Disease Proof

Beans, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them, but they’re actually pretty strong medicine. Now I’m no doctor, so I’ll defer to one. In Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman points out that, among beans’ many other talents, they can decrease a person’s risk of colon cancer and even reproductive cancers. Take a look:

A large recent study examined the eating habits of 32,000 adults for six years and then watched the incidence of cancer for these subjects over the next six years. Those who avoided red meat but at white meat regularly had a more than 300 percent increase in colon cancer incidence.1 The same study showed that eating beans, peas, or lentils, at least twice a week was associated with a 50 percent lower risk than never eating these foods…


..Beans, in general, not just soy, have additional anti-cancer benefits against reproductive cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer.2

Now, I doubt you thought about that when you were singing, “Beans beans a magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot.” Want more bean factoids? Vegan Grandma has got a whole bunch of them:

In some Eastern cultures, legumes have been a basic dietary staple for more than 20,000 years. The lima and pinto bean were cultivated for the first time in the very earliest Mexican and Peruvian civilizations more than 5,000 years ago, being popular in both the Aztec and Inca cultures.

Be sure to check out the part of the post where she lists the many different varieties of beans. You’ll see things like Adzuki Beans and Cranberry Beans—I’m getting hungry already! 1. Singh, P.N., and G.E. Fraser. 1998. Dietary risk factors for colon cancer in a low-risk population. Am. J. Epidem. 148: 761-74.

2. Nelson, N. J. 1996. Is chemoprevention research overrated or under-funded? Primary Care & Cancer 16 (8): 29-30.

How would you respond to those who claim that any cooked food, even beans, are "dead" food and, therefore, non-nutritional?

Patty-

I'd refer them to this post:

"The Cold Truth About Raw Food Diets"
http://tinyurl.com/y6qt7j

There's a whole section about the idea of "dead foods."

It's been long known that the diet is central to proper whole body wellness. One great book I recently read is "Diet for a new america" - it was quite an eye opener for me!