Cancer Fighting Foods
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animal source that has anti-cancer benefits is a fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA is essentially found primarily in cheese, but only if the cheese comes from grass-fed animals. Thus by disrupting the diets of cows, goats and sheep, we have eliminated the only anti-cancer benefit they might have provided. We have, therefore, an explanation for the simultaneous epidemics of obesity, cancer and other lifestyle diseases since the 60’s. The main culprit is a dietary imbalance in the ratio of essential fatty acids leading to the incredible over consumption of Omega-6 fatty acids and less of Omega-3.
Transfats
Another major factor that has changed our diets for the worse since the 60s is the emergence of margarine and ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘partially hydrogenated’ transfats. Margarines are commonly made from hydrogenated oils like sunflower oil (which has 70 times more Omega-6 than Omega-3), soya oil (with 7 times more and canola oil (the least unbalanced with only 3 times more Omega-6 than Omega-3). While this change (margarine replacing saturated fats) helped lower cholesterol levels, it provoked a sudden rise in inflammatory disorders including cancer and even, in some countries heart attacks. In Israel, for example, religious proscriptions forbid consumption of meat and milk products in the same meal. Thus butter is virtually excluded and cooking techniques rely heavily on vegetable margarines loaded with Omega-6s and sunflower oils which are much cheaper than olive oil rich in Omega-3s. Thus, an ‘Israeli paradox’ – distinct from the ‘American paradox’ – has emerged: Israel is marked by one of the lowest cholesterol levels in Western countries, combined with one of the highest rates of cardiac refraction (heart attack) and obesity.
Transfats and Processed/Refined Foods
We have been won over not just by margarine but also to a large extent by processed and refined foods such as cookies, crackers, tarts, quiches, cakes, pastries, samosas, pakoras, biscuits, noodles, potatoe chips and crisps containing transfats. These foods mostly use Omega-6 rich natural oils, altered by hydrogenation to become solid at room temperature. This change makes them less digestible and even more inflammatory than Omega-6s in their natural state. But these transfats have practical advantages for the food industry: they do not go stale, are easy to handle in the solid form, enhance the taste and above all increase the shelf life of the products. That is why they are used extensively in almost all the processed foods destined to spend weeks, months or even years on supermarket shelves. Thus it is for purely industrial and commercial motives that these harmful transfats have taken over. Their production has exploded since the 1940s. These unnatural fats are among the worst for our health as these are foreign to the body, promote obesity, inflammatory syndrome and many diseases including cancer. In recognition of this danger, as of summer of 2007, transfats have been banned in New York and Philadelphia restaurants to start with; and throughout the food industry in Denmark. Let us hope that other countries also follow and ban these deadly transfats totally.
