I have spent over 50 years teaching people how to eat better food but also teaching cancer patients themselves to adopt a better food diet rich in fruits and especially steamed veggies and how to prepare raw beneficial mixed vegetables in a blender along with other ingredients to prepare mixed vegetable juice cocktails. Carrots and red beets mixed with broccoli sprouts or watercress and black radish remain my favorite therapeutic drink. l often suggest at least 3-4 large glasses per day, taken between meals, sometimes as a substitute for dinner. In a review of 206 human studies carrot juice consistently emerged as one of the top cancer-fighting vegetables, probably from its richness in beta-carotene but probably from its other ingredients.
Even eating a portion of 4-6 vegetables per day is not enough to get the supply of antioxidants that we need and more if it is for a cancer patient. This also depends on the quality of the vegetables, if they are organic or not. Just avoid industrially farmed food found in most supermarkets.
Vegetables have lost most of their nutritional proprieties. Today soil is so depleted that vegetables contain as much as 10 times fewer vitamins and minerals compared with 50 years ago.
When you buy regular vegetables in a supermarket, after cooking you get only about 10% of their nutritional value. Not mentioning the use of insecticides or pesticides, many of which are associated with several cancer risks, such brain and breast. However, people can search for local farmer's markets in their area, finding local chapters in every state that carries organic food and vegetables.
The other important matter that we don't speak about is the fact that most people are not used to these new organic foods and know less about how to cook or prepare them. This remains a major problem for many people. So while an anticancer diet is wonderful, it is also a diet that many patients will not always follow. Teaching is usually necessary along with cooking classes and recipe books.
Figure 8: Foods that Fight Cancer