RAW Courage: A Journey to Optimum Health

As published in Get Fresh Magazine Issue 50 Spring 2008.

Janette running Marysville Marathon 
(42km) in Australia 2010

When Janette Murray-Wakelin was diagnosed with highly aggressive carcinoma breast cancer over six years ago, she was ‘given’ six months to live. The tumour was 3cm and the cancer had spread into the chest wall and the lymph nodes. It was recommended that she undergo conventional chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which may possibly extend her life a further 6 months. 

At 52 years, a mother of two and grandmother of one, she was not willing to accept this prognosis.

“I had lived a very healthy lifestyle, being vegetarian for 25 years and vegan for the previous 15 years,” Janette explains. “I have also been extremely physically active all my life, so I was quite shocked with the diagnosis.”

“However, the power of intention is far greater than that of fear,” Janette continues, “and I had every intention of staying around for a long time!”

Janette was alerted to the possibility of cancer being present when her little grandson inadvertently found the tumour. “I had been carrying him all day as we walked around a local festival and he had fallen asleep in my arms,” she remembers. “When we finally got home and I put him down, I noticed some pain in the breast area where he had been holding on to me. It was then that I discovered the lump.”

Whole Fruits and Vegetables and the Risk of Cancer

Adapted from article by Julie A. Naieralski, PhD. and Carol Devine, PhD, RD, BCERF, Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors, New York State. 

This year, about 182,800 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer. 80% won't have any genetic predisposition to the disease. More than almost any other serious disease, breast cancer touches nearly all of us, whether we're women or men, old or young. Your chances of knowing a woman with breast cancer is almost 100%. Every year, about 1,500 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer, too. Yet it is becoming particularly clear that cancer is preventable with healthier diet and lifestyle choices. 

 

A report by the United States Academy of Sciences on the relationship between diet and cancer recommended greater emphasis on fresh (i.e., raw) fruits and vegetables. Vitamins A, C and E, which are found in all fresh green leafy vegetables and fruit have been shown to prevent cancer.

The National Academy of Sciences 1982 report on diet and cancer was the first to make clear the link between diet and cancer. Now, the new Diet & Cancer Project report clearly establishes that the foods we choose play an overwhelming role in fighting cancer.

1. 1. Eating right, plus staying physically active and maintaining a health weight, can cut cancer risk by 30% to 40%.
2. 2. Recommended dietary choices coupled with not smoking have the potential to reduce cancer risk by 60% to 70%.
3. 3. As many as 375,000 cases of cancer, at current cancer rates, could be prevented each year in this nation through healthy dietary choices.
4. 4. A simple change, such as eating five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, could by itself reduce cancer rates more than 20%.

Though more fruits and vegetables has been recommended by numerous health agencies as one way to reduce risk of developing cancer, many of the studies using fruits and vegetables don’t make a clear distinction between cooked and uncooked, and therefore don’t make it clear that un-cooked fruits and vegetables are the best source of the ingredients known to reduce cancer risk. In fact, some studies actually have shown that cooking destroys some of the ingredients in fruits and vegetables known to help in cancer prevention. Obviously, since the ingredients needed to prevent cancer are destroyed or degraded by cooking, and perhaps not properly assimilated or digested after cooked as well, it is clear that RAW, uncooked, whole, living fruits and vegetable are the best choices for cancer prevention.