Boobs On Ice™

What Goes in Your Body?

I'm trying to eat better since I was diagnosed with cancer in December and even better since the complications of my second surgery in June.

Never much of a fried foods person I've always liked fruits and vegetables but over the last six months have added some things to my diet and subtracted others in the interest of wellness. Most of the time I'm confident that I'm doing a good job, especially with the help of shopper food/manager daughter Kate who has been somewhat cornered into the role of nutrition guru since she's smart, savvy, a great researcher and has taken on the flipped upside-down role of stay-at-home mom to me.

We're lucky to be guided by my friend and medical librarian Patricia Anderson who tells us everything we didn't want to know about plant estrogens which I must avoid because my tumor cells need estrogen to grow. But still sometimes I wonder if I could be doing more.

So I was interested to see that Tara Parker-Pope  who writes on health for the New York Times Blog recently asked Dr. Jonny Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” (some of them fairly obscure) to list some favorite foods that are - thank you Tara for specifying this part - easy to find.

Here's his list:

1. Beets
2. Cabbage.
3. Swiss chard
4. Cinnamon
5. Pomegranate juice
6. Dried plums
7. Pumpkin seeds
8. Sardines
9. Turmeric
10. Frozen blueberries
11. Canned pumpkin

So how did you do?

How many of these do you eat regularly? Forced to poke around your pantry to see if you've got any of these in stock?

I've got three of the eleven in the house; one only by accident I admit. (Thank you Connie Reece for the Texas nuts that contained a fair number of pumpkin seeds which I actually was surprised to love. Now I just need to find your supplier.)

Blueberries top my cereal every morning and I love beets but have them only occasionally. Cabbage is not something I love but I don't dislike it either and it is part of salads that I routinely order when eating out or via take-out.

Pomegranate juice is new for me but very tasty, not too tart at all though some think so.

Cinnamon is hard to fit into my routine, though and I wonder if it is worth the effort for the little I'd actually consume without wanting to head off to the pastry shop for something that would be decidedly unhealthy.

Sardines and canned pumpkin though? Don't look for that happening any time soon.

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Put it to Use

To find suggestions on how to include these foods in our diets I poked around here and then looking further into this I found that an article in Mental Floss touts the goodness of all portions of the pumpkin, including the blossom, and provides a handy chart to back up the information.

Fatigue Fighting or Fishing in My Wallet?

I hate it when I run across something that sounds too good to be true. But today I came across a photo of Lance Armstrong talking about something called FRS healthy energy.

Coming equipped as I do with a well developed skeptic gene, I don't buy cure-alls or miracle supplements. So I wouldn't pay any attention here except the material says FRS was originally tested and refined by Harvard's "Dana Farber Cancer Institute as a fatigue fighting and general health drink."

And studies - they've at least got some numbers to back them up.

Would I be just as well off keeping up with my fruit and grain and protein awareness program? I have no idea, but the exhaustion is not going anywhere and it's getting old.

Right off the bat since they are dealing with my primary complaint and use two respected names, Dana Farber Clinic, and Lance Armstrong in the promotional materials, I cant get away from feeling that I'm going to need to know more about this.

Remember - I don't look for anything like nutrition to kill cancer cells. But IF there is anything I can do to increase my energy level, I'm so there. Missing events because I'm too wiped out to get out of bed is not my idea of acceptable.

Got ideas for me? Comment away; I'm reading, Or napping maybe, but hopefully reading,

Why a Soy Health Shake Is Not My Cup of Tea

What can be good for some of us can be bad for others with any breast cancer that thrives on estrogen? 

SOY!   Who knew. .  and how did this happen??

The scoop is that phytoestrogens are estrogen hormone-like chemicals found in plants.

Guess what . .  we eat them in food we think is healthy! OK it may be healthy for MOST of us . .  but I've got an oh so special tumor that just LOVES feeding on estrogen.

Surprise!

Dietary estrogen (phytoestrogen) can be found in lots of food products including herbs and oils. BUT but the level varies depending on the source.

The information on the list of plants high in Phytoestrogens was a surprise.

What I do with this next after I get over being surprised? I thought it was only fair to share it with you and tell you to check to see if your cancer - or the cancer of your friend or loved one - is estrogen receptor positive so you can make them aware of this potential added risk

I do know I'll avoid soy and flax seed and the rest of the biggies on the list. But it won't be too big a sacrifice not to add Tofu Burgers to my diet anytime soon.

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For more about estrogen-receptors and cancer see my entry How do Hormones Fight Breast Cancer

More on Plant Estrogens at:

Phytoestrogen and Its Food Sources