My diet

There are numerous (re)sources for cancer fighting foods and beverages (see some of my books for instance on page: What I read and useful links), but some information or various guidelines contradict each other in my opinion. Without creating our own Metro-Map based on the cancer type we have with added gene mutations it is somewhat impossible to create a diet that will surely help us. By Metro-Map I refer to Jane McLelland’s book: How to starve cancer. BUT. Nothing whatsoever can be found directly for Papillary or even more so for Medullary Carcinoma. It means: I must learn from various books and create my own Map.

By following the latest research results I believe one can (nearly) understand the biology and chemistry behind what foods including herbs and essential oils fight cancer and how. I say nearly because unless someone is a medical professional with 20-30 years of devoted research and learning the subject, this topic is really not one to comprehend overnight. We also understand the psychology behind this illness by now. Dr. Gábor Máté, my favorite physician has numerous books, videos, even online courses that focus on this, my favorite book is When the body says no.

In my humble opinion cancer prevention should be taught at home and in schools from an early age, it could save millions from suffering on a later date if people could prevent getting this horrible illness. Myself included. We know that glucose and glutamine feed cancer. What is interesting for me is that most publications I find revolve around a primary tumor, not so much around metastatic cancer, even though it is well known that metastatic cancer kills more often than the primary tumor, meaning: you want to prevent cancer first, but if it is diagnosed, then the focus should be to stop the spreading of the damaged cells and that is a challenge. If I understand this illness at all that is.

So we know that sugar feeds cancer from for instance Dr. Otto Warburg and we understand that cancer is a metabolic illness from for instance Dr. Gerson, Dr. Budwig, just to mention a few names. See my list of books for further information on this subject. But the contradiction starts here. Is it fat free, salt and sugar free raw vegan diet, or rather a well balanced vegan ketogenic diet? How can 2 rather contradictory method serve the same purpose and most of all, lead to similar cure rate results? The ketogenic diet has been strongly forgotten or not studied enough for decades (well, nearly a century actually). Luckily there are oncologist researchers who dare to think outside the box and they strongly suggest that a well constructed (balanced) ketogenic diet with the right supplements is definitely a path we should put our research funds into. Good news for likeminded people, most stage 4 brain cancer survivors who were sent home or to a hospice after fatally damaged by chemo and radiation come forward with stories about how the ketogenic diet saved their lives and continues to do so to this date.

What I also wonder about greatly is: why aren’t the surviving cancer patients being studied more by the medical profession? Data should be collected on all of us who decide to heal ourselves, because there are thousands of us and we are here. The Truth About Cancer collects valuable data on alternative cancer cures and for their video series they do find survivors with great stories to tell. I think there should be a Global organization who collects data on us holistic cancer survivors. The cure rate in numbers without harm (this is how I call our kind of survivors) is far more impressive than the cure rate of conventional Cut, Burn and Poison patients. Perhaps this is exactly why oncologists do not tell you what your chances are if you decide to follow their lead. An integrative oncologist will tell you the accumulated data they have. Somehow I can put my future, body and faith in them more easily. Wouldn’t you?

I belong to several groups on FB for instance and the amount of information that is available there is overwhelming. Collecting data and making sense of it became my top priority since my mother was diagnosed with Liposarcoma and finally when I got my diagnoses, but I can’t help to wonder how and why oncologists aren’t interested on this much more.

Chef Donatas told me in The LifeCo, Phuket back in 2018 that since I am vegan and gluten free already, what I should change on my diet was adding a 2 week ketogenic period into my diet spiked with a 16:8 intermittent fasting routine, followed by an approximate 6 week of healthy, mostly raw vegan diet with the minimum of sugary foods (like fruits for instance) and watching out for healthy fats only and making sure I avoid access oils, continuing with the 16:8 method all the way, adding water fast days every month, or rather 3 days of water fasting if I can. This was not that easy back in 2018 simply because there were not enough ketogenic ingredients around here to substitute gluten free pasta for instance with konjac noodles, and some dietary supplements were either missing or they were simply banned from Finland. Luckily for mostly other reasons than treating or maintaining cancer remission the demand for such foods and supplements increased in Finland over the years to achieve a well balanced ketogenic diet and specialty stores carry most of the ingredients I am looking for these days.

Another lucky fact is that I have loved cooking ever since I turned vegetarian at the age of 17-18 when we moved to Finland with my mom, dad and kid brother. When I told my mother I am not going to continue eating animal products because it seems my migraine is triggered by heavy proteins like cheese and meat, she said: “then you can make your own food because I have enough on my plate as it is”. This was a huge blessing, because it forced me to think, buy and prepare my own food from an early age. The research begun around that time, what foods to combine with what to aid digestion, etc. And I simply loved creating delish dishes first for myself, later on my family enjoyed them mostly as side dishes as well. I say it’s a blessing because nutrition became a bit of an obsession for me, so transitioning from vegan to raw keto vegan was not absolutely overwhelming.

Being diagnosed with Celiac disease back in 2000 created a new limit on what I could eat. By that time I was really ill, suffered with celiac most probably for about a decade or more prior to diagnoses. I looked like a skeleton with a huge belly and my skin was really awful too. The worst part of celiac is that vitamins and minerals do not get absorbed in the body, this leaves the individual truly deficient. I dare to think that this played a part on the development of my PTC and MTC. Referring back to cancer is a metabolic disease once again.

So what do I eat? I honestly try to follow Chef Donatas’ advice since 2018 with a 70-80% success rate. Well, most of the time I can keep the diet between the needed boundaries. Fasting for 16 or more hours between evening/daytime meals, keeping a maximum of 8 hour eating window comes naturally for me, I was never keen on breakfast anyway. Having huge salads for lunch and dinner is normal as well, but I must say during the 5-6 months of darkness and cold here in Finland does not sit well with salads only. We need warm food most of the time between November and May. So that’s a challenge for me. But if my Tg numbers would rise, then I am very strict on raw vegan with no SOS. Salt, oil, sugar. And my numbers do rise (if you follow this blog you read about the fluctuations already).

For beverages I love to have matcha latte throughout the day or green tea with lemon (mostly any kind of tea actually) but my pitfall is my love of a good coffee, but I try to limit that to one or nil cup a day, and the coffee we make is always organic. A bit difficult to find in coffeehouses. Lot’s of water of course, these days I have a jar with various stones at the bottom to help balance my energy levels. When not on keto I juice as much as I can, and I love creating smoothies in my Nutribullet blender and raw soups with my Vitamix blender. I will create a page for recipes only in the future, because it is difficult to find ones that incorporate every aspect of my special needs. When not on keto I do consume all kinds of fruits and berries, who can live without them?

Bread. The beast. Who wouldn’t love a juicy sandwich from time to time? Or enjoy a lovely toast with avocado and tomatoes? For gluten free options I steer away from anything that has more than 5 ingredients and lasts for months – unfortunately most GF bread in the supermarkets are just like that, and they are full of sugar. Perhaps the name is not written as sugar, it can be fructose, or other chemical poisons. Buckwheat is wonderful I think, Dr. Budwig was researching it as well, and with moderation it is suitable for cancer patients. I love having toasted buckwheat sandwiches with a hot cup of tea from time to time when not on keto. Keto bread is easy to make, all we need is chia seeds, flax meal, psyllium husk, pinch of salt, water, arrow root. The problem I find this one is that it is really heavy for my belly. Nevertheless if I get it right, this bread can be toasted as well. There are many recipes for keto bread – but not so much for vegan keto, so I will include a few once I start putting together the recipe page.

Wow, I think I could write forever of this topic. Let’s continue on a later date but if there would be any questions, etc. it would be great to connect and discuss! Just send me a message through the Contact page.

Disclaimer. I am not a dietitian, nor a medical professional. Everything I write about is based on research data I can gather and obviously I write about what works for me. Since my illness and most of the cases I study are truly complex, there is no 1 cure fits all I believe. And so the research continues…..