Media Coverage

Cooking to Combat Cancer: The Vegan Philosophy
This piece ran in The Dallas Morning News on April 2, 2007

Linda Blanchard took up running 23 years ago after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
About seven years later, the Alaska resident learned that food may play a role in cancer survival. She started eating more fruits and vegetables, cut back on fats and began opting for chicken or fish instead of beef.

Today, the 59-year-old retired school nurse wants to do more. She's attending weekly cooking classes sponsored by the Cancer Project, a national nonprofit health organization, to find out. Food for Life Nutrition and Cooking Classes for Cancer Prevention and Survival, an eight-week series, was developed by physicians, nutrition experts and registered dietitians.
"The purpose of the series is to help people make healthy choices to prevent cancer, or to survive it if they already have it," says Delisa Renideo, a Cancer Project instructor and former nurse.

"The same diet we're talking about is going to help fight heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, pretty much all the diseases of affluence," she says.

Each class includes cooking demonstrations and facts about how certain foods and nutrients promote or discourage cancer growth. Recipes are low-fat and plant-based.
That means meat, poultry and dairy products are out.

Vegan is a term that distinguishes pure vegetarians from those who eat poultry, fish or dairy products. That's part of the Food for Life philosophy.

Studies show that diets rich in meat, dairy products, fried foods and even vegetable oils boost hormones such as estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer in women, and testosterone, which may play a role in prostate cancer in men, the handbook reports.

These hormone levels fall significantly in both men and women when they reduce the amount of fat in their diets.

The Food for Life classes emphasize diets based on fruits, grains, vegetables and legumes.
"If you build your meals around these four food groups, then you really are going to have a healthy diet," Ms. Renideo says.

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