What foods are you eating to reduce recurrence?

some spices are valuable for this trouble as well.  in my home-ground spice mix I use a lot of black peppercorns.  bought a pound of organic ones some time ago & grind up a lot often, putting them in soups primarily

So I am I to understand that drinking a fruit smoothie every other dayas a meal replacement is unhealthy? I make my own using a cup of frozen strawberries, one banana, 2 oz skim milk and half a cup of greek yogurt. I have never been a big fruit/veggie fan and this is one the few ways I'll actually eat fruit! I thought I was doing something good for myself and am now wondering if I should drop it.

mint chocolate chip ice cream....

Lala, that sounds like a good smoothie. Berries are high in nutrients and fairly low on sugar. As Brook said, it is important to combine the carbs (the sugar in the fruit) with protein (yogurt) and fibre (using the whole berry). You are good to go. 

What you want to avoid is drinking a lot of fruit juice (and certain veggie juices), because you get a lot of sugar that way and much less fibre.

Re: juicing.   I sometime make green juices or take wheatgrass.   Basically I feel healthier when I have them.   My body seems to like the alkalinity.  I am a big gardener, and a couple of days ago I picked a large grocery bag full of greens.   I couldn't have eaten that much salad.  I did have a large salad later in the day, so I did get a lot of fiber that way. The majority of it was lettuce, but also other greens, a little bok choi, swiss chard, one small beet with greens, one leaf of kale.... also fennel and a little celery.  I added some herbs - small amounts of basil, oregano, cilantro, parsley, peppermint.  It made a glass of juice which made me feel good after I drank it.  I don't know if it raised my blood sugar.  I wish I wasn't so lazy - I should do this every day.  I also like mint chocolate chip ice-cream :-) 

I do think that it isn't harmful to take to many nutrients from food - even if the food isn't depleted, but good organic home grown food like mine - some of us may have digestive issues and don't easily absorb nutrients.  I think juicing is a way to make sure you get enough.  Excess nutrients are harmlessly excreted, except if there are things like heavy metals or pesticides.....

Brookside, Jo Robinson does most definitely address those issues in her book, Eating on the Wild Side.  The story about how corn got so sweet is worth the price of the book, lol.  A sweeter fruit or veggie doesn't necessarily make it less nutritious, but this is often true.  For instance, pink grapefruits are sweeter than the white kind but have more nutrients.  OTOH, sweet onions have very little of anything and she advises not to buy them for nutrition--get the not sweet ones and green onions are the best choice.  Yes, she does advise shopping at the farmer's market or better, growing your own and teaches you how to find the freshest produce as well as the most nutritious varieties.  Can you tell that I really recommend this book?  

Momine, I missed your post the first time--the one about herbs.  Yes, I love them too and always have a little herb garden no matter where I happen to be living.  In fact, I was into them years before this crazy cx dx.  One thing that's interesting about oregano is that it makes a very powerful antibiotic and I keep a small bottle of the oil with me all the time.  I had a student come to me this past school year with an infection under his fingernail bed and he kept putting antibiotic cream on it b/c he couldn't afford to go to a doc but it wasn't helping.  One drop of OoO and he was fine after that, even though he'd been fighting it a couple of weeks.  I also put one drop in my neti pot when I feel a sinus infection coming on--it burns like fire but it's like instant relief.  Another good one is lemon balm--a sprig is delicious in my drinking water and it has all kinds of amazing health benefits--anti-viral, antibiotic, and anti-fungal.  It also grows like a weed.  Great stuff.    

Gemini, I buy mine.  I like to get the little bottle at Whole Foods, which is about $20, but I've seen the lesser quality stuff in pill form from WalMart work just about as well and for the exact same thing--had a friend with an infection under his nailbed as well and he broke open a capsule and put the thick oil on top and then a bandaid.  He said about 30 min later that he could feel it drawing, and the next day he was much better.  I was afraid it wouldn't work that time b/c the oil was too thick to soak in, but it did work.  

Gemini, that's the downside of using the cherry juice and I'm sure my brand was too high in sugar also.  The way I handled it was to put the concentrate in foods that had some fat and protein in them to slow down the glycemic effect b/c I don't think it's so much sugar that hurts you as it is blood glucose and then insulin spikes--you want to keep as tight of a ratio as possible.  So I use the stuff in my "Budwig parfaits," which has cottage cheese, flax oil, and almond butter in them, along with fiber, and that slows down the spike.  I also use it sometimes to make homemade jello--using organic gelatin powder and chia seeds and that will slow it down as well.  I never make just juice from it unless I'm going to be having it with a meal and then I'd put some fiber powder in there maybe.  

Gemini4--I'm using the cherry juice as well. I bought both the tart and black cherry and for me I find the tart too tart and the black cherry too sweet. I mix the 2 and drink about 4 oz a day. I figure that can't be too much sugar although I'd be happier if there wasn't any. DH loves the tart so he drinks it straight. I have to restrict his amount to 4 oz as well or he would drink an entire bottle a day! I recently bought the concentrate from the Vitamin Shoppe but haven't tried it yet. I hear you need about 2 Tbl of that a day. I'm going to try adding it to my fruit smoothie. For a while I thought this stuff wasn't working, but now that I've been on it for about a month, I do think it is helping with my Tamoxifen pains. And DH swears it made his gout go away fast!

gary null just spoke about peeling organic apples & adding them to a smoothy, can lower bad colesterol by 40 % in a few weeks.  4 peels a day as I recall

Thanks a lot, Pipers.  I just ate what is probably my last golden delicious for a while.  I knew I liked that kind, but until today, had never noticed how very, very, very sweet they are.  I guess I need to find another apple. 

gary talking now about bok choy as good for everything, low in calories, cruciferous, many minerals, now a receipe, with pickles himalayan sea salt, says prevents, help preventing breast cancer proliferating

HIgh blood sugar levels aren't great for our bodies, of course, but glucose feeds all our cells; we need it.  My understanding is it's the glucose that follows ingestion of, say, a delicious candy bar, that we have to watch out for.  It's not the sudden rise in glucose itself, but the insulin response that is supposed to be the problem, as circulating insulin is believed to be a growth factor for cancer.