The decisions you make today can have significant effects on your future relationship with cancer. This can include the chances of contracting cancer, and how your cancer battle progresses. However, it’s also never too late to make adjustments to your eating habits to develop a cancer-fighting diet. While there is no such thing as a true “anti-cancer diet”, there are foods that can give you an edge.
Best of all, many of these foods are very easy to work into your diet and developing this kind of cancer-fighting diet. Whether shopping for yourself or a loved one or setting up a get-well food delivery service, here are six foods to consider incorporating into your diet:
1. Blueberries
Sometimes, some of the most effective parts of a cancer-fighting diet will come in a very unassuming package. You may have heard blueberries be referred to as “superfoods” before and this is for a good reason. It’s true that many other berries may share the same properties as blueberries, but this humble little fruit has been studied the most extensively by scientists. These studies have included how blueberries affect an anti-cancer diet.
The secret strength of blueberries is just how much goodness they pack into such a small package. Not only are they replete with minerals, vitamins, and fiber, but they have a lot of substances with antioxidant properties in them, such as anthocyanins. Antioxidants excel at negating damage to your cells, and at lowering the inflammation caused by such damage.
Blueberries are also incredibly easy to work into your diet. They can be eaten on their own, in smoothies, or as part of fruit-filled salads. If you like baked goods, they can even be made into delicious blueberry muffins - a real treat as part of any get-well food delivery service for cancer patients.
2. Turmeric
Sometimes, developing an anti-cancer diet isn’t about just adding in new foods, but about adjusting how you prepare the foods you already enjoy. A lot of key spices and flavoring agents, such as garlic and turmeric, have been suggested to have properties that make them appropriate in a cancer-fighting diet. The part of turmeric that is so interesting to cancer scientists is a substance called curcumin. Just like what you’ll find in blueberries, curcumin is believed to have those valuable antioxidant properties.
Turmeric is also much easier to work into a diet than you might think. There are a wealth of curry and soup recipes that have turmeric as a main ingredient - but you can also make smoothies with turmeric as well!
3. Broccoli
Our parents always told us that broccoli (along with its cruciferous cousins like cauliflower and kale) was good for us. It turns out that they were more right than they could possibly imagine. Firstly, these vegetables are amazing at serving as immune boosters, as they are full of vital nutrients such as vitamin C. However, they’ve also been shown to contain sulforaphane, a substance linked to the inhibition of the growth of cancer cells and tumors.
Broccoli is also one of the easiest foods to add to your menu to help build up an anti-cancer diet. Cooked broccoli works great as a side, or as part of a wide variety of recipes. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower also make great snacks when paired with a dip.
4. Walnuts
Speaking of snacks, not all parts of a cancer-fighting diet need to be included directly into meal plans. There are plenty of good snacking foods that can be a useful addition to an anti-cancer diet. One of the most studied nuts when it comes to health benefits is the humble walnut. This nut really has it all. It’s got the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties so useful in cancer-fighting diets, while also being a filling but nutritious snack that can help your heart and your gut.
Walnuts are very easy to get into a cancer-fighting diet - simply grab some as a snack whenever. They also work in a variety of other forms - added to your berry and green filled salad, or incorporated into baked treats for get-well food deliveries.
5. Apples
Another very easy type of food to work into your diet are citrus fruits. By now, everyone knows the powerful immune-boosting properties of citrus. However, they can do a lot more than that. Take the apple, for example. Apples contain substances that are known as “polyphenols”. Like other substances mentioned on this list, polyphenols (you guessed it), have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They may even be able to directly block the growth of cancer cells.
Apples are also so great in that, like nuts and berries, they are really easy to work into a cancer-fighting diet plan. Snack on them on their own, add them to salads, or work them into gifts for those get-well food deliveries.
6. Green Tea
Not all anti-cancer foods need to be, well, foods. We’ve shown that the key to being a good part of an anti-cancer diet is a mix of nutritional value and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Teas aren’t often thought of as being particularly nutritious, due to the tea leaves being processed. However, Green Tea leaves aren’t very heavily processed, letting them maintain all their cancer-fighting goodness.
Green tea is great because it can be drunk on its own, or along with any of these other parts of a cancer-fighting diet. It’s incredibly low in calories or carbs as well, meaning that you can confidently enjoy a few cups of this delicious tea in a single day.
