Cancer Loves Sugar

The following dietary guidelines are probably going to go against everything that you have learned about anti-cancer nutrition thus far. So brace yourself for some recommendations that are going to seem a little against the grain (literally!). The main principle for an anti-cancer diet is avoiding excessive carbohydrates. Sugar is the simplest carbohydrate. Cancer thrives on carbohydrates and your goal is to starve the cancer of its favorite food. Carbohydrates are found in sweet foods like sugar, cakes, cookies, candy, soda pop, chocolate, ice cream, etc. What you may not be aware of is that carbohydrates are also the primary substances in fruits and grains, especially refined flours. So by avoiding foods with high glycemic index, you can effectively starve your cancer! You may be wondering why cancer loves sugar so much. The reason has to do with a hormone called insulin.

Insulin’s role in the body is to go out and find sugar in the bloodstream and grab onto it and carry it to the cells of the body. Kind of like a honey bee going out to collect nectar and carrying it home to the hive to make honey. A cancer cell is very smart. It wants to hoard all of the sugar for itself, so it makes lots of windows on its surface for the insulin to enter through to deposit the sugar. With all the extra sugar around for food, the cancer can grow faster than the other cells of the body. That means that when you eat something that is high in carbohydrates, the cancer cells in your body are having a party. The good news is that you can play a metabolic trick on cancer. You can deprive it of its food by eating high protein meals and limit your intake of carbohydrates. This type of diet will keep your blood insulin levels low, which starves the cancer faster than your other tissue.

First and only rule: eat as much of your food raw, uncooked, with its natural enzymatic activities still intact. That includes eggs, meats, fish, and of course fruits and vegetables. If you have to cook them (because of your cultural bias, we understand), cook the least amount possible. Eat your steak rare, eggs soft, and fish as sushi. Look for organic, hormone-free, free range, poultry and beef, grass fed beef, deep sea fish. Choose organic dairy and eggs. When preparing foods, it is best to use coconut or olive oil or butter for cooking; never use margarine or other hydrogenated fat (check labels for this as it is a common additive). In fruits and vegetables raw and fresh is best, frozen is passable, lightly steamed is fine, canned is not that good.

Foods to eat freely:

Salads: lots of fresh, water rich, green raw vegetables
Dairy products: Cultured only, raw yoghurt or kefir, cultured butter, ghee.
Eggs: All OK, preferably free range.
Nuts and nut butters: Raw or sprouted only, roasted are often rancid, and are acid forming.
Vegetables: All OK, but limit intake of corn, white potatoes, carrots, beets.
Fruit: Limit to in the morning only. Avoid oranges and bananas. Use lots of lemons.
Berries are best: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries.
Avoid all fruit juices, especially sweetened types.

Foods to avoid:

Grains: Avoid refined (white) grains. Limit wheat and oats. (Occasional Millet, Brown rice or Quinoa).
Breads: Avoid all breads except for sprouted grain bread (Ezekiel or Essene).
Beans: Limit to 2 servings per week.
Sweeteners: Avoid all sugar, honey, maple syrup, molasses, raw sugar, fructose, corn syrup, brown rice syrup, avoid all artificial sweeteners. Stevia is OK.
Try to keep total carbohydrate count to under 75 grams per day, under 50 is ideal.

Doug Kaufmann of Know the Cause talks about a connection between fungus and cancer. He says that many times a diagnosis of cancer is made when the problem is actually a fungal infection. He has seen people with cancer getting treated also for fungus, and seen them “cured” of the cancer. You probably know that both cancer and fungus thrive under conditions of high sugar and low oxygen. Another thing Kaufmann brings out is that most grains and many other common foods are infected with various kinds of fungi. So it’s not inconceivable that our high rates of cancer are connected with our high-carb / high-sugar diet, as well as other sources of exposure to mold and fungus.