7 The Transition to Raw Food

• Summary
• 1. Switching to raw food is an important step
• • 1.1. The switch in general
  • 1.2. Switching at an older age
• 2. Gut flora and nutrition
• 3. Colon cleansing
• • 3.1. Overview of the different methods
  • 3.2. The simple detox cleanse
• 4. Alternative therapeutic fasting
• 5. Alternative juice fasting
• 6. Robert Gray method
• • 6.1. The components of this course of treatment
  • 6.2. Specific steps
  • 6.3. Brush massage
  • 6.4. Rejuvelac
• 7. Theory and practice
• • 7.1. Enzymes and raw food
  • 7.2. When will you have successfully switched your diet?
  • 7.3. Insurmountable difficulties
  • 7.4. Cancer prevention

If you are older and have not had a colonoscopy for a number of years, a colon cleanse would be good opportunity to do so. The colon has to be cleansed anyway before such an examination.

This can be done, for example, using a "Golytelysolution" or salt mixture. A person has to first drink three liters of this solution within two hours. An outpatient colonoscopy can be done no earlier than 3 to 5 hours after this preparatory step.

PEG (polyethylene glycol or macrogol) or better yet a polyethylene glycol electrolyte solution (PEG-EL) is also used in gastroenterology and two liters of this solution suffice. This is also called orthograde colon cleansing.

People with a chronic illness and also pregnant and nursing women should not undertake a colon cleanse or detox cleanse unless they have consulted their physician. Taking Glauber’s salt or Epsom salts is the simplest method. A more thorough method would only be advantageous if you are particularly afflicted with toxins or overweight. See below.

However, if you prefer not to do the colon examination or cleanse proposed here, you can find a recommendation on where to find recipes for preparing raw food toward the end of this article.

But you might ask, “How do I start with raw food?”

Unfortunately, you may not know any raw foodists or strict vegans with whom you can exchange ideas. Without a well-conducted experiment, you will not be able to see or even imagine the changes.

Many people consider raw food diets to be extreme. However, they are most likely not familiar with the benefits it has for our body and do not realize that it was actually “our” original diet. They likely believe it to be an esoteric belief that really does more harm than good. This makes the decision more difficult because people usually learn from their mistakes.

By then, however, it may be too late. All I can recommend is that you compare the health and athletic performance of raw foodists and vegans with others in the same age bracket. These vegans and raw foodists shouldn’t be sectarian or adhere to special forms of a raw food diet. Look for ways to get to know other raw foodists and vegans.

Unfortunately, you will also read a lot of nonsense. But you should be able to separate the facts from the nonsense. However, this is sometimes easier said than done because you will need an active mind with good logic and a certain level of knowledge to understand what it is reasonable.

The unconscious defense mechanism, a part of a person’s character (character types, personality, and moral character), also plays a role. Paradoxically, knowledge can also be wrong and lead to incorrect conclusions. Relevance (meaning) and statistical significance should also be considered.

Are you the playing ball or are you playing the ball? Avoid unmoderated forums. If you follow the opinion of the masses or rather public opinion, you are the playing ball.

If you seek out real knowledge, this will allow you in time to play the ball. It is important here to “Trust, but be careful whom you trust” (fide sed cui vide).

Before I changed back to raw food in 2001, I weighed between 163 and 165 lbs (74–75 kg). I am 5'8" or 1.77 m tall.

But after about five months, I was down to 143.3 lbs (65 kg), which is how much I weighed when I was 18 years old.

My biological ideal weight (BMI = 20) is 136.6 to 138.9 lbs (62–63 kg). However, I like to eat, so my weight (2001) usually fluctuates between 143.5 and 145.5 lbs (65–66 kg).

In 2014, after just returning from a vacation where I ate some cooked food, I weighed between 148 and 150 lbs (67–68 kg).

In the summer of 2001, I felt a type of piercing pain around the area of the pancreas and gallbladder for a few weeks and then this same pain on the left side of my stomach. Since I trusted my system, meaning raw food and my body’s immune system, I didn’t go to the doctor. And after a few weeks these pains disappeared on their own.

Today (2014), I know that I have gallstones in my gallbladder and two giant liver cysts in my liver. As long as no real problems arise, a conventional doctor would not advise taking any action. A raw food diet doesn’t heal some issues, but it does improve how your system functions.

At the beginning, it is often difficult to chew the fiber-rich, plant-based foods sufficiently. Bloating, diarrhea, or abdominal cramping can therefore occur. Raw food can, of course, be puréed (mashing) for older people, but they instead often ask for cooked food. This is because things used to be cooked to an extent that people considered it to already be “half digested.”

It may therefore be useful to make a compromise (if possible temporarily) and eat steamed vegetables, potatoes, and the like [217-8] when starting on a raw food diet. However, I believe that this may promote intestinal problems since cooked and raw foods are digested quite differently in the gut. More information on the gastrointestinal tract is found further down in this article.

As early as the 1930s, cancer researcher and biologist Dr. Paul-Gerhardt Seeger wrote the following in his comprehensive work Bakterien – Freunde oder Feinde des Menschen?” (Bacteria — friends or foes of humanity?):

Maintaining anaerobiosis (free of oxygen) in the colon is of crucial importance for the health of the organism, and this is dependent on the type of food consumed. Fresh foods and lacto-fermented foods are very rich in reductions (hydrogen and energy) and pass into a lower-energy state by binding oxygen while releasing energy; this reducing capability is destroyed by cooking food.

Cooked food (e.g., meat and other common foods) harms the environment and flora in the intestine by introducing oxygen and destroying the anaerobiosic condition in the intestinal lumen that is necessary for the metabolism of certain bacteria (bifidobacteria).

The color of a person’s stool indicates whether the redox processes in the gut are normal or not. Anaerobic, healthy stool has a light yellow color because the bile pigments occur only in reduced amounts. When you eat fresh plant-based foods, the feces will have the characteristic pale yellow color of an infant’s stool [224-9].

There are now many books available that deal with intestinal health, but many of these describe the situation quite differently.

There are at least 500–1000 different species of microorganisms active in the intestine of a human adult. This ecosystem is made up mainly of anaerobic bacteria (bacterial flora) numbering in total from 10 to 100 trillion.

The total mass of the microflora in the intestinal tract of an adult is between 1'000 and 2'000 grams. Over 50 % of the microorganisms in stool samples that can be seen with the microscope cannot be cultured.

There are also some fungi in the intestines, but they need to be of the right type and in the right quantity.

The time the food spends in the individual sections are:

• mouth 5 minutes (would be good),
• stomach 1–2 hours,
• small intestine 1–2 hours,
• and colon 8–100 hours.

Nevertheless, bowel movements may be regular, in other words, not just every four days at 100 hours of passage time. People who are obese or have constipation or even chronic constipation suffer longer passage times and are therefore at a higher risk for colon cancer. One possible cause of this is malnutrition.

The objection that food is digested within the stomach and the small intestine to such a degree that fermentation or putrefaction would not take place is not quite true. Rather the opposite is the case for many substances. The colon is full of microorganisms that are waiting to feed on the substances offered.

It is not without reason that the colon has to be cleansed aggressively and not just emptied prior to surgery and also prior to a colonoscopy. I don’t know how far we have to follow the different authors with their different views on colon cleansing. Their descriptions of the possible state of your colon and the multiple layers of deposits are hopefully somewhat exaggerated.

If you want to do it properly, choose a method that suits you. I do highly recommend you do a colon cleanse.

Vegan raw food prevents decay in two ways: the gastrointestinal passage only lasts about 24 hours, and the food has a longer shelf life even at 96.8°F (38°C).

If deposits of old stool residues (stagnation) remain in the intestine, the typical smell of feces will not disappear and there remains a risk of “self-poisoning processes” (autointoxication).

I explain more elsewhere about the entire digestive process to help you understand the various relationships. These processes also largely determine your body odor.

This commonly gets covered up with daily showering or bathing (skin flora), which isn’t good for your skin. Read more on Wikipedia about the dangers of washing your skin too often (April 2014).

But even if you don’t experiencing such problems when you improve your diet, it is best to thoroughly cleanse the colon of old residues. A colon cleanse makes the transition from a meat-based diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet much easier.

This excerpt from Wikipedia (German version) describes why it is beneficial to get a colonoscopy after colon cleansing: Colorectal cancer is the second most common type of cancer for men and women in Germany, afflicting more than six percent of all Germans in their lifetime. It is very rare that colorectal cancer initially causes any symptoms, they almost always are caused by benign colorectal polyps.

It should be noted that polyps are harmless when removed. If the cancer is still localized, surgery offers a very good chance for recovery rather than certain death. However, if metastases are present — whether discovered or not — the medical prognosis will be very poor. This is why I advise you to get the condition your colon checked at an early stage.

An enema stimulates the colon and has healing reflexes for many parts of the body. This gives a strong boost to healing itself, but actually cleanses little of the undesirable substances from the colon.

Even a colonic irrigation (colon hydrotherapy) is not much better. According to Dr. Norman Walker and other experts, only repeated colonic irrigations, accompanied by a diet of raw fruits and vegetables, will bring about effective results. The water should always be at about body temperature and must not contain chlorine. Taking clay, pumice, or bentonite supports the procedure.

In German-speaking countries, clay is especially well known as a method of colon cleansing. It removes stagnant material, and if you take psyllium seed husks (Plantago ovata) at the same time, that will support the process.

Taking medicinal herbs such as aloe, barberry (Myrica cerifera), iceberg lettuce, yellow broad-leaved dock, gum arabic, Irish moss, corn fiber, olive oil, rosemary, chives, grapes, and zucchini is more effective in handling mucoid plaque. Aloe vera, iceberg lettuce, gum arabic, and Irish moss also work to clean the lymph. A brush massage is a more effective method of lymph cleansing.

There are about 24 medicinal plants known to be effective against mucoid plaque, and half of these also have an unclogging effect and can help alleviate constipation.

The use of Epsom salts is prohibited if the person is afflicted with hypermagnesemia. Glauber’s salt irritates the intestinal mucosa.

Wikipedia (German version): Laxatives are the drug of choice if actual constipation (i.e., bowel movements less than three times a week in combination with straining) cannot be treated by a change in lifestyle. A change in diet that includes an increased intake of dietary fiber in combination with sufficient fluid intake and increased physical activity can help stimulate bowel function and improve stool consistency.

Epsom salts are also called passage salts by one company because the additives they contain made it less unpleasant to take these salts. About 100 g of Epsom salts is enough for some time. Add two or three heaping teaspoons to a glass of slightly warm water and stir well. Have another glass of water ready to immediately wash down any unpleasant taste after you drink the whole glass of Epsom salt solution, ideally in one gulp. The effect will be felt in one to three hours as a strong urge to defecate.

Glauber’s salt (Carlsbad salt, sal mirabiis (miracle salt), mirabilite, and Mirabili) is the alternative. Dissolve 40 g of Glauber’s salt in 2 cups (0.5 liters) of water and add a little lemon juice. Then drink this solution sip by sip. After this, drink plenty of water or herbal tea. The effect will set in after one to three hours with this solution as well. If no effects can be observed with either of these methods, repeat or choose one of the methods described below instead.

A similar, but probably somewhat reduced effect, can be achieved with juice fasting. It is not impossible that greatly afflicted or vulnerable people may suffer a flare up of gout, but that shouldn’t occur again. There are many different types of fasting therapies.

First, a fast that I would not recommend is Franz Xaver Mayr’s milk-bread diet, which he developed to treat liver, gallbladder, and stomach ailments and also obesity, rheumatism, and skin diseases.

The diet begins with a tea therapy. And after this, only milk and bread rolls are allowed. During the day, you drink orange juice and in the evening herbal tea.

Buchinger developed a fast that consists of tea, sometimes mixed with honey or lemon juice, vegetable broth, fruit juice, and water. He used this method for disease prevention and to treat diseases of the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, skin, joints, and respiratory tract, as well as eating disorders.

Vegetable broth with minerals and a linseed infusion has a healing effect on the intestinal walls. Combined they satisfy the desire for a hot meal.

With a tea fast, you would consume only tea and water. And some teas support the healing purposes of the fast. Unless advised otherwise by your physician, you should drink mint, chamomile, and melissa (lemon balm) teas.

Olive oil fasting is popular in the United States. For a few days, you consume only water and two tablespoons of olive oil with half a glass of orange juice four to five times daily.

A seven-day fast with bentonite (made from volcanic ash) is also popular in the U.S. With this fast, you take a combination of clay, bentonite, or pumice along with psyllium several times a day.

During a juice fast, you should drink only freshly squeezed juices from fruits or vegetables and herbs. This is done in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening, or in six smaller servings at regular times throughout the day.

Juice fasting is supposed to help prevent diseases, purify the blood, stimulate the liver and renal function, protect the intestines, heart, and circulation, and reduce obesity.

In my opinion, juice fasting is effective when people don’t “sin too much;” that is, when they already eat a primarily vegan diet.

I especially recommend vegetable juices. You would only buy vegetable juices and then drink these in any quantity you like for about seven days. However, these are usually pasteurized and are therefore not raw.

Gray offers a simple but effective method for “stressed Westerners.” He believes that the intestinal function of most people is greatly impaired because of environmental pollution and the high proportion of animal products in our diet. In his opinion, there are rubbery, tough deposits on the intestinal walls which favor fermentation processes and impede assimilation.

His colon cleanse and healing concept are based primarily on three factors:

• stimulating lymphatic activity by brushing and the like,
• avoiding deposit-producing and clogging foods,
• and using two special herbal preparations that dissolve and bind waste products.

At the end of this section, you will find easy-to-follow instructions.

Before this, Dr. Olszewski also observed how brush massage stimulates lymphatic flow (chyle) and causes reflux from the cisterna chyli back into the colon.

Gray explains:

Just like dead food, highly toxic substances such as coffee, sugar, and alcohol, spoiled food, drugs, medicines, and chemicals stimulate the automatic discharge of mucus in the digestive system. This is a natural protective mechanism to prevent the absorption of toxins.

He concludes [249-30]: I do not advocate that everyone should eat a completely mucus-free diet. That would, of course, be very valuable, but most people would not stick to it. How right he is!

He refers to the following simply as mucus: mucins, colloids, certain mucopolysaccharides (glycosaminoglycans, GAGs), mucoproteins, glycoproteins, and other substances that form in the respiratory system, the digestive tract (intestinal mucosa), the lymphatic system, the uterus, the vagina, the urinary tract, and the connective tissue. This excludes nonsticky substances such as saliva, which allows gliding to take place [249-58]. Mucoid mucus can also be found in the inner layer of joint capsules.

However, it is thought that grains lose their mucus-forming activity during the sprouting process. Vegetables and fruits are virtually free of mucus-forming processes [249-65].

He rejects certain yeast preparations because they contain up to 50 % whey.

© CC-by 3.0, 0r14nd0, Wikipedia

He also writes that polluted air can be mucus-forming, for example, in the case of passive smoking. He recommends enriching the air with negative ions to remove any suspended solids and microorganisms from the air. Air conditioners, hot air, falling air pressure, and dry, hot winds, in particular, generate an excess of positive ions, which can cause sensitive people to have asthma or hay fever attacks.

The blend of herbs and seeds is supposed to cause the old hardened residues to swell in the gut and leave it. It also promotes the proliferation of lactobacilli (lactic acid bacteria) in the intestine. These microorganisms are called lactobacilli because they occur mainly on grass, fruits, and vegetables and therefore later also appear in milk.

If the lactobacilli predominate, they cause a person to have more frequent bowel movements, up to more than one per day. That’s a good sign, as long as the stool still has some shape to it but easily breaks apart, because that means it is free of mucoid substances.

The opposite situation: However, if the body has absorbed almost all of the carbohydrates from the food at the time the food residues pass into the colon, a healthy population of lactobacilli will not be able to exist, and the putrefaction bacteria will dominate. That is because proteins, the food of putrefaction bacteria, are much more difficult to digest and assimilate than carbohydrates and is therefore always present in food residues [249-73].

The onion deserves special mention here. It and the large amount of raw vegetables are perhaps the real reasons why the “Mediterranean diet” is considered to be particularly healthy. A Greek salad wouldn’t be a Greek salad without onion. Raw potatoes, for example, are not only gentle on the stomach, but also serve the same purpose. However, you shouldn’t overdo it either and eat one of these every day. See also information about Kartoffelsaft (raw potato juice).

Fibrous materials (fiber) have the same effect and also reduce blood lipid levels. Gray does not think much of bran as the presence of phytate (phytic acid) in whole grain bread causes calcium deficiencies.

He also writes, Science is of the opinion that phytin also hinders the absorption of iron and zinc. The wheat bran available on the market usually contains about 80% of the phytic acid contained in whole grains [249-78].

According to Gray, the mucus layers are made up primarily of glycoproteins (mucins), which form special mucus cells in the mucous membrane (tunica mucosa, mucosa) of the stomach and intestinal walls. This mucus is produced to protect the mucous membrane from adverse acids, and alkaline bile and pancreatic juice (pancreatic) remove it again.

He list various toxins, such as medications, heavy metals, half-digested foods, and pesticides that do so. If you were familiar with the composition of these toxic mucoid plaque layers, you wouldn’t be surprised at the sometimes astonishing successes that occur when they are removed.

This then removes the loosened fecal deposit layers from the intestinal walls. These should then attach to the psyllium mixture, which ensures rapid elimination from the intestinal tract.

Finely ground psyllium will swell up in the presence of liquid bentonite or other fluids, thus creating large amounts of a soft gelatinous substance. It takes on the form of the alimentary canal and sweeps up loose substances like a broom.

In conjunction with the cleansing herbs, ground psyllium is a very important part of the Clean-Me-Out program, as is probiotic intestinal bacteria.

You can find the book "Die Sonnen-Diät" (The sunfood diet) by David Wolfe with this information on the Internet as a Google book and if you search for “Robert Gray” (1946–1990, car accident), you can find his website where the products listed above are offered.

If you search for the term “dairy products,” you can read more about the reasons why Wolfe recommends omitting milk and dairy products. See this book review or also this one to read more about why milk is harmful.

Intenstinal Bulking Agent III (Massebildner Normal), 340 g.

See Internet. This product is a blend of premium quality powdered herbs to be taken one to four times daily with liquid throughout the cleansing period. Its primary herbal constituent psyllium is supplemented in its effectiveness by inulin, dandelion root, and other palliative herbs that work gently on the deposits in your intestine and support your gut flora. (2+ bottles required for each month of cleansing) is the advertising text (translated from the German text on www.graykur.de).

Ingredients: Psyllium seed husks, inulin (from chicory root), dandelion root, spirulina, cloves, and d-calcium pantothenate [vitamin B₅].

Here is a quote above from holistic horizons.com: Intestinal Bulking Agent III with new formulation and improved taste is our most recent significant breakthrough for maintaining a healthy population of lactobacteria in one’s intestinal tract while cleansing the entire digestive system. It is brought to you by the developer and originator of the world’s first and still the world’s best herbal intestinal cleansing program.

This new formulation yields a two- to three-fold increase of lactobacteria-enhancing activity over earlier products, while providing improved taste and multiple other proven healthful benefits that give even greater assurance that you need not cleanse the intestines first and reimplant lactobacteria later, while still providing the lubrication and absorptive effects needed to sweep loosened mucoid matter from the system. You may now cleanse and promote an abundant implantation of lactobacteria at the same time! The Holistic Horizons Intestinal Bulking Agent III and Intestinal Cleansing Formula tablets should both be used together to achieve this effect, as both contain required complementary ingredients to provide a synergistic benefit.

Holistic Horizons is Gray’s trademark.

During the first four levels, you take only bulking agents as follows: 2 x 2 to test tolerance, then A 1 x 1, B 1 x 2, and C and D 2 x 1 teaspoon with the appropriate amount of fluid.

The first number corresponds to the number of level teaspoons; the second number refers to the number of times taken per day. For the levels D–I, you also take cleansing formula tablets, starting with half a tablet for D and E, and then a tablet for F and G, two tablets for H, and three for I. This also applies to the intestinal bulking agents, which are taken as follows: E + F 2 x 2, and after that always 2 x 4.

Level A is considered to be a tolerance test as people on different diets react differently. If you feel uncomfortable with the treatment, you are supposed to take a break for three days and start again with level A and then go on to the following levels. If you want to lose weight, the tablets should be taken one hour before a meal. If you do not want to lose any weight, then take them one hour after a meal.

Weight loss takes place as a result of the swelling process which curbs the appetite.

The fourth dosage is taken before going to bed. Frequency and quantity of bowel movements should increase. Over time, the gastrocolic reflex should return and induce defecation whenever the stomach is filled. I assume this would happen during the treatment, if at all.

© CC-0 1.0, Alexbrn, Wikipedia

© CC-0 1.0, yours truly, Wikipedia

People with ulcerative colitis or a chronic inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease (regional enteritis) should in no case use these cleanse tablets. Taking bulking agents and changing their diet should do the trick.

Anyone regularly taking salicyclaten (salicylic acid) or medicines that contain digitalis (cardiac glycosides) or "nitrofuranto.." (for urinary tract infections) should not do this treatment.

Pomegranates and its juice stimulate the colon greatly.

The following method seems better for our purposes. After an antibiotic treatment or for this cleanse, lactobacilli would be highly beneficial. They are easy to grow:

Cabbage is a vegetable that is teeming with lactobacilli. To get cabbage rejuvelac and trigger fermentation, you don’t need a starter. In the morning, mix 1¾ cups distilled or purified water with 3 cups (not packed) coarsely chopped, fresh cabbage and ⅛ teaspoon granulated, dried garlic.

Set the mixer first to the lowest speed, then go to the highest level, and mix everything a little more than 30 seconds! Then pour the mixture into a larger container, cover it, and let sit at room temperature for three days. After that you can pour off the liquid rejuvelac [249-146].

At least in Switzerland, tap water can be used in most places. If the tap water is chlorinated, to be safe you should cook it for 30 minutes so that any residual chlorine is removed and bacteria is destroyed. Noncarbonated mineral water would be an alternative.

Next prepare your rejuvelac within 24 hours; 1½ cups of water plus 1½ cups of ready rejuvelac, mix well and add the cabbage. However, you should frequently start with a fresh batch (48 hours) to avoid faulty fermentation.

Good rejuvelac tastes delicately tangy, a flavor that is a bit of a combination between mineral water and yogurt whey, writes Gray.

Bad rejuvelac tastes and smells somewhat foul (like old cheese), and you should not drink it. Rejuvelac should be drunk within 24 hours and the rest should be discarded.

During a colonoscopy, I was able to see the inside of my colon. There were only a few other particles in the otherwise beautiful pink colon. I understand the necessity of the unpleasant but brief procedure to get a clean colon but not the longer method developed by Gray, even if it is perhaps more pleasant.

However, in 1978 black spots were found in my colon and the report said the following: The cecum shows a pseudomelanotic discoloration (dirty brown spots) although the patient claims to never have taken laxatives.

Such spots are apparently quite common, but there is no explanation for them. But that would mean that the neuron impulses would be conducted poorly or not at all. In such a case, a person should avoid garlic, onion, and vegetables in the cabbage family or rather dextrorotatory sugar (4th to 7th sugars).

It is conceivable that individuals with poor eating habits, which also lead to obesity, have a gut as described in colon cleansing books. If this is the case, it really is necessary to do a colon cleanse to return the colon to its healthy level of functioning. This would then also result in weight loss. In this light, I can see how a longer procedure would be needed.

Ann Wigmore writes about the views of Viktorus Kulvinskas, a well-known enzyme researcher, who stated that stomach acid deactivates microorganisms in the stomach, but that these are then reactivated in the small intestine.

One thing is clear to me; nature has always ensured that there is a strong flora of microorganisms in our intestine. Passage through the stomach is in principle possible.

Drinking a beverage on an empty stomach that contains large quantities of microorganisms provides a great opportunity for the microorganisms to pass through the stomach. An empty stomach lets a drink without sugar pass quickly and because of the amount, the pH hardly changes. The reflex and amylase caused by chewing are also missing.

Another possibility is as follows: without chewing very much, you can eat large pieces of vegetable that naturally contain microorganisms or even enrich them before eating. I wonder why eating the pieces of cabbage is not part of the instructions for making rejuvelac.

Very few people know just how important healthy gut flora is. Several authors, for example, believe that the increasingly common skin disease eczema (atopic dermatitis, not pellagra) is caused by unbalanced gut flora and an associated lack of vitamin B complexes [neurodermitis ch].

Amazon.com lists numerous books just on the subject of eczema alone and a lot of these focus on diet as a means to achieve healing. In rare cases, amalgam can lead to related vitamin deficiencies.

Avoiding exposure to carcinogens is one of the best methods of cancer prevention. Another is the inclusion of cancer-protective foods or dietary supplements. It has also been shown that vaccinations against certain viruses (hepatitis B and human papillomaviruses) significantly lowers the risk for some cancers.

The European Code against Cancer in its third version from 2003 lists the following seven ways that people can reduce the risk of cancer by making lifestyle changes:

1. Do not smoke; if you smoke, stop doing so. If you fail to stop, do not smoke in the presence of non-smokers.
2. Avoid obesity.
3. Undertake some brisk, physical activity every day.
4. Increase your daily intake and variety of vegetables and fruits: eat at least five servings daily. Limit your intake of foods containing fats from animal sources.
5. If you drink alcohol, whether beer, wine, or spirits, moderate your consumption to two drinks per day if you are a man and one drink per day if you are a woman.
6. Care must be taken to avoid excessive sun exposure. It is specifically important to protect children and adolescents. For individuals who have a tendency to burn in the sun active protective measures must be taken throughout life.
7. Apply strict regulations aimed at preventing any known cancer-causing substances. Follow all health and safety instructions which may cause cancer. Follow advice of national radiation protection offices.

Some foods apparently have cancer-preventing effects. These include:

• Vegetables containing little starch (for example broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, kale, and spinach) site of action: mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, and stomach.
• Vegetables of the genus allium (for example wild garlic, onion, chives, and shallots); site of action: stomach
• Garlic; site of action: colon and rectum
• Fruits (for example, apples, pears, table grapes, and bananas); site of action: mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, lungs, and stomach.
• Folate-containing foods (for example, whole grains, green leafy vegetables, beets, broccoli, carrots, asparagus, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, egg yolks, and nuts); site of action: pancreas
• Foods containing carotenoids (such as carrots, spinach, apricots, bell peppers, and shrimp); site of action: mouth, pharynx, larynx, and lungs
• Foods containing beta-carotene (for example, carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, apricots, spinach, broccoli, and beets); site of action: esophagus
• Foods containing lycopene (such as tomatoes, rose hips, and watermelon); site of action: prostate
• Foods containing ascorbic acid (vitamin C) (for example, citrus fruits, rose hips, black currants, parsley, kale, and brussels sprouts); site of action: larynx
• Foods containing selenium (such as garlic); site of action: prostate

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) lists nine other foods or food groups with possible canter-protective effects (limited suggestive).

Here are some of the initial findings:

• Increased fiber intake reduces the risk of colorectal cancer. Even an increase in the daily amount of fiber from 15 to 35 g reduces this risk by 40%.

• High consumption of meat (red meat) increases the risk of intestinal cancer while fish consumption significantly reduces this risk. For every 100 g of red meat consumed, the risk of intestinal cancer increases by 49%. In the case of sausage, it increases up to 70%. In contrast, for every 100 g of fish consumed, the risk for this disease is cut in half.

• Eating 80 g of fruits and vegetables every day reduces the risk of mouth, throat, larynx, and esophagus cancer by 9%. This effect holds true up to a threshold of 300 g per day. Larger quantities apparently do not further reduce the risk of the disease.

• Eating an increased amount of butter, margarine, processed meat, and fish, together with a low amount of bread and fruit juices, increases the risk of breast cancer.

Directly after their consumption, some phytonutrients act positively against carcinogenesis (tumor development):

• Antioxidants bind and eliminate free radicals.
• Carotenoids, polyphenols, and flavonoids attach to the DNA in the nucleus so that no carcinogens can attach themselves.
• Phenolic acids, glucosinolates, and sulfides inhibit certain enzymes that catalyze the conversion of procarcinogens, such as aflatoxins or nitrosamines, into carcinogens.
• By contrast, glucosinolates, monoterpenes, sulfides, and polyphenols stimulate carcinogen-detoxifying enzymes.
• Phenolic acids, ellagic acid, ferulic acid, and caffeic acid bind with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and detoxify them that way.
• Phytosterols and saponins inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells in the colon.

© CC-by 2.0, Liz West / Ahura21, Wikipedia

© Public Domain, Wikipedia

The link between smoking and lung cancer is now well known (appropriate warnings are included on the packages of tobacco products). For a number of other cancers, such as the group of head and neck cancers (oral cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, pharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer, and tracheal cancer), the link between smoking and the corresponding cancer has also been scientifically proven. In breast cancer, epidemiological data shows that smoking increases the risk of disease by about 30%. Also in colorectal cancer, increased longtime tobacco consumption increases the risk of the disease significantly.

Many studies show a clear correlation between regular alcohol consumption and an increase in the risk of cancer.

For breast cancer, the threshold at which alcohol consumption causes a significantly higher risk of disease is less than one or two alcoholic drinks per day. The risk is increased especially for estrogen receptor positive (ER+) tumors. The type of beverage, whether beer, wine, or spirits, or the color of the wine does not matter.

The risk rises in a dose-dependent manner. Consuming 15 to 30 grams of alcohol daily, which is approximately one to two alcoholic beverages, increases the risk by a factor of 1.33 (= 33 %, the confidence interval for 95 % probability is 1.01 to 1.71). The risk rises dose-dependently; drinking once a week increases the risk by 2 % per drink, and weekend consumption increases the risk by 4 %. Excessive drinking with four to five drinks per day increases the risk by 55 %.

This is the information found on the German Wikipedia site under cancer prevention as of April 2014.