Brussel sprouts contain good amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fiber. Moreover, they are believed to protect against colon cancer, due to their containing sinigrin. They contain three types of phyto's, all shown to have either protective qualities against cancer, or enzyme producing qualities that have been shown during research to fight cancer cells in different ways.

When boiling foods they tend to lose some of the vitamins and nutrients into the water. So here is a roasted brussel sprout recipe that is very easy to prepare and the brussel sprouts keep their natural nutty flavor.

Vicki's Roasted Brussel Sprouts
1 lb Brussels sprouts
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1/2 onion cut into thin slices
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss all the ingredients except for the onions in a large bowl to evenly coat the brussel sprouts. Pour brussel sprouts onto a baking tray and spread apart. Bake for 20 minutes then stir or flip and add the onions and bake for 20 minutes more.

Keeping cancer and other diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity and more might be as simple as the choice we make in keeping toxins out of our bodies and stress out of our minds. Think about all of the money poured into medicines, which are chemicals, that only treat certain symptoms. And most of the time create other side effects that we have to take more medicines for that in turn create more side effects, and on and on. You see where I am going.

What if only a part of the millions and millions of dollars poured into research on medicines, was put to use in educating the public on the right choices of foods and nutrition to put into our bodies to keep them healthy and to learn how to relax and quit putting so many demands on ourselves. What if more funding went into organic farming instead of mass, quick produced, with fertilizers and steroids for faster turn around on the products. Personally I have had so many chemicals blasted into my body from chemo and radiation, and medicines for this and medicines for that, I am about to think that all of that is only hurting my body more. Are we brain washed to believe that we have to have a pill for everything?

My community does not have a health food store that sells fresh organic produce or meats. And the local grocery stores carry very limited amounts of those items. I did take it upon myself to talk to one of the produce managers who did start ordering some other variety of organic vegetables which I thought was nice. And it seemed to catch on with some other customers too. Maybe the trend in that store will be to start ordering more organic products.

I will be posting a series of blogs on personal research that I am doing and trying out, just because I am sick and tired, literally, of fighting cancer that reoccurs and using medicines that are ripping my body apart leaving my immune system even more at risk for infection and disease.

But the one thing that I want to emphasize in this blog right now, is to STOP EATING processed and canned foods. It may be quicker to heat up a can of food or something already processed and pre-made for us, but it is not healthier. Eating fresh organic vegetables and home made prepared foods without chemical preservatives and other additives is the way to go to start getting some of those toxins out of our bodies. If you can't find fresh in something, because seasons play a big part in our fresh vegetable selections, purchase frozen. Also purchase dried beans or other dried items and cook them instead of buying canned ones. They are healthier than canned. Eating raw vegetables or slightly steamed vegetables is more healthy because the vitamins and nutrients do not cook out of the food.

Calorie for calorie, leafy green vegetables like spinach with its delicate texture and jade green color provide more nutrients and vitamins than any other food. Spinach carotenoid combats cancer. Here is a healthy spinach salad good enough for any lunch main course.

Vicki's Spinach Salad with Fruit.
Fresh baby spinach leaves
1 carrot thinly sliced
1 celery stalk thinly sliced
1/2 red onion thinly sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes
1/2 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
1/2 cup chopped fresh apple
1/2 cup chopped fresh pear
1/2 cup slivered almonds
2 hard boiled eggs sliced
6 strips crispy cooked bacon crumbled

Vicki's Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon freshly chopped chives

Toss all of the salad ingredients except the eggs in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the ingredients for the salad dressing and drizzle over the salad and lightly toss again. Top with the sliced hard boiled eggs.

North Carolina State women's basketball coach Kay Yow is still in the game, despite her difficult match-up with a fierce opponent -- breast cancer.

Yow is fighting for the third time a disease that has been spreading throughout her body since last fall. She has sores in her mouth, hasn't been able to eat, and receives regular doses of pain medication, antibiotics, and nutrients to combat the effects of three chemotherapy drugs that are cycling through her tired body.

Still, Yow is never far from the sidelines.

She was right there in the mix the day NC State named its women's basketball court in her honor. Shortly after, she was wheeled off the court on a stretcher, headed for the hospital so she could be pumped full of drugs. She was at work the next day. And at the unveiling of the Kay Yow Court. And at her game that same night. And at the end of the night, with an oncologist and nurse, she was accompanied to her office where she was once again hooked up to an IV so drugs could once again drip into Yow's exhausted body.

Yow, 65, is tough and determined.

"I know people are saying I'm doing too much," Yow says. "I know I have to take care of myself. But it's not like I have a cold or pneumonia and if I rest it will get better. Rest is not going to cure cancer. If rest were just the answer, that's what I would do."

"But if someone can be involved with something that is a passion for them, then I don't think there's anything wrong in trying to do that. Coaching lifts me up. Once the ball is tossed up, I forget pretty much about everything and just focus on the game. If I just do nothing, I feel like I'm giving in to the disease."

For anyone keeping score on the battle between Yow and cancer, it's clear Yow is a winner.

Previous posts about Kay Yow are as follows:
NC State coach takes leave to fight breast cancer
NC State basketball coach Kay Yow back in the game

Couscous is that little pasta pellet that many people mistake for rice. It consists of grains made from semolina that are about 1 mm or 1/16th inch in diameter after cooking. It is quick and easy to prepare and can be eaten cold, warm, or hot. A multi grains diet aids in the prevention of colon cancer. Here is one of my favorite healthy ways to eat this little treasure. The added ingredients are known in the food world to aid in the prevention of cancer. Studies show falcarinol in carrots reduce cancer. Some studies show that basil is a cancer preventative herb. Green peas provide nutrients, including vitamin C, which are instrumental in helping to prevent the development of cancer. Lemon also adds to the vitamin C in this recipe. A high intake of vitamin C has been shown to reduce the risks for virtually all forms of cancer, including leukemia, lymphoma, and lung, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers as well as sex hormone-related cancers like breast, prostate, cervix, and ovarian cancers.

Vicki's Lemon Couscous
1 3/4 cups water
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons of lemon zest
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups couscous
1 cup sweet peas
1 cup minced carrots
1/4 cup fresh minced basil
2 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons minced garlic

In a 1-quart saucepan, bring water, lemon juice, lemon zest, 2 tablespoons oil and garlic to a boil. Add carrots, peas, capers and couscous and stir. Cover and remove from heat and let stand for 15 minutes. Remove couscous into a large bowl by using a fork to fluff and separate the pieces. Add the minced basil and stir. You can eat this while it is hot as a great side dish or cold as a salad. Salt and pepper to taste.

Getting enough grains in your diet is very essential in the prevention of colon cancer. Switching from a white bread to a multi grain bread is an easy step. Adding ground up flax seed to the daily diet is another. And to me Risotto is to rice what wheat is to pasta. It is comfort food, satisfying, and can be fixed a hundred ways with or without meat, by adding various vegetables or just mixed with cheese, but the creamy texture is like no other. Here is one of my favorite personal risotto recipes that adds an unlikely candidate in the food world to the famous Italian food. Nappa cabbage, a cruciferous vegetable that aids in reducing carcinogens in the body and gives you lots of vitamins and nutrients. This is my Italian meets Asian recipe that makes this comfort food especially healthy in the fight against cancer.

Chef Vicki's Creamy Nappa Risotto

1/2 white onion chopped (medium onion in size)
1 celery stalk finely chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons butter (you can substitute olive oil)
5 nappa cabbage leaves chopped.
5 cups vegetable broth
1 cup arborio rice

Note: If you don't buy boxed or canned vegetable broth you can use 5 vegetable bouillon cubes with 5 cups of water to make the broth.

Remember this is a slow cooking recipe that requires a lot of stirring and love watching over the pot. It takes approximately 30 minutes to cook this dish but it is well worth the wait.
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a medium sized sauce pan over medium heat and add onions, celery, and garlic. Saute for 1 to 2 minutes. Add arborio rice and stir until it is all coated and the starch from the rice starts to release. Slowly start adding your vegetable broth one cup at a time and wait for it to be absorbed before adding the next. Continue stirring until you add the last cup of broth. Add the Nappa cabbage with the last cup of broth and continue stirring until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is creamy.

Bok Choy is low in calories, fat and is high in calcium, potassium and Vitamin C and A. Bok Choy also contain glucosinolates, which may help prevent cancer by eliminate carcinogens. Bok Choy is used in a lot of stir fry recipes but I personally like to make a soup that allows me to drink all of the nutrients in the broth. It is simple and quick to make and packed full of flavor and nutrition. If you add diced tofu to the recipe, it will also give you protein.

Chef Vicki's Bok Choy Soup

3 cups vegetable broth
(you can use three cups of water and 3 vegetable bouillon cubes)
1 celery stalk diced
1/2 white onion diced
6 button mushrooms sliced
6 Bok Choy leaves chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 block Extra Firm Tofu cubed in 1/2 inch pieces (optional)

Bring broth to boil and add celery, onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Boil for 2 minutes and lower heat to medium. Add Bok Choy and tofu and simmer for approximately 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

In a Phase III trial involving 878 lung cancer patients, the drug bevacizumab, known as Avastin, increased the overall survival rate to 35 percent when combined with the chemotherapy drugs paclitaxel and carboplatin. Patients who were given paclitaxel and carboplatin without Avastin had a 15 percent chance of responding to treatment.

Two months ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved Avastin as a first-line treatment for patients with inoperable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer. Avastin works by stopping the formation of blood vessels that feed oxygen and nutrients needed for tumor growth. Because the drug is a targeted therapy, in that it leaves healthy tissue alone while going after cancer cells, some of the traditional side-effects from conventional chemotherapy, such as hair loss, nausea, or vomiting, are avoided.

According to Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Chief of Hematology/Oncology's Dr. Joan Schiller, "Twenty years ago, we thought no treatment could help patients with advanced lung cancer. Ten years ago, we found that chemotherapy could improve survival of these patients. Now, we are finding out that this very unique drug called Avastin can also help improve survival even more. Avastin is the first of this very exciting family of drugs to be approved for lung cancer, and there are several other drugs of this type under development which may prove to work even better."

The evidence is stacking up. And it seems almost everyone will soon agree that exercising can help prevent a return of cancer for those who have already done battle with the disease.

The American Cancer Society just issued a report updating nutrition and physical activity recommendations for cancer survivors. Exercise tops the list of recommendations.

For some types of cancers, exercising for just one to three hours per week can lower the risk of cancer recurrence and death, as well as death from all causes. Exercise has also been shown to improve fitness, diminish fatigue, and boost quality of life for survivors.

The report also states that while a vegetarian diet may be healthful in some ways, there is no direct proof that the diet can prevent cancer recurrence. Survivors who do choose a vegetarian lifestyle should ensure they are receiving an adequate intake of nutrients.

A standard multivitamin and mineral supplement equivalent to 100 percent of the Daily Value can help survivors meet their nutrient needs when it's difficult to eat a healthy diet. Some supplements -- such as those high in folic acid or antioxidants -- may be harmful during cancer treatment.

According to the American Cancer Society, food safety is especially important for cancer survivors, especially during treatment that causes immunosuppression.

And then there's alcohol. Alcohol can affect the risk for new primary cancers and should be used sparingly -- or not at all.

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have received a $1.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study how specific nutrients in broccoli, and other vegetables known to provide an anti-cancer benefit, work to fight cancer.

"Everyone knows broccoli is good for you and that it contains compounds known to lessen the occurrence of some types of cancer. We want to know how these compounds work and what their specific targets may be," says Janet V. Cross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

By discovering exactly what the nutrients in foods like broccoli are accomplishing in the prevention of cancer, there is a potential for using the same compounds in a supplement form in cancer prevention. You can listen to Dr. Cross discuss her research in audio files available here.

In two large studies, vitamin D have been found to have a significant effect in reducing the risk of pancreatic cancer. According to Northwestern University researchers, their study is one of the first known studies to use a large-scale epidemiological survey to examine the relationship between vitamin D supplements and cancer of the pancreas.

Previous research and researchers have gone so far as to state that exposure to solar ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation, which causes the body to manufacture vitamin D, might reduce the risk of 16 types of cancer. "Enhancing vitamin D status appears to be the single most important simple thing people can do to reduce their risk of cancer, apart from avoiding tobacco and moderation in the intake of alcohol."

Because of concern regarding prolonged exposure to the sun and skin cancer risks, and for those living in northern climates, it seems reasonable to conclude that perhaps the sensible alternative is a daily vitamin D supplement. However, if you are a cancer patient undergoing treatment, you should check with your physician before embarking on any supplement program.

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.

It seems like common sense to me -- that lifestyle choices can affect a person's risk for contracting cancer -- but apparently, many people are not aware of this. Or they are aware but are not heeding the advice that might just save them from this life-threatening disease. According to Carolyn "Bo" Aldige, president of the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation, in Alexandria, Va., it's not undiscovered treatments and therapies that are key to fighting off cancer -- it's likely that the toll cancer takes can be reduced by lifestyle changes and routine screenings. Aldige reports that nearly half of all cancer deaths are preventable. And she urges us to consider these facts.

• Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the United States and causes nearly one in five deaths, killing about 438,000 Americans each year. Yet 45 million adults still smoke -- 23 percent of them men and 19 percent of them women.
• Poor nutrition, inactivity, and obesity account for one in three of the 564,830 deaths from all cancers. Experts say that excess calories cause mutations that start genes traveling down pathways that cause cells to divide out of control -- and that's what cancer is. According to Aldige, if each person could magically acquire the perfect body mass index, there would be a whole lot less colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers.
• It requires little time and not much discomfort for certain screenings that can detect cancer at an early enough stage that it can be successfully treated. There are already screenings for breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, cervical cancer, and skin cancer. And soon, there may be a simple screening for lung cancer too.
• A diet rich in nutrients and vitamin supplements helps maintain health and prevent cancer.

There are some highly effective defenses against cancer -- but they require some attention and effort on the part of each individual. Not everyone will make health-conscious choices -- some for reasons out of their control (lack of access to screenings, for example) and some for reasons I personally do not understand. But maybe that's because I have already had cancer and I know that I don't ever wish for it to return. So for that reason alone, I plan to adhere to the considerations listed above. It seems like common sense to me.

Watercress is one of the richest sources of dietary phenylethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC). PEITC has been shown to inhibit phase 1 enzyme activation. Effectively it stops potential carcinogens becoming carcinogenic. Watercress is a member of the cruciferous vegetable family that includes broccoli, kale and mustard greens. Watercress leaves are tiny and glossy green with a peppery taste and pack a powerful punch of cancer fighting agents especially cancers related to smokers like lung and esophageal. This simple salad is packed full of nutrients and vitamins and is easy to prepare. As always remember to buy organic products when you can.

Vicki's Watercress and Orange Salad
1 Bag or bunch of watercress rinsed well and patted dry
1 bunch of fresh asparagus cut in 1" pieces
2 cups orange wedges peeled
1/2 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Vicki's Simple Citrus Dressing:
1/4 Cup orange juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons honey

In a small bowl combine all the dressing ingredients and chill for 5 minutes. Blanch asparagus in boiling water for 3-5 minutes keeping it crisp but a little tender. Drain and rinse in cold water. In a large bowl mix the watercress orange wedges, craisins, and asparagus and toss with the dressing. Sprinkle the sliced almonds on top and serve immediately.

Are supplements as good as getting the nutrients in foods themselves? It's a billion dollar industry that boosts vitamin and other supplement sales well over $17 billion a year. The problem is that although researchers have started to identify various compounds in food that can disarm cancer cells in the lab, they still don't know how these substances act inside the body.

So far studies have shown that no single food or chemical has been proved to work on its own. Until more is known about supplements, it's probably smarter to get cancer-fighting protection from a variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Eating properly will deliver a range of nutrients and keep you from taking in large and possibly harmful amounts of any one substance like some proven risks with supplements. Also eating organic foods is the healthiest way possible to get the most nutritional value from your foods. Why put chemicals into your body when you eat? I am a firm believer in proper diet, exercise, and emotional stability to create a stress free environment to keep the body healthy and to overcome disease.

I am not a scientist or a registered nutritionist but in my humble opinion maintaining a diet of 80 percent alkaline foods and 20 percent acidic foods to keep the body at a proper PH balance, along with an exercise regimen for at least 30 minutes a day, and an hour of relaxation time to de-stress is a habit that should be established every day. And while you're at it, don't forget to drink at least six 8 ounce glasses of good clean Reverse Osmosis water a day. Keep in mind that meats, dairy, and sugar are all on the acidic food table.