We hear the phrase “food as medicine” more and more in recent years, but what does it mean? We have learned from research that fresh whole foods can be both anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic. These are two very important functions for better health and feeling great.
Most of us have heard the term “anti-inflammatory” and have become increasingly aware that chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses – including heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. Persistant inflammation damages the body, compromises our immune system and causes illness. This can be made worse with bad dietary choices. Learning how specific foods influence the inflammatory process is the best strategy for containing it and reducing long-term disease risks.
Now, what about the terms “anti-angiogenic” or more specifically, angiogenesis? These are terms not many have heard of before. Angiogenesis is the process of creating new blood vessels in your body and it’s an important healing process when it is in balance. Not having this process in balance can lead to chronic disease. Abnormal blood vessel growth, either excessive or insufficient angiogenesis, is now recognized as a “common denominator” underlying many deadly and debilitating conditions, including cancer, skin diseases, age-related blindness, diabetic ulcers, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and many others, as identified by the Angiogenesis Foundation.
The good news is, a majority of chronic disease occurrence is preventable through lifestyle and food choices. For example, the WHO reports that 80 percent of cases of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes are preventable. So is 40 percent of all cancer.
Keeping angiogenesis in check using food as medicine is an affordable and practical approach to preventing chronic disease, improving disease outcomes and preventing recurrence. However, no single food can attack all of the processes involved in creating chronic illness. That is why eating a “rainbow” every day gives you a fighting chance. On this page, you will discover which foods are hoping to become your new favorites.
“Angiogenesis is a critical factor impacting more than 70 diseases, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, blindness, diabetes, chronic wounds, Alzheimer’s and many more. When angiogenesis is out of balance, meaning there is either too much or too little blood vessel growth, disease can emerge. Keeping angiogenesis in balance within the body is one of our key defenses against disease.”
–The Angiogensis Foundation
For these reasons, it is important to keep angiogenesis in balance using food as medicine. This is affordable, accessible and practical for most people in the world. Furthermore, this is a great approach for preventing chronic diseases, improving the outcome of diseases and preventing recurrences.
Below you’ll find our list of cancer fighting foods, beverages and other ingredients. Consuming most of these everyday helps us incorporate cancer-fighting bioactives into our diet.
When choosing food to eat!
It is important to consume an assortment of colors when we eat because the different colors represent different cancer-fighting bioactives, phytochemicals, nutrients, etc.
Also, there is not single food that can attack or prevent all of the processes involved in developing chronic illness. For this reason, it is important to consume a wide variety of colors that mother nature has to offer.
In addition to thinking of food as medicine, it is important to know if you are eating high-quality foods.
To make this a little easier for clients, we introduce them to the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen, Clean 15 list. This is a list that outlines the fruits and vegetables that have the most and least pesticide residue.
Buy Organic versions of the Dirty Dozen™ to help you avoid toxic chemicals
Buy Conventional versions of the Clean Fifteen™ to help you save money
EWG’s Dirty Dozen, EWG’s Clean 15
Click on the following to Get Your Copy of: EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™
(You will get a downloadable PDF guide)
As you may have heard before, nutrition levels in food are decreasing. There may be several reasons for this but recent studies have shown that elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere trigger a “junk food effect” in food. With rising levels of CO2 in the air, our plants produce more sugars rather than other nutrients, such as calcium, potassium, zinc and iron. We may also see a drop in protein in our food crops.
“Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising. We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history ― [an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.” ―Irakli Loladz, PhD told Politico (2017)
This is not good when you are trying to increase your intake of nutrients, and definitely not good when you are using Food as Medcine.
What can you do about this? How can you avoid this problem? Let us help you navigate towards better health.
Through extensive research, we have learned certain foods to be highly beneficial when trying to active your body’s innate healing ability. This has been proven to be beneficial for:
To better assist you, we have put together a list of foods to consume on a daily basis.