on starch.

The term “starch” comes from the Middle English word sterchen: to stiffen. In its pure form, starch is a white, odorless, tasteless powder.

Starch granules don’t dissolve in water, but heat causes them to swell and turn gelatinous. The starch gel cools into a paste that can act as a thickener, stiffener, or glue.

Starch is a complex carbohydrate made up of long chains of sugar molecules. Plants store it for future use. They synthesize it from the sun and convert it into tiny starch granules. Plants use this reserve to survive the winter, re-grow the next year, and to reproduce. 

Some vegetables contain more starch, they include:

Green and yellow vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus, contain little starch. Fruits have simple sugars, not complex ones. 

All animal foods have no starch at all. You should center your diet around starch, and this is why.

Why You Should Center Your Diet Around Starch

Starch should be the basis of your diet and vegetables should have a smaller part. Plants don’t contain as many calories as meat does. Eating non-starchy vegetables will make you hungry within hours. 

It takes longer time for your body to break down starches into glucose. Because of the slow release of sugars, you won't feel hungry right away.

Starch is a cheap way to get enough calories on a plant-based diet. They contain enough calories to meet the energy requirements of an active person.

Starchy vegetables are abundant in protein, fats, fibers, and minerals. Some single starches, for example, potatoes and sweet potatoes, are complete foods.

They can meet all of our nutritional needs alone. Grains and legumes are deficient in vitamins A and C. You need to combine them with fruits and vegetables to get these vitamins.

Loading up on carbohydrates several times a day will give you the energy to race through your busy life. But not all carbs are created equal.

Let's talk about refined carbohydrates and why you should avoid them.

Refined Carbs Are Not The Same As Whole Foods

 When I say the word "glucose" or "sugar," most people think of white table sugar. You should not confuse white sugar to healthy sugars found in fruits and vegetables. 

Granulated sugar goes through a hefty refining process. It contains no fibers, proteins, essential fats, vitamins or minerals. Therefore we call them empty calories.

Many Americans eat too little carbs. The few carbs they eat are often empty calories from white sugar, corn syrup, and fructose.

Refined sugar can provide some energy. But too much of it can lead to tooth decay and weakening of the body’s defense and repair systems.

The low-carb movement often mentions refined carbs when they want to demonize vegetables. While I agree that refined carbs are not health foods, that still doesn't mean that all plants are bad.

Cakes, potato chips, french fries, and cheap white bread are not healthy. Most products that contain refined carbs like white flower also has lots of fat.

A whole-food plant-based diet is an entirely different story. This diet contains all the nutrients, and vitamins that you need to stay healthy. You shouldn't be afraid of carbs as long as they come from whole foods.

Avoid refined carbs and don't eat processed junk food. Eat fruits and vegetables in their natural form, and there shouldn't be a problem. Another important macronutrient we need is fat.

Fat is an essential macronutrient. It consists of complex molecules made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. The body uses fat for energy storage when there is no food available.

Fats and oils differ in that fats are solid at room temperature, while oils are liquid. The reason has to do with their chemical structure. All fats consist of carbon atoms attached in long chains.

When the strings are more linear and rigid, they make the final products stable. When the chains bend and are more flexible and loose, they become a liquid.

There are only a few unsaturated fats we need and that our bodies can’t make by themselves. To get these essential fats, we have to eat them. More on that later.

Too much fat in our diet makes us fat and may lead to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The fat you eat is the fat you wear. Fats contain a lot of calories, 9 per gram.

The body stores dietary fat in your liver, heart, and muscles. Too much fat in the body creates insulin resistance. This condition later leads to heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Carrying around excess fat also puts stress on the joints, hips, and knees. Excess dietary fat alters your entire cellular metabolism and may lead to cancer. 

Vegetable oils are not health foods. They contain 100% fat. Oils are no longer food. They supply concentrated calories but nothing else from plants. 

Poly and monounsaturated fats found in vegetable oils depress the immune system. You should avoid all vegetable oils and margarine. Even cold pressed olive- and coconut oils are damaging.

All plants contain adequate fat if you eat enough calories. Fats in your diet should be low, around 5-10% of your daily calories. The safest and healthiest way to get your fats is through starches, vegetables, and fruits.

Vegetables have balanced fat levels. Carbs do not promote excess weight gain. That is because the body burns them off, rather than storing them when consumed in excess.

Obesity is almost unknown among billions of Asians that eat lots of rice. Starches are low in fat, about 1-8 %. Plants contain no cholesterol. They do not grow human pathogens, like salmonella, and E. Coli.

Some plant foods contain more fats like nuts, seeds, avocado, and coconuts. These are healthy fats. If you suffer from a severe condition like cancer, it is better to reduce or avoid them altogether.

There are two categories of fats: saturated fats and unsaturated fats. So let's look at what they are.

The Dangers Of Saturated Fat

Saturated fat is solid at room temperature. The word "saturated" refers to the number of hydrogen atoms surrounding each carbon atom.

Each chain of carbon atoms holds as many hydrogen atoms as possible  You most often find saturated fat in animal foods. Some sources of saturated fat include: 

Saturated fat creates inflammation in the body. A diet high in saturated fat raises your low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. LDL( bad cholesterol) increase your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. 

You can only find cholesterol in animal products. Plant foods never contain cholesterol. Animal foods, provide too much fat. Like all animals, we produce all the cholesterol we need. Our bodies, however, are terrible at eliminating excess cholesterol. 

Cholesterol from animal foods accumulates in our skin and tendons. Too much of it blocks the arteries in the heart and brain.

This cumulation then leads to heart attacks and strokes. Cholesterol also promotes cancer development. Eggs contain more cholesterol than any other food. 

Avoid saturated fat at all cost. The easiest way to do that is to stop eating animal products. Also, avoid coconut oils as their high saturated fat levels make them harmful to our health.

Another type of fat we get from our diet is unsaturated fat.

What Is Unsaturated Fat?

Unsaturated fat consists of fatty acid in which there is one or more double bond in the fatty acid chain. As oils, these fats are liquids at room temperature. You can also find them in solid foods. Dietary sources of unsaturated fats include:

There are two subcategories of unsaturated fat, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats.

Monounsaturated Fats

Monounsaturated fat is a fatty acid with one double bond in the fatty acid chain. The rest is single-bonded. Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, but start to harden when chilled. 

Eating foods that are high in monounsaturated fats may help lower your "bad" LDL cholesterol. Monounsaturated fats may also keep "good" HDL cholesterol levels high. 

But eating more unsaturated fat without cutting back on saturated fat may not lower your cholesterol. You should only get it from whole foods and not oils. 

Polyunsaturated fats

Polyunsaturated fats have many unsaturated chemical bonds. They stay liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator. The term "polyunsaturated" refers to their chemical structure. Poly means many and unsaturated refers to double bonds.

Polyunsaturated fats include omega-3 and omega-6 fats. These are essential fatty acids that the body needs for brain function and cell growth. Our bodies do not make essential fatty acids, so you can only get them from food.

So what is omega 3, 6 and 9?

Fatty Acids Omega 3, 6, 9

Omega-3 is short for omega-3 fatty acid. It's an essential fatty acid in the human body. We can not produce it ourselves, so we must get it from our diet.

Omega refers to the placement of the double bonds on the fatty acid chain. Each fatty acid has a long string of carbon atoms. There is a carboxylic acid end called alpha and one methyl end named omega.

The number 3 means that the first double bond is three carbon atoms away from the "omega" end. Omega-6 implies that the double bond is six carbon atoms away from the omega end.

Alpha-linolenic acid(ALA) from plants is the most popular omega-3 fat. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)  is an omega-3 fat made by animals. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) also comes from animals. You can find it in large concentrations in fish oils.

Linoleic acid is from plants and is the most common omega-6 fat consumed by people. Another omega-6 fat often talked about is gamma-linolenic acid. Gamma linolenic acid is also an omega-6 fat from plants. 

Linoleic acid is common in vegetable seed oils. The primary dietary source of alpha-linolenic acid is leaves and some seeds. As little as 0.1-0.5% of the calories as linoleic acid is sufficient to correct a fatty acid deficiency. However, higher levels are better for optimal health. 

You can find essential fatty acids in significant amounts in various plants:

Animals cannot create double bonds after the third and sixth carbon on the chain. Only plants can make this arrangement. The result is that only plants can synthesize omega-3 and omega-6 fats. 

Animals that eat plants store these fats in their tissues. For example, fish get omega-3 fats made by algae, they cannot synthesize this kind of fat.

Flaxseeds are a good source of omega-3. One tablespoon of ground flax seeds is enough to meet your daily need of omega-3.  

Omega-9 fatty acids are monounsaturated and have only one double bond. It is nine carbons from the omega end of the fatty acid molecule. Oleic acid is the most common omega-9 fatty acid. Omega-9 fatty acids aren't essential because the body can produce them.

A category of fat that you need to avoid is trans fats.

Why You Should Avoid Trans Fats At All Cost

Trans fats are one of the worst types of fat you can eat. Some meat and dairy products contain small amounts of trans fats. Most trans fats form through a process called hydrogenation.

It is an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oils. This process causes the oil to become solid at room temperature.  

Hydrogen turns oils into a more robust product by straightening its carbon chains. These fats raise total cholesterol, LDL “bad” cholesterol, and lower “good” HDL cholesterol. The result is clogged arteries and heart attacks.

Trans-fats may raise our cancer risk by affecting our immune and hormonal systems. They are one reason we might get colon cancer. Hydrogenated oils spoil less, so foods made with it have a longer shelf life.

You can find trans fats in foods like:

If a food has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a serving, the food label can read 0 grams trans fat. But this doesn't mean that it is free from trans fats.

Eliminate processed food and read labels to avoid trans fats. Cheap supermarket oils have trans fats produced during the refining and heating stages. Look for "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" on the ingredients list.

The next thing you need to know about to stay healthy is micronutrients.

Vitamins are necessary for energy production, immune function, blood clotting, and other purposes. “Vita” means life, and as the name indicates, vitamins are essential for our existence.

Fruits and vegetables are the primary sources of most vitamins. They contain almost all vitamins needed by the body except for vitamin D and b12.

Vitamin D comes from sunshine and B12 from bacteria. The elderly, alcoholics and those with chronic illnesses have most deficiencies.

Below is a list of some common vitamins and what they do. You will also learn where to get them on a plant-based diet.

The next thing you need from your diet is minerals.

Minerals are micronutrients that come from inorganic matter like the soil. We need them to maintain good health.

Minerals take part in thousands of metabolic reactions in the body. They support our growth, bone health, fluid balance, and other processes. Plants are the most direct source of minerals. They absorb minerals from the soil.

Here is a list of common minerals and where to find them: