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This is a useful list. I still use my Vita-Mix on a near-daily basis to get enough produce into me. I swear this machine is the best money I have ever spent. I have steadily been consuming a fruit/veggie smoothie a day for months now. I buy organic whenever possible and my smoothies consist of water, a whole organic apple (cored but unpeeled), blueberries, raw broccoli or spinach, mango, etc. I also add a teaspoon of flax seed oil and/or a tbsp of hemp seed. I even throw in whole flax seed and it's pulverized to bits. My smoothies are rather unusual mixtures but sure work wonders. What I like about the Vita-Mix (compared to my Omega and Breville juicers) is that I don't lose any of the fiber or discard the peel. That said, after reading this article, I'm going to strive to include at least one serving of brassica vegetable in my smoothie everyday. Brassica veggies contain sulforaphane, which is has been shown to halt breast cancer cell division and was reported (just this past week) to block breast cancer stem cell growth. Brassica veggies include broccoli, cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, kale, etc. You don't even notice their strong flavors when blended with fruit in a smoothie. I also suspect that more nutrients are extracted as well, since a blender pulverizes all the plant cells far more effectively than our teeth. But that's just me surmising...
A classic example!
17 years ago
The sad thing is that a recent mega article (sorry can't remember the reference but very comprehensive and in a very solid journal) concluded that there is no evidence that ANYTHING particularly prevents cancer - not food, not exercise, not meditating, not stress reduction, not even losing weight.
ReplyDeleteThey recommended folks do all those things anyways, because they have been shown to be of clear benefit in preventing heart disease (which is 10X more common than cancer in any case) and they're certainly not harmful. But not effective in reducing cancer incidence, severity or progression. Sadly.
I saw the news item about that article as well, but don't recall the journal (other than it being one of the big ones). If you can find it, Mai, could you e-mail me the citation? I wasn't wholly surprised (albeit disappointed) simply because I suspect that environmental contamination likely trumps any amount of food we can eat to counter the effects. Just look at the number of chemicals found on produce and in the water. Chemists have even identified Prozac residue in samples from the Thames River. But I do believe that the broccoli I'm now consuming is bound to be an improvement and have some health benefit over McD's it has replaced.
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