Health & Nutrition Strategies for Cancer Survivors & Everybody Else Jan 2018

By Warren Green

WHAT'S IN YOUR DIET?

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and prepared to improve their diet and protect their immune system

I'll start with a quote from Cancer Immunologist Drew Pardoll,M.D.;PhD. Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy. “Immune therapy is a game changer. We need more research to take us the rest of the distance, but we don't think there is a single cancer that the patient's own immune system ultimately can't beat.” That was a promised update on the subject of Immunotherapy from an earlier article. I'm writing it at this time because I lost my precious little sister to a very aggressive small cell lung cancer that metastasized. It took less than four months from diagnosis to demise. Early diagnosis is critical and Immunotherapy is promising cures, not remissions, cures. We live in a very toxic environment. Paying attention to your body and what you put into it is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself against that toxicity, particularly in our country's food chain. I'll do my best to keep you informed and focused. Cancer shouldn't be a death sentence.

In earlier articles my focus was on strategies for cancer survivors. I than expanded to “Everybody Else” and finally, to the subtitle“What's In Your Diet?” I come at the “What's in your diet” part from the perspective of a food safety expert. My first job in the industry was that of a meat inspector for the State of New York. I watched sausage being made, for a living. I went from NYS inspection, to the USDA/FSIS and more complex operations,and from there to headquarters in Washington D.C. the regulatory top of America's food chain.

I worked in the Standards and Labeling Division, where we were responsible for providing labeling guidance, policies and inspection methods to protect consumers from misbranded and economically adulterated meat and poultry. We had to know what ingredients were allowed and how they had to be listed. We used the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to make our determinations . I guess we were the official identifier of fake food. I'll go into detail on the process in my next article.

Finally,the beginning of the year is my diet optimizing time. Last year I eliminated dairy from my diet for that month,I felt so good I made it permanent. This time I'll be removing red meat, and eliminating refined flour and increasing my fruit and fish consumption.

No regional recalls to report.

Let food be your medicine.