Our Health, Our Hope

By Andrea Yoder

The beauty of Spring Creek at Harmony Valley Farm

As humans, we often see ourselves as removed from nature—as if we are looking down on it or walking amongst it yet separate.  We try to control it, but that seldom works out.  In reality, we are nature and our amazing bodies were designed to live in and work in synchronization with the natural world which was designed to work!  So when your mother told you to “Eat your vegetables,” did you ever wonder why?  Yes, the basic answer is “because they are good for you.”  But why are they good for you?  Vegetables and fruits are nature’s medicine, the building blocks and tools we need to detoxify, repair and build our body.  They contain valuable and important nutrients and compounds we need to keep our body functioning optimally.  It’s our job to care for our vessel and give it the fuel and resources it needs to achieve this state.  One way we do this is by consuming nutrient-dense foods.  When our physical state is optimized, we feel good.  We not only survive, but we thrive, have energy and vitality that allows us to fully live, experience and participate in our lives!  It impacts all aspects of our being including clear thinking, emotional stability, conscious living and an overall increased quality of life.  It helps us show up in a bigger way allowing us to contribute in positive ways in the world.  None of us knows our time on Earth, but we each have the choice every day to maximize our personal potential and impact while we’re here.

Doing our part to social distance and cover our faces!

It’s obvious our world is shifting, changing, and in many ways revealing the weaknesses in our society, food systems, political structures, etc.  COVID-19 has affected us all in major ways that go beyond having to wear a mask and social distance in public.  Our work lives have been disrupted and there may be some in our membership who have even lost their jobs.  School will look much different this fall for our students and despite the fact that we all long for COVID to make an exit, it’s clear the impact of this virus will continue.  For how long?  I’m not sure anyone knows the answer to this question.  How do we stop it?  Where do we find solutions?  There are many factors seemingly outside the realm of what we can control and impact.  This pandemic joins the ranks of so many other big issues of concern in our world today including topics like climate change, factory farming, the use of agrochemicals and the impact all these things have on human and ecological health as well as our economy.  Money seemingly buys power, but when that power is used in self-serving ways instead of for the greater good of our society we seem to move backwards, negatively impacting people and our planet.  To think about this can be pretty overwhelming and may at times leave us feeling helpless and anxious about our future.  But that’s not ok.  We are not helpless and we do have a future.  Unless we choose to give our power away, we all still have a say in all of this through the personal choices we make every day.  How do we choose to show up in the world?  From where do we draw our energy and where will we turn our attention?  What do our choices represent and support?  So lets start with something so very basic to our existence--our physical body and the strength we have as we exercise our right to make choices that positively impact our personal health and well-being.

And to think beautiful food like this Red Pepper, Lentil
and Tomato Salad can be our "medicine!"

COVID has brought forth a collection of public health messages encouraging everyone to maintain their distance, wear masks, wash your hands, etc.  On August 14, 2020 an article entitled “Why aren’t we promoting health to combat COVID-19?” was posted by Dr. Mercola.  In this article there are references to research from the scientific literature identifying lifestyle-related health conditions including obesity, diabetes, metabolic disorders, and hypertension as modifiable risk factors that make an individual more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 if exposed and may lead to more severe disease and higher risk for a more unfavorable outcome in individuals presenting with these disease conditions.  If you’re interested in reading more of the specifics about these studies, I encourage you to reference the original articles cited at the end of Dr. Mercola’s article.  While I like evidence to support practices, I think it’s already pretty well-established that our lifestyle choices are directly related to our health and wellness whether we’re in a pandemic or not!

Anthocyanins, carotenoids and so many other valuable
nutrients in vegetables such as these gorgeous beets!

For those of you who don’t know this already, my first career path was as a dietitian.  I remember sitting in one of my early nutrition classes listening to a lecture about magnesium that left me amazed that a simple mineral could impact the human body as a cofactor in literally hundreds of biochemical reactions in the human body.  Yes, we can take magnesium supplements, but we can also get magnesium from a wide variety of plant and animal foods including leafy greens.  I also remember learning about anthocyanins, a group of antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables that are the pigment that gives some foods red, blue and purple colors.  The fact that I can identify a nutrient compound in a food by its color was a pretty cool thing to learn, but the fact that they also protect our bodies in many ways through their role in scavenging free radicals that can damage our cells was even more impressive.  Yes, I was a bit of a nutrition science geek, and still to this day am completely amazed by the power of our food to impact our physical health by building our immunity, preventing the development of cancer, detoxifying our cells and so much more.  So when we say we strive to grow nutrient-dense food, this is why!  We need all of these nutrients to build our bodies up and when we eat a variety of plant foods every day the cumulative effects of all of these beneficial plant compounds become our health insurance policy!

The Nash Family, one of our awesome CSA families!
Read more about their experience here!

So in the midst of this pandemic, I applaud all of you for prioritizing organic vegetables as an important part of your diet.  When we take care of our body, our body will take care of us.  When we give our body the nutrients it needs to have a fully functioning immune system, we’ll have better outcomes should we be exposed to COVID-19, influenza or any other potentially pathogenic virus or bacteria in our environment.  Of course we also believe there are many ways we benefit our health by being connected to each other and the source of our food, spending time in nature, and participating in activities that nurture both our body and our souls such as gardening or preparing meals for ourselves.  We have many longtime members who have been eating from CSA boxes for 15-20 years, or in some cases more than 30 years!  They have experienced firsthand the health & lifestyle benefits of choosing to eat organic vegetables from a CSA box.  Many of these families also have adult children who grew up as “CSA kids,” a subset of our membership that I will forever be lovingly jealous of! These people are doing great things in this world as engaged members of our society.  This year we also have many members who are new to our farm.  Some of you have participated in CSA before while others are experiencing this way of sourcing your food for the first time.  We hope you are seeing, feeling and experiencing the positive benefits from something as simple as eating fresh food rich in nutrients.

Mother Nature never ceases to amaze us with her
expressions of beauty.

What does the future hold?  The answer to that question actually falls upon all of us starting with ourselves.  As the bounty of the summer harvest floods our kitchens, we can’t help but feel nurtured by Mother Nature who continues to feed us regardless of a pandemic or any other seemingly insurmountable life situations.  So keep eating your vegetables, cook, enjoy, be nourished and thrive.  Our society needs each one of us to contribute and be fully present to the unfolding hope of tomorrow.

Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life

A Summary by Laurel Blomquist

            The cover of Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life proclaims, “All of us have cancer cells in our bodies. But not all of us will develop cancer.”  Did you know you have cancer cells in your body? Does that thought scare you? It doesn’t have to. Read on to see what you can do about making sure those cells never proliferate or become life-threatening.

David Servan-Schreiber was an ambitious psychiatrist who had spent his life climbing the ranks of his profession. One day the volunteer subject of his brain MRI study didn’t show up, so he put himself into the machine. The scans showed a walnut-sized tumor in his brain, and thus the doctor became the patient. After diagnosis, Dr. Servan-Schreiber was treated using the most modern techniques available: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. When he asked his doctor if there was something else he could do to prevent the cancer from returning, his doctor told him to continue living life as he had prior to his diagnosis.

I have something to confess. I was diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer this past February. Yes, I followed my doctors’ recommendations regarding established medical protocols for my cancer. However, you have a feeling of powerlessness when you are just waiting around to see if the cancer is going to come back. Reading this book, as well as Foods to Fight Cancer, changed the course of my life forever.

If you had a toolbox that you could use to combat an illness from all sides, wouldn’t you want to use every tool in the box? I was inspired to change the paradigm, from giving over control to my doctors to taking control. I established a self-care routine that included rest, diet, exercise, meditation, time in nature, breathing techniques, and many more small changes in my daily routine that would alter my prognosis for the future. Of course, these diet and lifestyle changes don’t just lower my chances of getting cancer, there’s more. According to the journal Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, “Oxidative stress impacts almost all acute and chronic progressive disorders and on a cellular basis is intimately linked to aging, cardiovascular disease, cancer, immune function, metabolism and neurodegeneration.” (http://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl)

In other words, an anti-cancer diet is also anti- diabetes, obesity, insulin sensitivity, metabolic syndrome, neurological disease (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc.), gastrointestinal disease (ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, etc.), autoimmune disease (Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, etc.), and any other acute or chronic disease characterized by inflammation and oxidative stress, as well as the process of aging in general. Everyone says they want a long, healthy life. I was willing to do everything in my power in order to achieve that.  

Like myself, Dr. Servan-Schreiber was not convinced that he had no control over the recurrence of his cancer other than the treatments that doctors could provide. He points out that doctors who are at the pinnacle of research in their professions cannot stop to conduct research outside of their fields, or read experimental protocols that haven’t been given a double-blind study. He does not blame his doctors for this because they are busy doing important work to save the lives of their patients. There are many other practitioners doing alternative therapies and research, however. Dr. Servan-Schreiber is not a food chemist, so he uses research from other scientists to support his dietary recommendations. He often cites the research done by Drs. Beliveau and Gingras, who you may remember from Foods to Fight Cancer,  the book I reviewed two weeks ago. Of course, these two are not the only scientists he has explored. He is a thorough researcher; the chapter on food alone has 140 citations! The scope of this article is much too short to present all his findings, so I’m going to summarize a few fruit and vegetable recommendations he recommends for an anti-cancer diet.

The doctor states that cancer is known to thrive on both sugar and insulin, so in general, eating foods that are lower on the glycemic index should be a priority. These include peas, beans, sweet potatoes, whole fruits, and alliums such as garlic, onions, and shallots, which lower insulin peaks when combined with other foods. (p. 70)

           Stone fruits, especially plums, contain high levels of antioxidants and are more cost effective than berries, year-round. He cites a study showing that these fruits fight high cholesterol as well. (p. 119)

The labiate family, which includes mint, thyme, marjoram, oregano, basil, and rosemary, are rich in the fatty acids of the terpene family, which reduce the spread of cancer cells or provokes their death. (p. 138)

In order to grow more rapidly, cancer cells stimulate the creation of new blood vessels so that they have a fuel source close by. This is called angiogenesis. A molecule which inhibits cancer cells by blocking angiogenesis is apigenin, which is found in parsley and celery (p. 120).

Fresh Ginger Root grown on our Farm

Ginger root is also anti-inflammatory, containing antioxidants that reduce angiogenesis. It’s also anti-nauseating, helping control the side effects of chemotherapy. (p. 134)

Vegetables and fruits rich in carotenoids inhibit the growth of cancer cells and stimulate immune cells to attack cancer. These foods include carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, persimmons, apricots, and beets. The bright colors mean the foods contain vitamin A, lycopene, lutein, phytoene, and canthaxanthin. (p. 136)

Pomegranates contain antioxidants and slow prostate cancer growth by 67%! (p. 139)

Flaxseeds contain short-chain omega-3s and lignans, phytoestrogens that block harmful hormones, lower cholesterol, and maintain balanced blood sugar levels. Our friends at Driftless Organics just started producing their own organic flaxseed oil. Add it to salad dressings or smoothies for an anti-cancer cocktail. (p. 143)

Other foods the author includes as part of an anti-inflammatory diet are olive oil (especially virgin), mushrooms, and seaweed.

When Anti-Cancer was published in 2009, the health of the gut microbiome was just beginning to be on the radar; now it’s one of the hottest health topics in popular science. Dr. Servan-Schreiber cites research that states probiotic bacteria inhibit colon cancer growth by moving toxic waste out of the body. Why not make a batch of sauerkraut, kimchi, or kvass with a vegetable of your choosing (choose a brassica for an especially potent combination) and eat it regularly? Don’t forget to feed your probiotic bacteria with prebiotics, such as garlic, onions, tomatoes, sunchokes, and asparagus. (p. 143)

In addition to recommendations for specific foods, the author also emphasized the importance of organic vegetables versus conventional.  He cites a study by Dr. Cynthia Curl, who measured the amount of organochlorine pesticides in the urine of 42 preschool children. Children who were fed an organic diet had pesticide levels below the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum, while children on the conventional diet had a level 4 times the maximum. While he states that some doctors have interpreted these findings as insignificant, he disagrees, and so do other doctors. (p. 89)

He further states that selenium stimulates immune cells and boosts the effects of antioxidants. According to the author, organic foods are rich in selenium, while conventionally-grown vegetables are lacking because of soil depletion of this mineral. (p. 144)

This book was written as a tool to help all of us flip our genetic switch for cancer off by making decisions that will impact our long-term health. In summary, the doctor states, “Every day, at every meal, we can choose food that will defend our bodies against the invasion of cancer by: detoxifying carcinogenic substances; supporting our immune system; blocking the development of new (blood) vessels needed for tumor growth; preventing tumors from creating the inflammation that serves as their fertilizer; blocking the mechanisms that will enable them to invade neighboring tissues; and promoting the suicide of cancer cells.” (p. 125)

For more information, be sure to check out the book and his website: http://www.anticancerbook.com