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Re: that cancer report

From:     blp
Category: Art
Date:     02 November 2007
Time:     11:00 AM

Review:

Doh! Yeah, right, 'foody' because obviously vegetables, wholegrains, nuts, fish, fruit, coffee, tea,
cheese and pulses...aren't food! 

I eat 'right' and this report holds no fears for me. However, yesterday, some guy attacking organic
food on the Guardian CiF suggested organic apples might actually be more dangerous than agrobusiness
ones because they could contain cancer causing moulds. This sounded like bullshit, so I went
googling...and found zip to support it, really, except two articles suggesting yeasts, moulds and
viruses were THE cause of cancer...and that the way to avoid this was to cut out ANYTHING that
increased the sugariness and acidity of your body's ecosystem. So that's red meat, natch, but also
peanuts, bread, potatoes, fruit juice...I forget the entire list, but it really didn't leave much
except vegetables, especially green, leafy ones, and nuts (except peanuts, which are actually not
nuts) and sprouted stuff. A few fruits that weren't too sugary were allowed: avocadoes, lemons,
maybe grapefruits. One writer said, in what sounded like a weird, health food paraphrasing of  Paul
Celan's 'Death Fugue', something on the order of 'I eat salad for breakfast. I eat it for lunch and
dinner too. What's good for one meal is good for any other.' 

The thing is, in a way, I can't argue with this. After reading it, I ate a salad of just tomato and
lettuce (from a head, not a bag of loose leaves) and felt noticeably fabber. After that I had some
very lightly steamed cabbage and leak and the effect was increased. I also ate some brazil nuts and
they also appeared to have benefit. The argument of the article was that the yeast/mould issue isn't
really just a matter of preventing cancer because these are things that can make you feel diminished
on a daily basis, manifesting in various ways other than cancer: psoriasis, fatigue etc. 

Who knows. Mark Lawson in the Guardian today is unusually worth reading, pointing out that life
expectancy now is so much higher (with lots of young people expected to make it to 100) than it's
ever been before that the issue hardly seems to matter. Unless you've got an immediate problem like
psoriasis or chronic fatigue I guess. 


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