Food With Low Nutritional Quality & Cancer - Is There A Link?

We easily get attracted to foods that look appealing, smell delicious, and taste good. Most of the times, junk foods are the one to blame. No matter how hard you try to resist yourself from digging into a tub of ice cream or from taking a bite of a pizza slice, you always fail. These foods only satiate your hunger and cravings but do not really contribute to your good health – they are low in nutrition but high in calories.

While binging on junk food occasionally is fine, people who consume low-nutrition value foods daily or frequently are at high risk of cancer! Low or zero nutrition foods contain nothing but calories in the form of fats, sugar, and other artificial ingredients. Here are a few examples of foods, which have little or no nutritional value –

• French fries

• Potato chips

• Cheeseburgers

• Pizza, pasta

• Aerated drinks, soda, cola

• Ice cream

• Candy bars

• Cookies, pastries, muffins

• Frozen meat – sausages, bacon

• Canned fruits and- fruit juice

• Breakfast cereals

These foods are devoid of proteins, healthy fats, essential minerals, vitamins, and carbohydrates – everything that your body needs to function. Moreover, many of these foods or drinks contain components and preservatives that may even cause cancer. For instance, processed meats (bacon, sausages, salami), which are preserved by salting, curing and adding chemical preservatives, release heterocyclic aromatic amines – a carcinogen.

Cancer is one deadly disease, which spreads rapidly from the affected organ to other parts of the body. The best way to counter cancer is to prevent its onset.

Healthy eating can reduce the risk of cancer. Want to know what foods can cure the disease naturally by killing the cancer cells? Here is a list –

• Broccoli – contains a plant compound named sulforaphane, which is known to have anti-cancer properties

• Carrots – a few chunks of carrot in your meal can lower the risk of lung, prostate, and stomach cancer

• Beans – contain a high amount of fibre, which shields you against colon cancer

• Berries – these are rich in anthocyanins (plant pigments having antioxidant properties) and are linked to a decreased risk of certain forms of cancer

• Cinnamon – extracts of cinnamon are known to destroy and prevent tumours from spreading

• Turmeric – Turmeric consists of a chemical named curcumin, which has been shown to minimize the growth of various types of cancer and lesions

• Tomatoes – the compound lycopene, found in tomatoes, has anticancer properties and reduces the risk of prostate cancer

• Flaxseeds – high in fibre and healthy fats, flaxseeds also reduce breast and prostate cancer growth

• Fatty fish – fishes like salmon, mackerel, Pomfret and others are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins, both of which are believed to keep cancer at bay

• Citrus fruits - they are best known for their high vitamin-C content, which helps protect against cancer

Apart from citrus fruits like lemons, oranges, grapefruits and others, experts recommend eating soursop (also known as custard apple or graviola). This ‘super fruit’ can kill cancer cells. Lab studies have confirmed its effectiveness in curing liver cancer and breast cancer. The efficacy of soursop leaves in destroying cancer cells is about 80%. Nevertheless, what makes custard apples a preferred natural cure for cancer is that, unlike chemotherapy drugs, its effects are specific to cancer cells and not the healthy cells of the body.

How do you beat cancer naturally?

The key to beating cancer naturally is good nutrition. Your body executes a hundred different functions, most of which are dependent on high nutrition value foods. Make sure that you steer away from foods that are low in nutritional value, and switch to those that are known to kill cancer cells. Besides, also ensure that you are maintaining a healthy body weight – exercise is a great way to keep yourself active. Therefore, ditch those unhealthy, low-nutrition value foods and ask for a balanced diet chart from your dietician instead.