Cancer

This is difficult topic for me. Once you've had a visit from cancer to your family firsthand, and see how it changes you, you'll know what I mean. Cancer is a brutal disease. Brutal because in what seems like an instant, it can make a totally healthy appearing person into a wilted shell of his or herself in a matter of weeks. Such was the case for my father, who died from liver cancer when he was 56 years old. My dad was always active, working around the house, busy with work, always moving around. He was smart and funny man, and I remember him fondly. He complained of pain one day while working on this car outside of the house, and that's where our family's journey with cancer began. It turns out he had Stage 4 liver cancer, and was given just a few months to live. The shock of that news, that your 56 year-old father, young and very active, had literally days to live, is something I'll never forget. Things race through your mind, regret, things I said, things I did, things failed to do. And utter helplessness and sadness. There wasn't the flurry of information we have today on cancer and all of the different possibilities. Like so many people afflicted and maybe so many even today, we were told by the doctors it was very bleak, and we had few options. Had I known now what I didn't know then, it's quite possible my father would still be here. It's not guaranteed, but if I had a chance to rewind time and do it again, I would've done things differently. To make a long story short, 5 weeks into his diagnosis, after getting several opinions and options, my family decided to go with chemotherapy. For some reason, I was totally against it, but because that's what my father wanted, I went along. Once he had the chemo treatment, is went it all went downhill. He went from ill to deathly in a matter of hours. I wish we never put him through that. 2 weeks later, he was gone.

Cancer is a slow growing disease. It takes years for a tumor to cause pain and thus be detected. But, when you are diagnosed with it, the typical response is that we have to act immediately. I think it's just human nature to do so. Once given a problem, we need to find a solution. And the solutions for cancer today are chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, or experimental drugs or treatments. Depending on the type of cancer or treatment, the facility, the doctor, the patient, and variety of other factors, there's a success rate associated with each. If I ever got cancer, I would want to know that percentage for my case. And if I didn't get an answer or it was something less than 50%, I'd consider other possibilities. And surely, I wouldn't be in a hurry. My inclination is that I would never choose any typical treatment. I'd rather do nothing than go through what my father did.

The good news about cancer is that there's a lot more information now about what causes cancer and how to prevent it. Again, nothing is guaranteed, but if you take steps now to prevent it from happening, or take steps to reverse it if it happens, then maybe, just maybe you'll give yourself a better chance to survive it. I have become a vegan for this reason, to possibly prevent cancer by taking proactive steps now, while I'm relatively young.

So why and how, you may ask, does becoming a vegan prevent cancer?

Good question.

1.) No dairy. I've said this many times. Casein, the main protein in milk, is a known fertilizer of cancer. If you have a carcinogen in your body, and you drink a lot of milk, eat a lot of cheese, ice cream, yogurt, whatever, you're more at risk for having that cancer grow. Eliminate the casein, and guess what, the cancer stops. Just drink soy/rice/almond milk instead. Those plant based proteins do not fertilize cancer cells.

2.) No meat. Animal products raise cholesterol, and higher level of cholesterol lead to lots of issues, including cancer. I will talk more about this later, but suffice it to say if you're a "good" vegan (don't eat french fries and PB&J sandwiches, but instead a plant-based whole foods diet), your cholesterol levels will be very good, and you will not be as much at risk for many diseases, including cancer.

3.) Greens, veggies, and fruits! If you're a "good" vegan, you'll eat lots of these. And heck, you know this already. Eat right and exercise, right? Eat right? What does that mean? Get more whole vegetables and fruits in your diet. Everyone says this, you know it by now. Unfortunately, most of us don't get near enough of the complex nutrients that plants give. Some of us just have 1 piece of fruit per day and no vegetables. Some of us eat a small salad with head lettuce slathered with blue cheese dressing and call that our veggie for the day. These plants hold the key to strengthening our immune system, helping us to fight off disease. In the place of dairy and meat, they provide all the nutrition (save Vitamin B12) that we need. Jot down what you ate today for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And if you can, measure how many calories came from plant-based whole foods. If you're talking 5-10% of your overall calories, just think about what that's doing to your body. That means that 90-95% is coming from dairy, meat, fats, junk food, or somewhere else. It should be the other way around!

Okay, off my soap box. Read this book, watch this movie, and get back to me.

"The China Study," by T. Colin Campbell.
"Healing Cancer From the Inside Out", 2008, Mike Anderson