Nutrition, Diet & the Healing of Cancer (3)


And what do I actually do? I give cancer patients simple, natural foods. That is all. I take sick people out of the hospital, when it is said there that they do not have more than an hour or two left to live, that the scientifically attested diagnosis is at hand and that the patient is completely moribund. In most cases I can help even these patients quickly and conclusively.
Dr. Johanna Budwig, seven-times Nobel prize nominee,
in "Flax Oil as a True Aid"


Click here for introduction and complete list of Healing Cancer Naturally articles on the nutritional healing of cancer.



Ginger and turmeric fight cancer
Vimala, S., et al. Anti-tumour promoter activity in Malaysian ginger rhizobia used in traditional medicine. British Journal of Cancer, Vol. 80, No. 1/2, april 1999, pp. 110-16.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ginger, tumeric and other members of the Zingiberaceae family of rhizomes have a long history of use in Malaysian traditional medicine. Ginger, for example, is widely used in the treatment of stomach problems, nausea, vomiting, epilepsy, sore throat, cough, bruises, wounds, childbirth, sore eyes, liver complaints, rheumatism, asthma, and many other disorders. Researchers at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia now report that several members of the Zingiberaceae family effectively block the promotion of cancerous tumors. They tested 11 different species and found that seven of them had strong anti-tumor properties. Their test involved a short-term assay of the inhibitory effect of extracts of the rhizomes (roots) on human cancer cells. They found that turmeric (Curcuma domestica) extracts (turmeric root extracted with petroleum ether, chloroform or ethanol) completely inhibited further growth of the cancer cells. Ginger (Zingiber officinale) extracts, especially the chloroform extract, also inhibited further growth, but the concentration of extract was more critical than for the turmeric extracts. The researchers conclude that tumeric, ginger and other Zingiberaceae rhizomes may be useful in preventing the promotion of cancer and that populations with high risks of cancer should be encouraged to include them in their diet. Further work is now underway to isolate the active components in the plants.


Tomatoes lower risk of prostate cancer, study says
Seattle Times, March 06, 2002

WASHINGTON - A diet rich in tomato-based foods can lower the risk of prostate cancer, according to a new study that supports earlier research.
Researchers analyzed the food choices and prostate-cancer histories of more than 47,000 men. Those who ate at least two meals a week containing tomato products lowered their risk of prostate cancer 24 to 36 percent.
Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, the lead author of the study, said it supports previous research involving foods, particularly tomato products, that are high in lycopene, an anti-oxidant.
Lycopene is thought to protect against cancer by absorbing oxygen free radicals, chemicals created during metabolism that can damage cells' genetic structure.
The study is being published in today's Journal of the National Cancer Institute.


Response of Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer To Lycopene
Journal of Urology Vol. 166, 613, Aug 2001
Brian R. Matlaga, M. Craig Hall,* Diana Stindt and Frank M. Torti
From the Department of Urology and Comprehensive Cancer Center, Wake Forest University School of medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Management of hormone refractory prostate cancer poses a significant challenge to the clinician. We report on a patient in whom multiple treatment regimens failed following the development of androgen independent disease. On referral to hospice care he began alternative treatment in the form of phytotherapy. Coincident with the initiation of this treatment, a durable major response occurred.

Case Report
A 62-year-old white man was diagnosed with Gleason score 5 (2 + 3) organ-confined prostate cancer in November 1989. He was initially treated elsewhere with monthly leuprolide therapy. Prostate specific antigen (PSA), first recorded as 1.0 ng./ml. in April 1991, increased to 27.0 ng./ml. in July 1996. Treatment was deferred as the patient was asymptomatic and the metastatic evaluation, including bone scan and computerized tomography of the abdomen and pelvis, was negative. In September 1996 gross hematuria developed and transurethral resection of the prostate was performed.
Pathological examination revealed adenocarcinoma of the prostate (Gleason score 8 [4 + 4 ]).
The patient was referred to us. PSA was 18.8 ng./mI., the metastatic evaluation remained negative and bicalutamide therapy was initiated. He did not respond to an antiandrogen and PSA increased to 43.6 ng./ml. in April 1997. He was placed on ketoconazole and hydrocortisone, and PSA increased to 73.15 ng./ml. in August. A regimen of doxorubicin, vinorelbine and prednisone was administered but PSA increased to 365.0 ng./ml. in March 1999.
Computerized tomography of the abdomen and pelvis revealed extensive nodal disease. Bone scan showed skeletal metastases. The patient stopped all formal treatment regimens and transferred to hospice care. In March 1999 he began lycopene and saw palmetto supplements. PSA decreased to 139.6 ng./ml. in April and to 8.1 ng./ml. in May. PSA remained from 3 to 8 ng./ml. for 18 months. A repeat bone scan demonstrated improvement of bony metastases. He continues to take 10 mg. lycopene orally once daily and 300 mg' saw palmetto orally 3 times daily. At last followup he was asymptomatic.

Discussion
Recent epidemiological reports and emerging experimental and clinical data suggest lycopene, the carotenoid largely responsible for the red color of tomatoes, may be associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer and may have a role as an anticancer agent in this disease.1,2 Previous literature has primarily focused on chemopreventive benefits of lycopene
but not on treatment of established disease. To our knowledge we report the first case to describe treatment of hormone refractory, chemotherapy refractory, metastatic prostate cancer with lycopene. Although the patient began saw palmetto concomitantly with lycopene, it is likely that PSA decrease is due to lycopene. In multiple trials saw palmetto has not been demonstrated to alter PSA.3 Our case report suggests that phytotherapy, specifically lycopene, may have a role in the treatment of androgen independent prostate cancer. Properly designed clinical trials will be necessary to define its potential use for this disease.
REFERENCES
1. Giovannucei, E.: Tomatoes, tomato-based products, lycopene, and cancer: review of the epidemiologic literature. J Natl Can- cer Inst, 91: 317, 1999
2. Gann, P. H., Ma, J., Giovannucei, E. et al: Lower prostate cancer risk in men with elevated plasma lycopene levels: results of a prospective analysis. Cancer Res, 59: 1225, 1999
3. Marks, L. S., Partin, A. W., Epstein, J. L. et al: Effects of a saw palmetto herbal blend in men with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia. J Urol, 163: 1451, 2000

Compare Prostate Cancer (intro), Nutrition, Diet and Prostate Health and particularly Prostate Cancer: Healing & Other Testimonials Involving the Budwig Diet (includes warning against too much lycopene by long-term prostate cancer survivor on “Budwig formula”).




Filmmaker Records Effects of Eating Only McDonald's For a Month
excerpted from
http://www.rawfood.com/mcdonalds.html


Called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions, this film is a sometimes comic but nevertheless serious look at America's addiction to fast food. Morgan Spurlock, a tall New Yorker of usually cast-iron constitution, made himself the guinea pig in this dogged investigation into the effects of fast food on the body. He ate only at McDonald's for a month - three meals, every day - and took a camera crew along to record it. Neither Spurlock, 33, nor the three doctors who agreed to monitor his health during the experiment were prepared for the degree of ruin it would wreak on his body. Within days, he was vomiting up his burgers and battling with headaches and depression. And his sex drive vanished. When Spurlock had finished, his liver, overwhelmed by saturated fats, had virtually turned to paté. "The liver test was the most shocking thing," said Dr Daryl Isaacs, who joined the team to watch over him. "It became very, very abnormal." Spurlock put on nearly 12kg [c. 25 pounds] over the period and his cholesterol level leapt from a respectable 165 to 230. He told the New York Post: "I got desperately ill. My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life ...".

Comment by Healing Cancer Naturally

I have watched the DVD Super Size Me and it was both interesting and entertaining. I have two critical thoughts, however:
1. One man’s experience obviously does not constitute proof that his personal results are applicable to everyone.
2. Spurlock’s developing health problems supposedly were due to his exclusively ingesting McDonald's fare 3x per day, containing among other “nasties” a daily pound of sugar. He was however also taking in about double the caloric amount his nutritionist told him he required, i.e. instead of 2500 nearly 5000 calories. Now how many of his nascent serious health problems were attributable to the simple fact that he “grossly” overate? In other words, would a person eating solely McDonald's fare but within their caloric requirements be less negatively affected? My feeling is that this would indeed be the case.
Let me hasten to add that I do consider most fast food rather unwholesome, unecological/non-sustainable and unethical and personally have never eaten it in my life (...oh yes, I once had a cheeseburger!).




Metabolic Typing

Strongly endorsed by natural medicine’s heavy-weight Dr. Mercola and with readers reviews ranging from ”The Metabolic Typing Diet is truly the missing link on the nutritional information scene ... Read it. It will change your life.” to ”Save your money!”, William Wolcott, author of The Metabolic Typing Diet contends, To Succeed at Any Diet, You Must Know Your Metabolic Type...

Excerpted from mercola.com/2002/dec/18/metabolic_typing.htm: ”...the idea of metabolic typing is not new. The roots of the concept of metabolic individuality can be traced to antiquity. The 5,000 year old East Indian system of medicine known as Ayurveda was based on the interaction of the 5 elements and the 7 energy centers in the individual and primary treatment addressed one’s dosha (one's metabolic type) before it addressed the symptom or disease. Similarly, the ancient system of Chinese medicine recognized 5 elemental, constitutional types. Diagnosis and treatment in ancient Egyptian medicine was based on the 7 organ systems in the body. Greek physicians were concerned, as Hippocrates stated, with the patient who has the disease instead of the disease that has the patient, and evaluated the 4 humors (liver-bile metabolic types). The ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius is attributed with the saying, ”One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

”How can one best selling book say one thing about nutrition, and the other bestseller say just the opposite? Why will a certain diet give my friend energy and help to lose weight but make me tired and gain weight? How can someone eat the best organic foods, take the finest nutritional supplements that money can buy, get plenty of rest, exercise regularly... and still not feel well?”

Wolcott’s answer is that for genetic reasons, people are biochemically or metabolically different: ”Due to widely varying hereditary influences, we all process or utilize foods and nutrients very differently”, so ”[u]nless you match your nutrition to your metabolism, you'll only be wasting your time and money! ... Thus, the very same nutritional protocol that enables one person to lead a long healthy life full of robust health can cause serious illness in someone else. ... there is no one diet that is right for everyone, i.e., there never has been and there never will be a universally healthy diet. Second, the only healthy Diet is the one that meets one’s genetically-based requirements -- not what some book or diet expert says is right. Eat a diet that is right for your metabolic type and not only can you stay healthy but you can reverse degenerative conditions as well.”

This metabolic individuality acc. to Wolcott includes things like foods classified as "alkalinizing" being actually acidifying to people who are ” oxidative dominant”, and likewise for "acidifying" foods:

”The metabolic type defines the way in which the body reacts to nutrients. Different metabolic types react differently to the same nutrient. For example, in one metabolic type 100 milligrams of potassium or eating, say, an orange (also high in potassium), will cause the body’s pH to shift alkaline and produce a sedating effect. But in a different metabolic type, the same amount of potassium or an orange will produce an acid shift and a stimulating response. This has been observed tens of thousands of times through both objective metabolic type testing as well as through changes in symptomatology.”

”ANY ADVERSE SYMPTOM OR DEGENERATIVE CONDITION CAN ARISE DUE TO VIRTUALLY OPPOSITE BIOCHEMICAL IMBALANCES.”

”This same principle applies to any adverse health complaint, from simple to complex, from cramps to cardiovascular disease (CVD), from rashes to Rheumatoid Arthritis . For example, we have seen just as many cases of high cholesterol and CVD resolve through a high carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet as we have seen resolve through the opposite low carb, high protein, high fat diet. Match the diet to the metabolic type and any degenerative condition has a chance to reverse. But eat the wrong foods for the metabolic type, even high quality, organic foods, and degenerative processes will only worsen.”

”The implications of these premises are staggering. If they are true, then allopathic nutrition has no rational basis. Seeking a common therapy for all people for every condition is a wild goose chase and is doomed to failure. Any success with that approach has been and will continue to be by chance -- not systematic, reliable predictability.”

”If any nutrient or food can have totally opposite influences, biochemically speaking, in different people, how can there be a treatment, for any condition, that can work for all people?”

”The answer is that there can’t be only one treatment. This is precisely why what works for one person can worsen the same condition in another person. This is why what makes your friend thin can make you fat. This is why what improves energy and performance for one person can worsen it in another. As it turns out, metabolic typing explains why Lucretius’ adage, ”One man’s food is another man’s poison,” is literally true.”

”And, if it is true that two people with the same degenerative disease can have virtually opposite biochemical imbalances, and that when two opposite biochemical protocols are administered the problem resolves, then this clearly means that it’s not the diseases that should be treated but the underlying metabolic type imbalances that have caused the diseases that need be addressed.”

”From this viewpoint, the diseases are not the problems; they are the symptoms, the manifestations, the expressions of the underlying, foundational imbalances. The reality of metabolic individuality demands that the person who has the disease -- not the disease that has the person -- be treated!”

”These premises of metabolic typing also explain why scientific research on nutrition is usually so inconclusive and produces such inconsistent results. For example, researchers have been confounded why calcium can lower blood pressure in some but raise it in others. Similar findings occurred with the effect of potassium. Until research on the effect of a given nutrient on a given condition is performed on a like metabolic type subject population, you will always see variable results.”

”In summary: Biochemical individuality is responsible for the fact that nutrients behave differently in different metabolic types.”

”The variable influences of nutrients on different metabolisms along with the same condition arising from totally different biochemical imbalances make it impossible to treat conditions with a standardized treatment protocol.”

”Successful, predictable, reliable therapy can only be chosen once you know the metabolic type because only then will you know how nutrients behave in that person’s metabolism.”

”Degenerative conditions account for well over 80% of all of the adverse conditions that afflict the peoples of our country. This means that only a little over 1 out of every 10 people that go to doctors has crises or infectious conditions that require and respond to allopathic treatments.”

”...through the research that has been done over the past 25 years, there is available a systematic, testable, repeatable and verifiable advanced nutritional technology that enables people to discover their own unique dietary needs with a very high degree of precision. This technology is known as Metabolic Typing. Through metabolic typing those often mysterious, seemingly unanswerable questions become perfectly clear and answerable indeed.”


Finding the right modalities, foods and remedies for you
by Ulla, creator & Webmaster of Healing Cancer Naturally, © 2004 & 2005

As perhaps in all other areas of life, what is true for one isn’t always true for another, and what works for one won’t necessarily work for another. Life and the universe (as mentioned) aren’t just mostly empty space but also extremely complex :-) More


Health and raw food statements under close scrutiny

For apparently well-researched scientific information (I haven’t come across any refuting articles or arguments yet) re Natural Hygiene and humans’ natural diet see beyondveg.com/cat/nat-hyg/index.shtml.

The same site also provides ”Research-Based Appraisals of Alternative Diet Lore” (at beyondveg.com/cat/research/index.shtml) with articles such as ”Comparative Anatomy and Physiology Brought Up to Date: Are humans natural frugivores/vegetarians or omnivores/faunivores?”, ”Drawbacks to relying exclusively on clinical studies of diet.”, ”Failure to thrive: Your health is more important than raw/veg*n dietary dogma.”, ”Rationalizations in response to the evolutionary and hunter-gatherer evidence for omnivorous diets.”, ”Fruit Is Not Like Mother's Milk: The Nutritional Fallacies of a Popular Fruitarian Myth Exposed.”, ”Longevity and Health in Ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic Peoples”, ”Evolution vs. Creationist Pseudoscience”.

Their article ”Is Cooked Food Poison? Looking at the Science on Raw vs. Cooked Foods” (which can be found at beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-1a.shtml) discusses in-depth the validity of oft-repeated statements re Natural Hygiene and raw and cooked diets including such claims as Howell's theory of "food enzymes," Kouchakoff's "digestive leukocytosis," the question ”does cooking make minerals ‘inorganic’ or less assimilable"), and the Science behind the Pottenger's Cats experiment.


On Food & Drug (Alcohol, Nicotine etc.) Cravings and Addictions: Release & Recovery Tips

When embarking on a healthier diet and lifestyle, some (or likely numerous) people will see themselves (occasionally or repeatedly) plagued by tantalizing visions of their former favourite dishes, treats and/or addictive substances which their planned new regimen doesn’t allow them to consume. Such cravings and desires could even be the bane of any attempt at living a healthier life. To come to terms with any such cravings, there seem to be several options available: More


Why do some health (food) ”gurus” get sick?
by Ulla, creator & Webmaster of Healing Cancer Naturally, © 2004 & 2005

On this subject, I read the following in the editorial of Positive Health Magazine, Issue 76: “How many times have you heard over the years of well-known figures within the complementary medicine community, who have suffered terrible back pain, cancer, ulcerative colitis, heart attack, anorexia, and the list can go on and on. I have spoken to many highly respected practitioners over the years with many afflictions; in fact, it is well-known that many practitioners were originally introduced to their complementary vocations through their frustration with ill-health and the repeated failure of conventional treatments to provide relief.
Celebrities and leading figures are hypocritical in their reluctance to admit or talk about being ill; it is strangely perverse that often our first reaction to hearing that a renowned practitioner whom we respect highly is suffering from cancer, or has had surgery for back pain, or has suffered a heart attack, is surprise or disappointment, as though people who are healers, physicians or whatever discipline, should somehow ‘know’ enough to not get sick. This is somehow connected to the widespread, totally erroneous New Age notion that we are all responsible for our health and illness, and if we get sick and die, it is somehow our own fault; that we created it ourselves. So, just as we don’t expect our revered religious or spiritual leaders or gurus to be found guilty of moral, financial or criminal improprieties, we don’t expect health professionals to get sick.
Complementary health professionals tend to be embarrassed by being sick; attitudes expressed by their colleagues can at times be viciously critical, even suggesting that their illness is proof that their particular therapeutic approach is not valid. Ridiculous and cruel examples of such attitudes include suggestions that because Linus Pauling died of cancer despite consuming large quantities of vitamin C, this proves that vitamin C is worthless against cancer, that because Aveline Kushi died from cancer Macrobiotics is an invalid dietary approach. I have heard similar sentiments expressed about people who died despite undergoing the Gerson therapy, or about chelation therapy being invalid because individuals undergoing chelation therapy died from heart conditions.
Considering the enormous toxic chemical environmental assaults upon our lives, the depletion from the soil of vast quantities of hugely essential nutrients, the large number of harmful additives added to our food and water, not to mention health- destroying drugs, chemicals and other poisons present throughout the entire food chain, it is a wonder that any one of us is relatively healthy at all.
Catherine Crawford’s dramatic tale of very serious illness and then recovery upon removal of her mercury Amalgam dental fillings is an unimaginable tale of epic proportions, particularly when read in conjunction with the battle by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to overturn the gagging rule upon the dentists previously enforced by the American Dental Association (ADA) (sidebar within the article). Becoming seriously ill due to ingesting powerful poisons such as mercury, should be recognized as inevitable, not as some imaginary figment of the poor individual’s imagination – the ‘it’s all in the mind’ brigade, espoused for decades and imposed upon sufferers of chronic fatigue, and more latterly Gulf War Syndrome. It’s the poisons, stupid, as anyone with a brain can see.
We shouldn’t waste our precious energy in divisive actions such as blaming people for getting ill; rather, redouble our efforts to help them regain their health.
And as it looks as though health-conscious consumers will be coming up against some of the most powerful corporations and lobbies in the world, including the might of the agri-business and the pharmaceutical lobbies, it is important, even vital, that those of us who care deeply about genuine health and natural approaches to prevent and treat illness, do our utmost to try to protect ourselves and nurture our own health, as a prelude to what appears to be a very long battle ahead to re-instate our basic health freedoms.” (© Positive Health Publications Limited, 1994-2002)

Personally, I agree with the statements above that the ubiquitous ”poisons” and negative influences coupled with long-standing soil depletion and often deleterious eating habits are a major culprit in making people ill. The rise in cancer incidence over the last 100 years (affecting c. one person in 50 in 1900, while c. 1 in 3 in 2003) is just one example bearing testimony to the fact that something in our environment incl. our food sources is seriously off the healthy norm.

What I would add however is that factors such as ”unhealed” wounded emotions, overwork, stress of all kinds, accidents and other physical harm shouldn’t be underestimated, in fact I think any of these elements can play a crucial role in making even an otherwise health-conscious person sick. See Emotions, Mind, Energetics and Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer’s ”New Medicine”.

I don’t quite agree with the remark ”the widespread, totally erroneous New Age notion that we are all responsible for our health and illness, and if we get sick and die, it is somehow our own fault; that we created it ourselves.” I rather feel that the concept of ultimate (karmic) responsibility and ”learning (love and compassion) through suffering” is the most compassionate view of worldly affairs. How else could one otherwise possibly ”live” with the fact that there are people starving to death, losing their eyesight due to malnutrition, being tortured and otherwise abused right at this moment (in spite perhaps of one’s constant efforts through personal activism) without ”going insane” (and this is not even mentioning the billion-fold suffering inflicted upon animals by man, both in conventional ”meat” and dairy production and vivisection)?
Compare the complete list of Healing Cancer Naturally articles on Cancer Research, Toxicity Testing & Animal Experimentation: an Unholy Union?

So the same kind of thinking would indeed make everyone incarnated at this time karmically co-responsible, incl. for the polluted world we find ourselves in, i.e. for the toxins and environmental pollution.

I do feel that the question ”why suffering” is one of the most difficult and profound questions to answer and my personal feelings are just that - and preliminary. Incidentally, a channeled entity called Matthew (see matthewbooks.com) has repeatedly maintained that the suffering currently experienced in the world is going far beyond karmic lesson learning, and has attributed it to other factors.


Edgar Cayce’s General Nutrition and Diet Recommendations
by
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/seventhmoon/orion/
republished with permission

These are some of the nutrition principles taken from the Edgar Cayce research papers.

Cayce cautioned against combining starches with sweets as this can cause an alcoholic reaction. [Explanation: combining starches with Sugar is likely to lead to alcoholic fermentation in the intestines. Compare Dr. F.X. Mayr’s (1875 - 1965) insights into the intimate relation of intestinal health to general health and beauty. For details re recommended proper food combining, see Food Combining Table according to Dr. Hay & Dr. Walb.]

Cayce advised people to use vitamin pills and the like for a duration and then to leave off and then to resume, stressing the point that the body must not get dependant on them and thus fail to make the necessary substances required for the proper digestion of food.

Vitamins do not, will not supply the energies as well as a meal a day consisting of raw salad.
Compare Edgar Cayce ’s concise reading on vitamins.

Cayce also gave the principle that fresh food energies decrease in a matter of hours after being picked, in fact he advised that food picked should be as fresh as possible.
Re benefits of fresh vine-ripened foods, compare Natural Dietary Sources: Which Foods Contain Glyconutrients? and On Supplementing, Natural & Commercial Glyconutrients and Cancer.

He also said that it would even be better to have foodstuffs from the local area to acclimatise the person to that environment.

Also mentioned was that freezing destroys much of the goodness in vegetables.

He cautioned that no one can hate his neighbour and not have stomach or liver trouble and jealousy and the anger of it will be damaging to the heart.
Compare Emotions.

People should eat slowly giving time to the process.
The specifics of Cayce nutrition

Wheat [rolled, crushed or cracked] featured highly in the Cayce regime stressing that it would be good for the body and the mental forces acting on the body.
Beware of all fried foods, fats of any kind and greases.
He cautioned against using any white bread at all.
He cautioned against too much red meat.
He was against too much sugars and starches saying sweets should be obtained from natural sources like fruits, grapes, honey.
Highly recommended were fresh vegetables such as cabbage, celery, lettuce, carrots, watercress, onions, saying that one meal every day should be composed of fresh if not raw vegetables.
Potato skins and plenty of the legumes, peas, beans and the like should be taken.
The ratio that was given on the consumption of vegetables was three above the ground to one beneath.
More of the vitamins are obtained from tomatoes than any other growing vegetable. meridianinstitute.com/newslet/Vol6-2/6-2.html specifies: Edgar Cayce was a big advocate of tomatoes, both raw and cooked. When asked about the effects of eating an abundance of tomatoes he responded, “Quite a dissertation might be given as to the effect of tomatoes upon the human system. Of all the vegetables, tomatoes carry most of the vitamins in a well-balanced assimilative manner for the activities in the system. Yet if these are not cared for properly, they may become very destructive to a physical organism; that is, if they ripen after being pulled, or if there is the contamination with other influences.”
In numerous instances, Cayce also advised eating canned tomatoes unless they were fresh and vine-ripened: “Beware of raw tomatoes, unless well-ripened on the vine - not those gathered green and then ripened. Preferably use these cooked or canned, rather than raw unless well ripened when gathered from the vine.” When canned, he cautioned against using sodium benzoate as a preservative. Cayce didn’t make any specific statements regarding tomatoes as protecting against prostate cancer, but seemed to regard tomatoes, properly harvested and prepared, as having general health benefits. Perhaps future research will uncover additional positive effects of eating tomatoes!

According to the above, there is a big difference between tomatoes and tomatoes, one type being a powerful health-promoting influence, the other a destructive one.

Vegetables will build gray matter [of the brain] faster than will any meat or sweets.
There is no edible substitute for green foods. They appear to be unique in the properties they have within them.
Almonds have some fantastic property, according to Cayce taking 2-3 of them every day will ward off any inclination towards cancer. He said that almonds carry more phosphorus and iron in a combination more easily assimilated than any other nut.
Compare Almonds in the Cayce Readings Compared to Current Medical Research.

Water was to be drunk and about 6-8 glasses a day was recommended, the water was to be spring or distilled and not of the tap variety.
Coffee and tea should never be taken with cream or milk because it forms a curd, which hinders your digestion.
Fruit juice and milk should not be taken together.
Cayce often advised people to leave milk alone.
Compare Milk and the cancer connection.

Apples should not be eaten raw unless as part of the detox plan outlined later, cooked or boiled is fine.
Salsify is a vegetable recommended by Cayce, which also has advantageous ingredients such as gold, phosphorous, iron and silicon.
Cooking methods

Cayce said that you should not use aluminum cookware for some people.
A recommended method of cooking was to use the steam pressure cookers as this preserves the value of foods.
The use of condiments destroys much of the value of foods.
An added advice not mentioned by Cayce is bin your microwave, a gag order was tried to be placed on two Swiss researchers because they found more carcinogens in microwaved food.
Assimilation and elimination

These are the two keystones of what makes us tick, in fact Cayce said if we could control these aspects of the human form we could extend life to whatever we chose, that's how important these two principles are.

Assimilation is defined as the measure of the ability of any body to utilize foods that we eat. Some people think that having massive doses of nutrition will give them all that they need, they could not be more wrong, it is all right shoving nutrition in but it is quite another thing if the body can absorb it and use it in that form.

Typical assimilation rates might vary from 20% to 80% and nutrition supplied in some forms will not be absorbed at all.

What happens to the food after you swallow it depends to a large degree on the other three principles of your body namely circulation, relaxation and elimination. Circulation is crucial if assimilation is to be maintained at high levels. Circulation is helped greatly by some important factors; exercise, massage, hydrotherapy treatments and osteopathic adjustments. Because the blood stream carries the rebuilding forces to the body it is the circulation channels which need to be clear and stimulated so that the blood will flow to feed the cells and tissues.
Compare It’s not what you ingest, but what you usefully absorb.
Elimination

Everything which your body does, every activity produces waste and we get rid of that waste through the skin, the lungs, the kidneys and the intestines. Major problems start to occur when any of these channels are stopped from doing their job, we start to accumulate waste, bacteria start growing at alarming rates which leads to all sorts of problems as we become toxic.

The fact that poor eliminations are the most cited cause of disease within the Cayce papers totalling over 14000 gives you some idea of just how important this aspect really is: getting rid of toxins.

In extreme cases of toxemia Cayce recommended a controlled fast or a three-day raw apple diet to clear the system and restore balance.

A great deal of elimination takes place through the lungs by means of deep breathing and Cayce placed great emphasis on this aspect recommending some of the breathing techniques as used in yoga.

Of course exercise plays a very important role here driving out wastes into the lungs and speeding up circulation, helping digestion, helping elimination of wastes through the skin.

Cayce used certain foods to help elimination such as leafy vegetables and in the mornings or evenings stewed figs, raisons, apricots or pears occasionally. Cayce said that it would be good for everyone to have a colonic occasionally.
Compare