Vegetables and Fruits Do Not Protect Against Cancer

We have been told by the authorities, repeatedly, that eating plenty of fruits and vegetables will lower our risk of cancer. However, a recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that this is not necessarily the case:

"Conclusions: Intake of fruit and vegetables was generally unrelated to total cancer incidence in this cohort. Residual confounding by smoking is a likely explanation for the observed inverse association with vegetable intake among men."

This study reveals a very modest association between high intake of fruits and vegetables and reduced risk of cancer. Of course, due to the fact the research was based upon the daily food reporting of the people involved in the study, there can be a great amount of error... although I tend to believe that the error would be more in line with falsifying a greater amount of vegetables and fruits eaten. People tend to say what they think others want to hear. 

What does this mean? According to the Cancer Research blog out of the UK, 

"If the study’s results are to be believed, the authors calculate that if everyone ate two more portions a day on average, then 2.6 per cent of cancers in men could be avoided, as could 2.3 per cent of cancers in women. In the UK, this equates to around 7,200 cases of cancer every year."

They also point out that even if fruits and vegetables do not help to reduce cancer rates by more than 2.6%, eating them means that you are not liable to eat foods that do harm your body like junk food and processed foods.


I agree with them whole-heartedly. Of course, I eat very little vegetables and even fewer fruits due to my desire to continue to get rid of my excess weight. That said, once I get to my desired weight, I do plan on adding more vegetables and fruits into my diet simple because I like their taste. Which is an oddity. During my years of living the SAD (Standard American Diet) I thoroughly disliked nearly all vegetables. But now that I have cut out all sugar, I can actually taste their true flavors and I am finding how much I enjoy them.


Which means that is makes complete sense for vegetables to be hated by the majority of the people since their diets are screwing with their taste buds.

Are Flowers Paleo?

My children actually brought me to this question. Ever since they learned that some flowers could be eaten, they ask about every flower that they come across it seems. Would not our ancestors have done the same thing? I was curious to understand why those of us who are living a Paleo and Primal lifestyle get into the macro and micro nutrients of nearly everything they eat, but flowers are never brought up. Perhaps it is because flowers are seen as non-edible by most.


For example, everyone should know that dandelion leaves are edible, I mean, they have salads with dandelion leaves for sale in Wal-Mart. But did you realize that the roots and flowers are edible as well? I especially like the tea produced by roasting the roots, but the leaves and flowers have that distinct pungent flavor as do the ilk of healthy vegetables like collards, spinach, chards, etc. If you think about calcium and phosphor when eating the dandelion, you'll understand why it has the flavor it does. You are tasting health. The dandelion has, in addition to fiber, the following particularly good concentration of:

Nuggets of Wisdom on my Paleo Lifestyle

Here are just some of the things I said as I was talking to my friends about eating Paleo/Primal and living that type of lifestyle. It struck a chord in me as to how much I have changed in the past three months so I thought I would share.

"What to eat: Meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, salad, fruit (but not too much), nuts, seeds.

What not to eat:  Bread, rice, pasta, potato, cereal, wheat, dairy, beans, any processed food, sugar.

The Fat Question: Fat is healthy – even saturated fat. The one type of fat to avoid is vegetable fat. This means margarine, vegetable cooking oils and processed foods that contain vegetable oil. In addition, whilst eating the fat from free-range animals is healthy, eating animal fats from industrially farmed animals is not as healthy. Avoid the latter if you can."

"My hunger has gotten to where I rarely get hungry more than once a day actually... must be all that stomach fat keeping my body working, lol."

"I just cook meat, I am on 20 grams of carbs or less, and eat the the small amount of veggies raw... often I eat zero carbs per day, lol. The kids say they love that they get meat every meal, that they would rather have meat than rice or pasta or anything else."

"I wasnt a veggie fan, but after no sugar, veggies started to taste good. Romain lettuce can sometimes be sweeter than a rather unsweet grape."