Differences of opinion on certain foods

Tom - my advice is MODERATION. Just that. I really don't believe that we have to totally change everything we eat. Yes, it's good to loose weight if necessary. And of course exercise is good for everything else in the body. But as for food & drink - moderation is the watch word.

And it depends on whether your tumor is/was ER+. If so, you need to be very careful to avoid or at least minimize phytoestrogens (like processed concentrated soy protein isolate in powders & fake meats, flax, valerian, St. John’s wort, kava kava, and all those weight-loss herb capsules). Generalizations like “cancer feeds on sugar,” or “eating fat makes you fat” are flat-out wrong (not all tumor cells depend on the same substances, and more body fat is made & stored by conversion from sugars. The fats you eat, once your gut extracts the good component of them and sends them to your bloodstream, are generally either burned or excreted if you don’t eat simple and refined carbs and your liver (and gall bladder, if you still have one) are in good working order. Fat can be filling, as well as enhance defecation. (Some cancer patients swear by a fully ketogenic diet—think ultra-Atkins but with more fat and less protein, and neither fruit nor starch. It’s still controversial, though).

What is indisputable is that nobody needs sugar—the only sugar our primitive ancestors ate came from caramelization on the surfaces of the meat they roasted and the occasional ripe fruit that was easy to pick or fell off the tree before famine season rolled around. Fruit was a rare treat. We evolved to tear meats and chew plants—just look at our teeth. Back then the goal was to maintain adequate body fat for survival and fertility, and sugar helped that. Mother Nature never got the memo that less body fat is necessary now that for most of us famine isn’t an issue, and that women now live long past the end of our reproductive years. Evolution is sloooowww….

And that almost none of us get enough water—whether by drinking it or from the fruits, vegetables and dairy we consume. Speaking of dairy, after the age of two, human beings don’t require it. But it isn’t necessarily harmful if we’re careful about the sources of the milk and the quantities consumed.

Look at the "breaking research" thread that the Mods posts. I've read a bunch about soy lately - although supposedly I didn't have to worry about it as ER/PR negative. Now the recommendation seems to be changing - that soy is OK depending on the kind of soy.