Rainbow diet to beat cancer

In Chris Woollams´ book for CANCERactive, The Rainbow Diet and how it can help you beat cancer, he tells you what foods have been shown in research to be Protective and Corrective. The fact is the pigment in many foods is the bioactive natural compound that has strong anti-cancer properties. Across the week you should eat a rainbow of colours: So base your diet around foods like -

Fresh garlic, leeks, onions, spring onions, radishes - for example, garlic is known to contain a number of anti-cancer agents and is believed to help stop cancer spreading and blood supplies forming to new tumours.

Pulses - for thousands of years we have eaten broad beans, peas and pulses providing phytoestrogens (plant oestrogens that are far, far weaker than human oestrogens) to protect us especially against the spread of hormonally driven cancers.

Glycoproteins and polysaccharides - Four Nobel Prizes for medicine in the last dozen years have been won for discoveries on these natural compounds which help cells communicate -good for your immune system´s ability to see friends and foes. Foods include aloe vera, echinacea, turmeric, pectins (e.g. apples and pears), arabinogalactans (e.g. in oats, psyllium, coconut, tomatoes, carrots, brown rice). Even red wine and mother´s milk contain these important protective factors that encourage better messaging between cells. In the US they are now called "Super carbs" or monosaccharides but are actually neither. Probably the best studied are Medicinal Mushrooms like Reishi, Maitake, Cordyceps which are beta-glucan polysaccharides. (see below).

Dark Red foods - like beetroot, dark plums, aubergines, red grapes, blueberries etc which provide anthocyanins, known to kill cancer cells, and/or polyphenols such as resveratrol and quercitin which both have anti-cancer effects.

Bright colours - for example, red and yellow peppers, peaches, apricots, watermelon, for carotenoids, known to restrict cancers like breast cancer.

Greens - Kale, spinach, broccoli, cabbage for vitamin K, phytoestrogens and indole 3 carbinol.

Sprouting seeds - for sulphoraphanes, which have strong anti-cancer activity.

Nuts and seeds try a breakfast of a little organic muesli, boosted by organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds and crushed flaxseed/linseeds. Great for B vitamins like folic acid and biotin to help protect DNA, cellular oxygenation and detoxifying lignans.

Bitter foods - like watercress, gooseberries, cranberries, blackberries, wild strawberries. Or almonds, cashew nuts, millet, buckwheat and apricot kernels all of which contain fibre and a variety of natural compounds (yes, including B-17, which people like Dr Contreras at the Oasis of Hope calls ´nature´s chemotherapy´).

Notable additions - Green tea, olive oil, fennel, oregano, turmeric/curcumin to boost your immune system and kill yeasts.

Switch out of cows´ dairy - to a little goats´ cheese, soya and rice milk. Swap red meat for game and oily fish (although research shows eating oily fish comes second to taking a supplement of fish oils everyday).

Eat more mushrooms, apples, organic brown rice, Manuka Honey (grade 12) and onions. We could go on. There is research on everything from the benefits of quercitin against cancer to the ability of medicinal mushrooms to cut oestrogen and boost the immune system. It is all in The Rainbow Diet and how it can help you beat cancer. Importantly, avoid fried food or burning on the grill and eat more raw foods. Avoid beers and spirits, although the occasional red wine seems (from research, you understand!) to help.