The importance of a proper functional diet within a cancer protocol that takes aim at cultivating your beneficial gut bacteria is imperative for fighting and preventing cancer. Conventional cancer treatments, not to mention the stress of diagnosis, upset the balance of good and bad bacteria within your gut inhibiting vital functions that your good bacteria perform. Your beneficial gut bacteria are involved in many critical functions including synthesizing vitamins, aiding in detoxification and elimination, digestion and absorption of nutrients and strengthening immune function. Thus supporting your gut health should be a key element of your overall cancer program.
So the question becomes then, how do we cultivate our beneficial bacteria? The answer lies within the scope of a nutritional cancer plan that lays the ground work with functional foods. Two key food groupings are high fibre foods, generally classified as prebiotic foods and fermented foods which are probiotic foods.
In a nutshell fibre’s importance lies in the fact that it feeds our gut bacteria. I encourage those that I work with to aim for 30-40 grams of fibre each day. Foods high in fibre include:
- Cauliflower
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Celery
- Berries
- Leafy Greens
- Beans
- Whole Grains
- Quinoa
- Rice
- Nuts
- Prunes
- Flax seed
- Hemp seed
- Chia seeds
Fermented foods provide our bodies with beneficial bacteria that aid our own bacteria in performing their vital functions. A list of the most common fermented foods include:
- kefir
- yogurt
- miso
- tempeh
- sauerkraut
- kimchi
- kombucha
Of all these fermented foods, the one that I recommend most highly is kefir. Kefir is fermented milk althouhg some do prefer to cultivate with non dairy milk. It has incredible health benefits. Kefir has a large number of colonies good of bacteria that helps to suppress the harmful bacteria within our gut. And kefir contains vitamin B12, folate, magnesium, calcium, vitamin K2 and biotin.
Dr. Mercola has written a comprehensive article entitled “Fermented Foods May Be a Key Component of an Anti-Cancer Diet”. I encourage you to read it as it dives deep in to this topic.
You can read the article by clicking HERE.