In Nutrition Notes, The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) states that salsa has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment.

Not surprising. Salsa adds taste and personality to many dishes and it's a great way to get more fruits and vegetables into our daily diet. Salsa can also be used instead of many of the dressings and sauces that are notoriously known for high fat content.

What is salsa? Salsa is the Mexican word for sauce and most people who think of salsa think of a tomato, cilantro, spicy hot chilies and onion condiment. Today, salsa can be made with many different ingredients including fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices.

Salsa can be mixed up in a matter of minutes, using fresh ingredients from the garden or local grocer. According to AICR, each half-cup portion of salsa gives us another serving of vegetable or fruit to our day. Great Salsa explains that the perfect salsa recipe is a matter of taste and the final ingredient of a great salsa recipe is the cook's creativity!

Once you start reading salsa recipes, you will discover how easy salsa is to make and once served a satisfying addition to any dish. Great Salsa features a good selection of recipes to delight everyone's taste buds from the classic tomato and hot peppers salsa to mango fruit salsa -- and then try a visit to Clay's Kitchen where you will find 476 salsa recipes.

Phil Goddard is blogging Coast to Coast as he walks over 4,000 miles across America in memory of his wife Jayne, who died of cancer in January 2006. He is raising money for the Association for International Cancer Research as he walks. He started in New York on June 25 and has met with sweltering triple-digit heat, shin pain and as he describes them -- people of extraordinary hospitality.

In a solo foot journey that will take him up to nine months to complete, Goddard has made it as far as Pennsylvania. There are no vehicles following him and no official support awaiting him on the road ahead. Goddard goes it alone.

According to his sister Jacqui Goddard, "This grueling odyssey is his idea of a healing experience, an off-beat form of bereavement therapy by which he can make life without Jayne meaningful, rather than filling his days with the pain of her loss. It will also raise more than £10,000 in sponsorship for the Association for International Cancer Research."

Goodard believes that if it had been him who died, his wife Jayne would have found a way to turn it into something positive too. Jayne was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer but it wasn't discovered in time to save her. Jayne, who used her maiden name Comins, was a speech therapist and psychotherapist, and held the professional status as a leading expert on the human voice, writing books and articles, making regular TV and radio appearances and lecturing throughout Britain.

Join Goddard on his walk across America as he blogs Coast to Coast.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), the world's most comprehensive cancer study being conducted in establishing the link between diet and cancer risk has been going on for over a decade and few people hear about it. Over 80 scientific papers based on the study have been published in journals such as the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the Lancet, the Journal of Nutrition.

The study -- called the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) -- is an enormous undertaking involving 521,483 individuals in 10 different European countries. EPIC is unique because the populations being tracked are so diverse in eating habits. But this is precisely what gives the study the advantage it has in making comparisons and noting trends.

According to EPIC, a few of the emerging results found in the link between diet and cancer are:

• Consumption of meat sharply increased risk of stomach cancer and esophageal cancer. For every 100 grams of meat consumed by subjects, risk for stomach cancer more than tripled. The association between meat intake and stomach cancer was considerably stronger among subjects with populations of H. pylori bacteria in their stomachs.
• Two indicators of abdominal obesity, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, were strongly associated with colon cancer risk in both sexes. Men with the largest waist circumference had 39 percent higher risk of colon cancer than men with the smallest, for example, while women in the study with the largest waist circumference has a 48 percent higher risk than women with the smallest waists.
• Blood samples of women with breast cancer were compared to blood samples of women without breast cancer. Women over 60 whose blood was given under non-fasting conditions, high levels of serum C-peptide, that could reflect insulin resistance -- long suspected of contributing to cancer risk -- was associated with a doubling of breast cancer risk.
• The risk for oral and pharyngeal cancers drop by 9 percent for every 80 grams of fruits and vegetables consumed per day.
  

Researchers are beginning to come to some conclusions involving the data they have to date that clearly shows that globally, diets that are high in fruits, vegetables, fiber and fish are associated with greater cancer prevention -- with obesity and sedentary lifestyles much larger factors in increasing cancer risk.