If you are looking for a healthful, calorie and nutrient dense smoothie recipe to help you maintain or gain weight during or after cancer treatment, try this one by IOE's anticancer nutritionist, Conner Middelmann-Whitney. This is the second in ... [Read More]
Healthy Cookouts In 12 Easy Steps
I love a good cookout – after all, al fresco meals are the quintessence of Mediterranean summer dining. Nonetheless, I get a little nervous about the health implications of some of the foods eaten at summer picnics and barbecues. So at the risk of ... [Read More]
Beans, Beans, They Really Are Good For Your Heart!
Remember the ditty that used to drive your mom crazy at the dinner table? “Beans, Beans, they’re good for your heart; the more you eat, the more you fart; the more you fart the better you feel; so eat your beans at every meal!” Well, now there’s ... [Read More]
“Healthy Indulgence” Is Not An Oxymoron: A Valentine’s Treat
I wish delicious foods weren't automatically classed as “decadent,” “sinful,” “indulgent,” a “guilty pleasure” or even (generally in the context of chocolate) as “death-by [insert killer food name here].” It’s as though a secret guild of ... [Read More]
How The Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Your Cancer Risk
As World Cancer Day rolls around again, it’s striking – and frankly, more than a little dispiriting for us cancer educators – to see how little people know about the disease. Not about the actual disease – for cancer is a complex condition that ... [Read More]
So Tasty, So Simple, So Healthy, Sofrito
As readers of Zest for Life know, rare is the recipe of mine that doesn’t start with a chopped onion sautéed in olive oil with some minced garlic. Once the onion is translucent I’ll add tomatoes, thyme and bay leaf, cook it another 15 minutes and ... [Read More]
Eat Nuts, Live Longer
The Mediterranean Diet scored another point last week when a major new study showed that regular nut consumption -- a key feature of Mediterranean eating patterns -- helps you live longer. ... [Read More]
Do Fish Oils Really Boost The Risk Of Prostate Cancer?
Thousands of patients were anxiously calling their doctors last week after a new study found that fish oils might increase the risk of prostate cancer. Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the study found that high ... [Read More]
Just say “No” To Artificial Sweeteners (and “Only a Little” to natural ones…)
There is no such thing as a healthy sweetener -- only more, or less, unhealthy ones. This conclusion became abundantly clear to me as I read a study published this week in the medical journal Diabetes Care. It found that a popular non-nutritive ... [Read More]
Time To Take Milk Off The Menu?
Attention milk-lovers: If you have had breast cancer, you may be better off steering clear of dairy fat. A new study conducted by scientists at Kaiser Permanente, the large U.S. health insurer, and published in the Journal of the National Cancer ... [Read More]
Is This The Diet To End All Diets?
The only thing that has surprised me about the latest study on the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet has been the media frenzy surrounding it. “Mediterranean Diet: The New Gold Standard?” asked Forbes.com, predicting that the study “will ... [Read More]
Love Is The New Superfood
If, like me, you’re fed up with Valentine’s-Day madness – cards, candy and oceans of pink – fear not: this isn’t another tract about the aphrodisiac properties of caviar and oysters, or advice on how to cook your way to your lover’s heart. No, ... [Read More]
Dispelling Cancer Myths on World Cancer Day
While most of us are perfectly comfortable talking about life-threatening illnesses like heart disease and AIDS, cancer remains shrouded in myth and mystery. Many people refer to it as “The Big C” or “The C-Word,” as if fearing that merely ... [Read More]
What 93% of Americans Don’t Know: Obesity Raises Cancer Risk
Shocking but true: according a poll published this week, only 7% of Americans understand that being obese increases a person’s cancer risk. Disappointingly, this comes after years of tireless awareness-raising campaigns by organizations like the ... [Read More]
12 Healthy Gift Ideas
At a time when retailers in want us to worry about holiday gifts, it occurs to me that everyone I know has everything they need – except, perhaps, for health and happiness. So this year, why not give gifts that may – at least to some extent – help ... [Read More]
More Bad News For Refined Carbs
Regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised to learn that diets high in sugar and refined starches increase the risk of disease recurrence and death in people who have been treated for colorectal cancer. However, the extent of the recurrence ... [Read More]
Curried Pumpkin-Apple Soup, Tamari-Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
This warming soup makes a comforting fall meal brimming with nutrients. I usually feed it to my kids on Halloween before they go trick-or-treating, as a tiny bulwark against the imminent candy onslaught ... Pumpkin is an excellent source of ... [Read More]
Halloween Antidote: Curried Pumpkin Soup
I serve this warming soup every year at Halloween in the hope that it will – at least to some extent – act as an antidote to all the sugar my children drag into the house.All varieties of winter squash – Hokkaido (my favorite as it can be eaten with ... [Read More]
It’s Not Just About Calories
A reader wrote in to say that the Queen of Sheba birthday cake I posted recently sounded delicious but was so calorie-laden she would avoid it. She is right, of course: this cake is high in calories – like most chocolate cakes. However, ... [Read More]
Sweet Potatoes: Not Just For Thanksgiving
After seeing my recent blog post about the hazards of rice-eating, a dispirited reader wrote to ask whether there were any safe starches left that he could eat to fuel his morning workouts. After giving up gluten-containing grains, rice had been his ... [Read More]
Celebrating Healthy Birthdays
For many people who have survived cancer, birthdays take on a whole new meaning. They’re not just an occasion to celebrate their birth, but also a chance to give thanks that they’re still alive – sometimes, against poor odds. Many mark not only ... [Read More]
You Want Multivitamins? Here, Eat This.
In my last post I boasted that I would give you a recipe which would put any multivitamin tablet to shame; here it is. This may be the most nutrient-dense, vitamin-packed, mineral-rich, cancer-protective recipe I know. First, this fish stew ... [Read More]
Do multivitamins cut cancer risk?
Fans of magic bullets took heart this week from headlines proclaiming that a daily multivitamin supplement can cut our cancer risk. Not so fast, people! Although the study appears to be methodologically sound, its results may have been skewed by ... [Read More]
Crispy Sticky Black Pepper Tofu
I have a confession to make: I don’t cook with tofu. For a foodie who claims to eat everything, this is a somewhat embarrassing revelation. It’s not that I dislike its taste; in Japanese restaurants I’m perfectly happy to eat the delicate silken ... [Read More]
In Praise of Fungi
Did you know that Japanese mushroom farmers are half as likely to develop stomach cancer as their non-mushroom-growing neighbors? (1) This may be due to the fact that they regularly eat the mushrooms they cultivate and benefit from the ... [Read More]
Pears: Underrated Nutritional Superstars
This fall, instead of gravitating towards apples (I know -- they're so much easier to love: ripening more predictably in our fruit bowls, traveling better without bruising, simultaneously offering tart crunch and creamy flesh, and coming in a wide ... [Read More]
Is It Still Safe To Eat Rice?
In light of recent shocking revelations by Consumer Reports Magazine, you may be wondering whether you should still be eating rice. The independent testing organization discovered that many widely-eaten rice products – including white rice, brown ... [Read More]
Watercress and Red Cabbage Salad
Today’s recipe is from Elyn Jacobs, who has not only overcome breast cancer, but was inspired by her own healing journey to help others in theirs. Following her treatment, she gave up her high-flying Wall Street job and became a cancer coach and ... [Read More]
Ballroom Cooking, Mediterranean-Style
The IOE team – Brian Lawenda and myself – attended the Society for Integrative Oncology’s Ninth International Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, these past three days. It was a fantastic event featuring presentations by leading experts in the ... [Read More]
Magical Chicken Soup
To my mind, everything about chicken soup is magical: the sweet, brothy scent that wafts through the house as the ingredients’ aromas meld in my stock pot; its deeply comforting flavors as I slowly slurp it down; and the sustained sense of ... [Read More]
