On the other hand, the standard medical studies are being done on people who eat more processed food, which raises risk of DNA damage to begin with. If one can afford to eat fruit, vegetables, and meat from more naturally-raised livestock, then there are less toxins for your body to have to deal with (less but not none, some toxins are intrinsic to the food rather than manufactured pesticides and preservatives).
In fact, for those of us living in the United States, a leader in introducing new chemicals and genetic alterations to the food supply... the typical diet seems to be really, really bad for cancer risk. So being forced to stay away from conventional foods may actually be a blessing in disguise.
First pound for pound eating healthy costs less. Buy when in season and when on sale or purchase large quantity and freeze. The past year we have lived in the Deep South, our grocery bill actually increase 50% (for produce, meats, whole grain bread for my dh, et el) though we keep getting told the cost of living is much lower. Now mind you the chips,coke,crackers,cakes and highly produced foods are very, very cheap per package ( but not if you take it pound for pound, but americans just don't shop that way usually, it's more pkg cost (groceries) or pmt cost [ie cars, mortgages]). Produce here looks like what I would throw out in Washington State. Many people here grow their own vegs, which I do in Washington as well. But even when we have lived in Asia or other areas in the world the amount of processed foods were minimal compared to the USA...only here can you get 100's of different kinds breads,cereals, chips, canned goods, It's to bad we as a country don't see the correlation to these and health.
I am not being forced to stay away from the above mentioned foods or any foods..I make a choice and have always made these choices. I was brought up with parents who didn't allow these things into our home (except whole grain bread), everything was homemade, there was always at least 2 vegtables, boiled potatos were served at every meal and some meat on the table for dinner, we immigrated to the USA when I was 9. This WOE is still how I do things and how my parents do things. Prepackaged foods were a occassional treat..maybe 1 a month or every other month. I never had McD...until gasp..I was 19 yrs old. In my life maybe I've eaten fast food 3-4 times per year. Now I never eat at these places. I make enough food so my dh goes with a lunch for work every day (when I worked (retired last year), I would cook enough every Sunday for the entire work week lunches for both of us and dinners), just adding fresh vegs every day).
BTW..breathing is really bad for cancer risk as well.
Again, it's a choice. Now I choose to remove starch from my diet due to the pain of AS
