Increase Physical Fitness and Follow a Plant-based Diet to Lower Your Cancer Risk

You may recall from my previous blog that I recently attended the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health Fitness Summit here in Austin, TX about a week ago.  I was able to attend many useful sessions on nutrition and fitness, including one on how to lower cancer risk through physical activity and diet.  Because April is Cancer Awareness Month, I’d like to highlight some of the recommendations from that session.

This workshop gave us 10 recommendations for lowering your overall Cancer risk.  These recommendations come from the second World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)/American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) Expert report Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective.  You can access the complete report here.

Eight of the recommendations are for everyone and the last two are for special populations (women who are breast feeding and cancer survivors).  Listed below are the recommendations:

1. “Be as lean as possible within the normal range of body weight.” “Normal range” refers to ranges defined by national governments or the World Health Organization.  For example, using BMI the lowest “normal” BMI is 19, which is calculated by dividing your weight in kg by your height in meters squared.
   
   
2. “Be physically active as part of everyday life.”  This is defined as at least 30 minutes daily of moderate activity, which is equated to brisk walking.  For people who are already fit, 60 minutes daily of moderate activity or 30 minutes daily of vigorous activity is recommended.
    
3. “Limit consumption of energy-dense foods.  Avoid sugary drinks.”  Energy-dense foods are defined as foods that have 225-275 calories per 100 grams.  This recommendation also refers specifically to “processed foods,” not naturally energy-dense foods such as nuts/seeds. 
   
4. “Eat mostly foods of plant origin.”  This is specifically referring to getting a majority of your calories from fruits and non-starchy vegetables, although starchy vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds are also recommended.
   
5. “Limit intake of red meat and avoid processed meat.” Red meat is defined as beef, pork, lamb, and goat from domesticated animals including that contained in processed foods.  No more than 18 ounces per week is what is recommended.  “Processed meat” is defined as meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or addition of chemical preservatives, and the recommendation is ideally to avoid completely. 
   
6. “Limit alcoholic drinks.”  This means two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women (which takes into account the possible cardio protective benefits of alcohol). 
   
7. “Limit consumption of salt.  Avoid moldy cereals (grains) or pulses (legumes).”  Aim for less than 2.4 grams of sodium daily.
   
8. “Aim to meet nutritional needs through diet alone.”  For most people, supplements are not recommended specifically for cancer prevention. 
   
9. First special population recommendation: “Mothers to breastfeed.”  Children should be breast fed for six months. 
   
10. Second special population recommendation: “Cancer Survivors: Follow the recommendations for cancer prevention.” 

If you visit the website and download “Chapter 12” (which gives details on the recommendations), you will see a chart that shows different types of cancer and diet and lifestyle factors and their effect on lowering or increasing the risk of developing those specific types of cancer.  Of all the items listed, alcohol and body fatness had the biggest impacts on increasing cancer risks.  Alcohol can increase the risk of developing 5 different types of cancer, and excess body fat can increase the risk of developing 6 different types of cancer. 

Physical activity and consuming fruits and non-starchy vegetables had the most impact on decreasing risk of developing cancer (3, 4, and 3 different types of cancers, respectively). 

So make sure you follow these recommendations! 

Farm Fresh Eggs, from “City” Chickens!

This past week was super busy for me; the last half of the week I attended my first “American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness Summit” (which means VERY long days), including the first part of Saturday, followed by a farm tour of Springdale Farm (located in the actual CITY of Austin), followed by 6 hours of Krav Maga Self Defense training. 

I have so many things to share, it was hard for me to decide what to blog about this week, so I may end up posting two!  We’ll start today with my tour of the Springdale Farm.  This is another local farm that is actually located in the City of Austin, practically downtown!  Paula and Glenn Foore are the wife and husband duo that run this farm, along with volunteers and employees from their landscaping business.

The Farm is 5 acres, and is primarily a vegetable farm, but they also have chickens (and therefore fresh eggs).  They have just acquired “runner ducks” and will soon have duck eggs as well.

They use sustainable, organic farming methods, and are in the middle of applying for “official” USDA Organic status.  One of the things they do is plant flowers in the vegetable garden areas to help increase pollination, as well as spare the food crops from some bugs (some flowers are known to “repel” certain types of insects).

You may recall in my previous blog post I wrote about Stryk Dairy how excited I was to have a local dairy source.  Well, I am now equally excited to have a local chicken egg source!  There are several different types of chickens at Springdale Farm; I asked Farmer Paula and she rattled off the names (there were too many for me to remember, and I didn’t have a pen & paper handy, sorry!) and described how the eggs look different from each.

I found it quite funny that Paula and Glenn both mentioned that on the farm, the animals have multiple jobs.  The chickens not only provide eggs, but also manure for fertilizer, as well as entertainment!  Farmer Glenn specifically said the chickens are very good stress relievers; they are always happy to see him and never talk back!  The hope for the runner ducks is that they will eat bugs in the garden (since they are not fond of vegetables; the chickens will eat the vegetables if left to roam in the garden areas!), as well as supply eggs.  It was good to hear how much Paula and Glenn care about their animals. 

They are a small CSA, and also have a small “farm stand” on site Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  This is a time when anyone can stop buy and purchase fresh eggs and vegetables.  Right now they are growing broccoli, leaf lettuce, head lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, Swiss chard, beets, spinach, collard greens, arugula, turnips, carrots, cilantro, basil, chives, chamomile, fennel, parsley, marjoram, thyme, dill, scallions, garlic, shallots, onions, Brussel sprouts, rutabaga, mustard green, Chinese cabbage, Napa cabbage, lavender, oregano, turnips, parsnips, and more.  I was able to take home half a dozen fresh eggs, spinach, scallions, leeks, some herbs and a little lavender plant as part of my “tour.” I must say, everything tasted wonderful!  Yesterday I made spinach omelets with jalapeño cheddar cheese and scallions and they turned out super yummy (everything but the salt and pepper was from local farms!). 

If I haven’t convinced you already, I HIGHLY encourage you to become a member of a local CSA or shop at your local farmer’s market.  You can’t beat the quality!