You have to eat, right? So why not use that daily experience to try to fight your disease and support your body as it attempts to heal you?
Many doctors do not provide tips for how to eat to help fight disease. As I have said before, it isn’t their fault; most doctors have little knowledge of nutrition. Medical schools don’t teach it.
But there are doctors, scientists and other experts out there who have provided evidence that flooding your body with anti-inflammatory foods— colorful vegetables and fruits, legumes, herbs and flavorful spices— while decreasing or eliminating more inflammatory foods (animal products including dairy, plus processed foods) can help your body fight and prevent disease.
Focusing on eating gorgeous vegetables, fruits, and whole grains can produce not only a patient who is surrounded by colorful beauty but also a patient who feels the peace of knowing they supported their bodies getting better.
When I hear doctors say “we don’t want to burden patients by telling them to change their food strategies,” I understand and yet I think, “you have already rocked that patient’s world with this difficult diagnosis. Choosing to eat anti-disease foods is an empowering complement to whatever medical treatment doctor and patient decide. Why not encourage this?”
Many patients are not only eating inflammatory foods that help create disease, but they also carry excess weight that can make it harder for their bodies to get better. Recent scientific studies show a metabolic component to disease. Eating a whole food, plant-based diet is a great way to help your body get to the healthiest weight for you.
Chris Wark of Chris Beats Cancer calls his anti-disease strategy “overdosing on nutrition,” and to me it makes wonderful sense both physically and psychologically.
I followed the Chris Beats Cancer plan and found it simple, calming and nourishing. I not only felt energetic and happy, but it added a powerful serenity to my life. I knew I was helping myself with every bite!
Flooding your body with colorful high-nutrient plants helps fight almost any disease. Also check out Dr. Michael Greger’s nutritionfacts.org to see if there are foods or spices particularly beneficial for fighting your specific disease.
If you need some cooking inspiration for this way of eating, I adore Jane Esselstyn and Ann Crile Esselstyn’s fun videos. Don’t miss this video of Dr Caldwell Esselstyn explaining why eating greens is so important for healing, especially If you have heart disease.
Always tell your doctors what you are doing nutrition-wise. They might need to adjust some medications to take into account the higher nutritional value of your food.
And if you hate the idea of decreasing processed foods and animal products, focus on increasing the good and gorgeous. Play a game- can you get to eating 40 different plants every week, including herbs and spices? Bragg’s Organic Sprinkle comes in a jar in the spice section and is a great short cut. Sprinkling it on anything gets you eating 24 herbs and spices in two seconds flat.
I love having Chef’s Garden seasonal veggie boxes delivered to my door. They prevent me from getting into a rut. I also like being part of a local CSA (community supported agriculture group) where they automatically give me what was picked that week at local farms.
Give yourself time to love your new way of eating. Just like someone who is sedentary and starts exercising needs a bit of time to love exercise, someone who never discovered how vegetables can be delicious will need time to fall in love with eating healthy, too.
And make it fun: I love dipping raw veggies into something delish. It seems decadent to me. Cut up a variety of raw veggies including broccoli florets, broccoli stems, carrots, red cabbage and cauliflower. I do this once a week and put them into a storage container meant for crudités. Take it out when you have the munchies and dip the veggies into something you love (guacamole, lemony hummus, or even barbecue sauce!)
My favorite thing to dip raw veggies in is my Mom’s homemade thousand island dressing. To vegan mayo add a little ketchup, a good amount of Worcestershire sauce, relish, garlic powder and onion powder.
Not sure what to do with a new veggie? Roasting with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper caramelizes them and brings out their sweet flavor. Feel free to add other spices before roasting, too. Smoked paprika, curry, etc. And you can drizzle the roasted veg with a balsamic vinegar glaze at the end (find these near the vinegars in your grocery store). The Italians might add raisins and nuts, too. So good.
Try to get green into each meal of the day. Can you get 6 servings of green into each day? Green leaves and broccoli are the most healing veggies you can eat. Green tea counts in the morning. You can incorporate spinach in a smoothie for breakfast, on top of your oatmeal, or even dessert (freeze peeled, dotted bananas, put them in your blender with a cup of unsweetened soy milk or other plant milk, a sprinkle of cinnamon or cocoa powder, and a sandwich sized ziplock bag of frozen spinach. You can also add a pitted date if you need more sweetness.)
Make yourself a fun salad bar. Remember to bring sparkle to your tastebuds through texture: crunchy nuts and seeds, delicious chickpeas (Goya are my favorite canned ones- you can also put them in an oven with spices and make them crunchy). Throw some red onions in rice vinegar for a zippy pickle. Put the pickled onions over everything! It is amazing how they bring all savory foods to life.
Drizzle fun vinegars and a sprinkle of salt onto your salad or dip your fork into a less-healthy dressing so you enjoy it but use less.
Hate salads? Take a whole grain tortilla, soften it for ten seconds in the microwave, drizzle it with your favorite mustard and wrap it around a pile of lettuce, herbs, other veggies, spices, and perhaps a sprinkle of canned beans or chickpeas and sunflower seeds. Make that your typical lunch.
If you really don’t like green leafy vegetables, try to find micro-greens and sprinkle them on your sandwich or other foods. Micro-greens give you the same nutrients in fewer forkfuls than bigger leaf veggies. I get mine weekly in my Chef’s Garden boxes.
Garnish everything with herbs. Buy or grow fresh Italian parsley, dill, cilantro, scallions, and anything else you like. Chop a mixture of it and put the chopped herbs in a Tupperware in your fridge. Every time you serve yourself anything savory, sprinkle this on top to make it more inviting and healthy. Plus my beloved grandmother would be proud of you for making your food pretty.
Stuff sandwich-size ziplock bags with already-washed baby spinach and freeze them. Then crush the bag of frozen spinach with your fingers: sprinkle the crushed spinach onto anything warm you are eating (soups, rice, etc). It will look gorgeous and provide more nutritional bang.
Veggie soups rule! I adore everything about veggie soups – making them, pureeing them, drizzling them with a few drops of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt and fresh herbs and/or toasted sliced almonds just before serving. I save the scraps from onions, garlic, and veggie ends and peels in a ziplock in my freezer to make no-cost, no-effort homemade veggie stock. When I want to make soup, I just dump the frozen scraps into a pot, cover it with water, and add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a bay leaf. I bring it to a boil, simmer it, and then strain the stock into whatever soup I am cooking. Sundays are a great day to make a quick soup for the week.
Anti-Alzheimers gurus recommend eating beans 3x a day to help prevent Alzheimers. Unsweetened soy milk (made out of soy beans) in your cereal or coffee counts!
Rancho Gordo beans can turn a bean hater into a bean enjoyer. So many delicious choices. And don’t worry about gas! Most people get much more gas from eating dairy than they do from beans. I make a pot of beans once a week. I sauté an onion in a bit of olive oil. Then I add the rinsed beans (I never presoak) with some dried oregano, a bay leaf, and a whole garlic clove or two. I cover it with a few inches of water and bring it to a boil for about 15 min. As Rancho Gordo’s Steve Gordo says, you got to show the beans who is boss. Then turn down the heat, cover and simmer till the beans are done. Check every so often to stir and add water if necessary. Add salt towards the end. You can also use a slow cooker or an instant pot. Rancho Gordo beans are so fresh they usually don’t take long. Leftover beans are easily put in salads and wraps, pureed with an immersion blender into a silky protein filled soup, or zapped into a bean dip for dipping veggies.
If you are a tuna lover, try the chickpea “tuna” recipe my dad and I are obsessed with. For a fast oil-free hummus, dump a can of chickpeas with some of their liquid into a food processor. Add lemon juice, salt, tahini, and cumin. I like to add herbs too.
Lentils are so gorgeous. Black lentils feel like you are eating caviar. Green lentils make great salads. Red ones make killer Indian comfort food (dals) that are so easy and delish. Indian grocery stores have exotic lentil choices that are inexpensive and fabulous. Serve any lentils or beans with brown rice or baked sweet potatoes or a fun grain like millet.
Baked sweet potatoes make an amazing snack. Choose small ones, scrub them and poke with a fork and bake at 400 for about an hour. You can eat them like an apple, skin and all. My friend does this when she is getting ready for work and wraps them in foil so she can enjoy them at the office.
Tofu is so easy– it just absorbs the taste of anything you want to throw on it. Here’s my favorite recipe. At a Chinese restaurant? Have them turn your favorite meat dish into one with tofu, ideally steamed. Ask them to add broccoli too.
Love oatmeal or whole grain cereal in the morning? Sprinkle it with blueberries, a tablespoon of ground flax seed, a handful of walnuts and a sprinkle of cinnamon, ginger, and turmeric (with a twist of black pepper which you won’t taste but will help your body absorb the turmeric). Banana lovers can add banana slices too. Add unsweetened soy milk and enjoy. I don’t bother cooking my oatmeal; I just enjoy it raw. Sounds strange but try it!
I love coffee and have one large delicious cup of coffee with unsweetened soy milk each morning but then make myself switch to: anti-disease green tea. Since I don’t adore the taste of green tea alone I will often add a tea bag of a different tea to the green tea. There are so many choices, and it is so soothing to drink tea. A lovely ritual for yourself.
Onion and garlic help fight disease, so I add more than the recipe calls for. I like the taste of chopped garlic much more than garlic smushed in a garlic press. You can also zap a lot of it in a food processor and freeze it into tiny ice cube trays. Ditto with ginger.
Drink a lot of water, each day! Try to drink half your weight in ounces. Put berries and a sprig of mint or a slice of orange or cucumber into your water to beckon you to it.
Nurture the creative side of you through food. And enjoy your food adventure, knowing you are helping yourself both physically and emotionally.
Esselstyn YouTube videos:
