Food is Medicine

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

- Hippocrates

Getting Schooled on the Farm

For as long as I can remember food has mattered to me. I have always been conscious about food – where it comes from, how it’s cultivated and different ways it can be prepared.

I grew up in a rural area and although my father was a businessperson, he loved to spend time in the garden. He would plant all types of vegetables, far more than our family could ever eat in a season. We would spend time together planting, weeding and harvesting, and my mother would preserve those amazing summer tomatoes by canning.

I learned much about cooking from my mother. I never had salad dressing from a bottle or vegetables from a can, and garlic was in almost everything we ate. She was amazing at making full meals out of mostly vegetables, pulling from her Greek and Polish heritage.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but my rural upbringing helped to build a foundation of how I would interact with food and establish an understanding of just what it takes to get something healthy to your plate.

Discovering the Power of Food

Several years ago I was diagnosed with a mild case of shingles. An incredibly painful experience that was likely brought on by stress. My dermatologist quickly sent me on my way with a prescription of antibiotics. I was not particularly thrilled with having to take these, as I am aware of the overall effect on your body and digestive flora. But in about 10 days symptoms were gone and I was fine.

Three years later I got shingles again (are you seeing the high stress theme here yet?). Again, a very small area, but I immediately knew what it was. This time I was determined to find another solution. I reached out to my friend Theresa, who owns the Sobotanical apothecary and helped me develop a natural cure path. By following a strict anti-viral diet, taking various supplements and applying a custom blend oil, the pain of the shingles was gone in 3 days and the area was totally healed in a week. This experience convinced me of the power of food.

Having had this before I knew what I was in for and was completely shocked at how well this treatment approach work. It convinced me of the power of food – for both good and bad. I easily become a pescatarian after this experience (having small amounts of animal protein every now and then), focusing heavily on plant-based foods.

Two Important kitchen appliances are my Breville Cold Press juicer and Vitamix blender for smoothies. Best way to get in fruits and vegetables every day!

Eating to Beat Disease

Over decades, I had done my best to live a healthy lifestyle. eating well and exercising. I had never been on any prescription drugs beyond episodic use and realized that with a stage IV cancer diagnosis I was going to need to rely heavily on Western medicine. Chemotherapy was going to be a significant component of my treatment, but I was also interested in finding ways to integrate Eastern medicine techniques as well.

I knew that food was going to be an important part of my treatment plan. Yes, it was a good health decision, but it was also a way for me to attempt to gain some control over my situation, when I felt like I had very little.

As luck would have it a new book had just been released, “Eat to Beat Disease” by Dr. William Li. I discovered the book after watching his 2010 TED talk (a bit dated at this point, but the concept of angiogenesis was intriguing and turned out to be the foundation of one of my primary treatment drugs).

This book became my food bible; food recommendations based on scientific evidence felt like a solid path forward. This wasn’t exactly new information for me, but rather a clarification of foods that I should focus on and where I needed to expand my palette. I have always known that cruciferous vegetables are great for you and that I should be eating more legumes, but now I understood why and discovered new ways to consume these key foods.

Eat More Of

Green leafy things
Berries
Beans and legumes
Dark chicken meat
Nuts and seeds
Fish
Green tea

Eat Less (or none) Of

Refined sugar
Alcohol
Dairy
Beef and pork
White carbohydrates
Gluten

From the book, I developed a list of foods to focus on and ate mostly from this list all through my treatment. It is a majority plant-based diet with a little bit of animal protein (particularly important for me when my blood counts were very low from chemo and my energy was depleted).

I eat organic foods, grass-fed meats and wild caught fish as much as possible. In conjunction with what I added to my diet, I also removed a few things as well – no refined sugar or alcohol, and limited diary, gluten and white carbohydrates (bread, rice etc.). Basically, trying to eat the rainbow of plants as much as possible.

The nurses and my oncologist were constantly impressed with how good my blood work was and how limited my treatment side effects were. I believe food played a significant role in my positive outcomes.

View my list of cancer-fighting foods.

A Private Chef Brings My Vision to Life

I came to understand pretty quickly that chemotherapy was going to leave me very tired and with little energy. I knew that if I was going to adhere to a commitment of eating as healthy as possible throughout my months of treatment, I was going to need help. I had hired Gundalow Gourmet catering for events before and knew that they offered private chef services. The owner Dana paired me with a great chef that was a vegetarian herself and turned out to be a perfect fit.

I know this sounds like an extravagant expense, but when I factored in how much time I was spending researching recipes, shopping for groceries, preparing meals and cleaning, it turned out to be an incredible value – not only financially, but mentally as well. I could not afford to slip and start ordering take-out food because I was too exhausted to prepare anything.

I would work with Chef Laurie on a menu for the coming week. What was in season or what I was in the mood for. Chemo can change how foods taste and influence what you crave (suddenly anything with even mild spice was too intense for me). She proposed amazing menus and significantly expanded my experience with a whole new world of vegetarian meals.

Chef Laurie would prepare a selection of salads, lunch options and dinner meals, as well as pre-filled smoothie bags that I could pull from the freezer, pop in the blender with liquid and be done. Everything would be stocked in the refrigerator with labels and reheating instructions.

I remember so many nights we sat down to eat, being so thankful for an incredibly, stress-free and healthy meal. There was no discussion about what we should have for dinner and who was going to make it. There was also the added bonus of my partner eating these delicious meals with me and him losing 10 pounds in three months!

Hiring a private chef was, without a doubt, one of the best decisions I made in my cancer fight.

Vitamin Supplements

I came to understand pretty quickly that chemotherapy was going to leave me very tired and with little energy. I knew that if I was going to adhere to a commitment of eating as healthy as possible throughout my months of treatment, I was going to need help. I had hired Gundalow Gourmet catering for events before and knew that they offered private chef services. The owner Dana paired me with a great chef that was a vegetarian herself and turned out to be a perfect fit.

I know this sounds like an extravagant expense, but when I factored in how much time I was spending researching recipes, shopping for groceries, preparing meals and cleaning, it turned out to be an incredible value – not only financially, but mentally as well. I could not afford to slip and start ordering take-out food because I was too exhausted to prepare anything.