How Clean Eating Can Heal and Prevent Illness
The following is adapted from The Grace of Cancer by Veronica Villanueva.
After I was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, it didn’t take long for me to see its effects on my body. I lost muscle mass and fat, which made the skin on my arms and legs hang down because there wasn’t enough left to hold it up. My body shrunk to pure skin and bones. It was hard to see myself like this every day.
As a trained chef, it was only natural that I immediately turned to food as medicine. When I realized I needed to heal with food, I had one of the first “ah-ha!” moments I would experience throughout my journey. I had to learn to use food to help me get healthier and thrive again. It worked. I am tumor-free, thanks to a positive lifestyle and a series of treatments laid out by my doctors.
Eating a healthy diet and meeting your nutritional requirements are necessary parts of any cancer treatment plan, both as a method to heal your body and to keep you strong. In fact, this is not only relevant to people with a cancer diagnosis; clean eating and good nutrition can improve everyone’s health and prevent illness. Here’s why.
Defining a Healing Diet
As we all know, for thousands of years, herbs and spices have been used as medicines. I knew I needed to create a healthy and strict diet that nourished my body so I could gain some weight back. However, I knew I needed to gain healthy weight. Based on the research I had done, this meant a clean diet without any added toxins, carbohydrates, sugar, dairy, or animal protein.
Only later in my journey, and after reading a book by Dr. Thomas Seyfried from Yale University and Boston College on how the ketogenic diet is the ideal diet for most cancer patients, did I realize that I was following a modified version of a ketogenic diet.
A ketogenic diet consists of low carbohydrates, a small amount of protein, and a large amount of healthy fat and vegetables. The only difference between a ketogenic diet and my diet was that I ate no animal protein. I made this change because my body was already acidic and eating meat would have made it worse.
Normally, the body uses glucose from carbohydrates to create energy in the body. By eliminating carbohydrates and sugar from your diet, you are forcing your body to use healthy fat for fuel instead of glucose. Why is this important? According to Dr. Thomas Seyfried, cancer cells thrive off glucose. When we remove carbohydrates from our diets, we are starving the cancer cells. Disease can make it difficult to control blood glucose levels, so it’s important to manage yours with diet as much as possible.
Food as Medicine
The best medicine for your body is eating whole and organic foods. Processed and refined food have been altered so these types of food are not considered whole foods. However, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes are examples of whole foods. Aim to eat a diet that includes plenty of green leafy vegetables, fruits as treats, legumes (mostly beans; ensure they are prepared properly to eliminate a naturally occurring, but toxic, protein called lectin), and few whole grains.
According to Dr. Steven Gundry, eating foods with lectin has a negative effect on your digestive system and causes brain fog, inflammation, and skin issues. In simple terms, lectins prevent your body from absorbing the nutrients and minerals that are in the other foods that you eat.
When I eat carbohydrates, I opt for complex carbs like quinoa. At the beginning of my healing journey, I created a rule for myself that made it easy to avoid simple carbs: do not eat anything white. Later, I realized my approach might be more severe than necessary. However, I had decided to live, which meant eating foods with healing properties and avoiding foods that created acidity or chronic inflammation in my body (i.e. red meat and gluten).
As much as possible, you want to eat whole-food, unprocessed, home-cooked meals. Dining out at restaurants is not always a good idea because you don’t know what kind of ingredients the restaurant is using. They may be using unhealthy oils, low-quality meat, or non-organic produce. By purchasing your own ingredients and cooking at home, you know exactly what you are putting into your body.
Sugar Confusion
Every living person has cancer cells in their body. Usually, the cells are harmlessly removed. The dangerous part is when those cells get triggered and create disease. Cancer cells will only be triggered if they are given fuel in the form of sugar. The common denominator in many diseases, such as diabetes, which is a precursor for cancer, is sugar.
When I suggest avoiding sugar, I mean all sugar, which includes more than candy and pastries. To keep things simple, we can say there are two types of sugar: natural sugars, which come from fruits and vegetables, and refined sugars, which are used to sweeten foods.
Our bodies digest refined sugar faster than natural sugar. Have you ever wondered why you are still hungry after eating pastries? It is because refined sugar causes your insulin and sugar levels to spike, while fruit contains fiber, which keeps your body satiated for longer.
However, once natural and refined sugars pass through your stomach and into your intestine, your body cannot tell the difference. As far as your body is concerned, donuts and blueberries are both made from sugar. The only difference is the calories.
There Is No Shortcut
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to adopting a nutrient-rich diet and eliminating sugar. If you want to live, forget about sugar entirely and ignore the cravings. After approximately two weeks without sugar, your cravings will disappear. You can do this!
Sticking to a clean eating regimen isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it. Nutrition is a powerful force for healing, and if you aren’t sick, it can be an equally powerful force for preventing disease. Many of the cheap, non-nutritious foods we eat give us short-term pleasure, but their true price only becomes evident with time.
Remember, your food can either make you healthy and thriving, or it can kill you. Saving your life means making the right choices: what you think, what you eat, and what you drink. It all matters.
For more advice on clean eating, you can find The Grace of Cancer on Amazon.
Veronica Villanueva discovered her “why” after being diagnosed with stage IV cancer in 2016. She knows she is alive today to share grace, blessings, and the lessons that cancer has taught her. Her “incurable” disease gave her the gift of knowing herself, loving herself, and sharing herself with others in a profound way. Through her work as a trained Cordon Bleu chef and certified health coach, Veronica aims to inspire others to embrace a holistic lifestyle built on a commitment to growth, eating healthy foods, taking the time to create memorable moments, and of course, fostering loving relationships.
