Ultra Processed Foods UPFs
We’re only just beginning to understand the profound negative impact that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are having on our health. The connection between your gut and immune system is crucial in your journey to conquer breast cancer. Empower yourself with this knowledge – transform your choices, nurture your body, and fuel your fight for health and vitality. You hold the power to make a difference in your battle against breast cancer!
- Sugary beverages like sodas and energy drinks
- Packaged snacks such as chips and cookies
- Instant noodles and soups
- Packaged dinners like macaroni and cheese
- Spaghetti sauce
- Processed meats like sausages and deli meats
- Ready-to-eat meals and frozen dinners
- Sweetened breakfast cereals
UPFs are designed by manufacturers to be convenient and highly palatable. They highly contribute to various health issues, including obesity, diabetes, and breast cancer.
How do UPFs Cause Breast Cancer?
- High Sugar and Fat Content: UPFs often contain high levels of added sugars and unhealthy fats, which can lead to obesity – a known risk factor for various cancers, including breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers.
- Additives and Preservatives: Many UPFs contain additives, preservatives, and artificial colors and flavors, some of which have been linked to cancer in animal studies and are harmful to humans.
- Low in Nutrition: UPFs are typically low in essential nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals, which are crucial for maintaining overall health and reducing cancer risk.
- Cause Inflammation: The consumption of UPFs can lead to chronic inflammation, which is a known contributor to breast cancer development and metastasis.
- Hormonal Disruption: A lot of UPFs contain chemicals that disrupt hormonal balance leading to hormone-related cancers such as breast and ovarian cancer..
Reducing your intake of UPFs and opting for whole, minimally processed foods will significantly increase your body’s ability to rid itself of breast cancer and improve your overall health to prevent recurrence. This is as important as the direct treatment(s) you are getting – the two go hand in hand – your good nutrition will help that treatment be much more effective.
Change your diet and significantly boost your immune system
How do I avoid UPFs?
Avoiding ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is an absolute necessity to heal your body from breast cancer .
Here are some tips to help you make this change:
- Choose Whole Foods: Prioritize whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and lean proteins. If it comes in a box or a can – or is pre-made – it’s a hard NO.
- Cook at Home: Preparing meals at home gives you control over the ingredients and helps you avoid hidden additives. Read Labels: Avoid products with long ingredient lists and unfamiliar, unpronounceable items. Look for whole food ingredients instead.
- Shop the Perimeter: Grocery Stores typically place fresh produce, meats, and dairy products around the perimeter. Try to avoid the inner aisles where most UPFs are stocked.
- Cut out Packaged Snacks: Opt for healthier snacks like fresh fruits, vegetables or nuts instead of packaged chips and cookies.
- Choose Organic Cane Sugar: Instead of table sugar or sugar substitutes and sugary pre-made beverages. It’s 30-40 on the Glycemic Index instead of 65. It tastes just like table sugar and is a one-to-one substitute. You are avoiding diabetes or helping to heal from that. Breast cancer is known to also feed off glucose so lowering your blood glucose is paramount to snuffing out your breast cancer.
- Be Skeptical of “Health” Claims: Products labeled as “low-fat,” “sugar-free,” or “natural” can still be heavily processed. Always check the ingredient list. Manufacturers are known to outright lie on food packaging labels. Its prudent to be skeptical – not paranoid.
- Buy foods in glass containers: as often as possible.Place any foods that only only come in plastic into a glass or stainless steel container as soon as you arrive home from the grocery store.
By making these changes, you will significantly reduce your consumption of UPFs and improve your overall health.
Roxann’s Actual Whole Food Eating Plan
This seems like a whole lot of work! How can I actually make these changes?
Roxann does not eat any processed foods at all anymore. If it comes in a can or a box or is pre-made she doesn’t eat it. This has contributed significantly to her healing and overall well being. In Follow Roxann’s Journey you can see her blood work to prove her health.
Yes cooking from scratch is a lot of work and time consuming. However, you can minimize this by getting creative. If you have a family make this a family affair. Get your spouse and kids involved in all of it – meal planning, grocery shopping, re-packing food at home, cooking, meal prep storage (and making your new cleaning DIY products). Kids love to hep and your kids need to learn these new habits & skills to keep themselves healthy – and they won’t start as adults – you have to teach them now. If you do this will go a very long way in your child avoiding any cancer diagnosis as an adult and more specifically, your daughter avoiding a breast cancer diagnosis.
You don’t have to give up everything you love, you are going to change brands and ways of doing things. And you will discover new foods you love along the way.
Roxann’s Personal Plan:
- Once a month she devotes one entire 16 hour day to grocery shopping, transferring foods from plastic to glass, stainless steel or silicone food bags AND then cooking for one month. And she does laundry that day at the same time she is cooking – because this is what works for HER.
- Meal plans every monthly grocery trip and meal preps every meal for one month at time on this same day. Yes every meal for the entire month.
- Buys big bags of frozen veggies along with fresh and cooks them all at the same time – using multiple big pots on the stove and in the microwave.
Bakes fish & chicken in the oven along with real potatoes and starts dry beans the crockpot.. - Cleans her kitchen as she goes and then does a really good cleaning at the end. Then there is no cooking mess to deal with for an entire month!
- Purchased 22oz glass freezer containers – she meal preps in these. These containers look small, however, Roxann learned that when you are eating whole foods you eat a lot less food so this container is the perfect size for any adult meal.
- She makes as many meals in a casserole form as possible because although she wants to eat healthy she is really not that interested in cooking – she does it because she has too , if she wants to heal her body from breast cancer and prevent recurrence.
- Listens to music or watches movies while cooking and doing laundry
- Get out your grandmothers cookbook(s) and check out the recipes – they are great.
- Stop using regular white flour. Look for organic brands. Its a must. You can bake very healthy by using healthy ingredients
- Eat only Pasture raised eggs
- Make your own Mayo with pasture raised eggs & Avocado Oil (or Olive Oil)
- Make your own ketchup from real tomatoes; use organic dry mustard – just add filtered RO water if you need a liquid.
- Make your own pasta & store it in a glass pasta container – it lasts for one year – seriously!
- Eat Sourdough bread only. Make your own if you can.
- In the end because she eats less Roxann does not spend any more on groceries than she did before she went to completely clean eating.
- She did have to invest in good kitchen tools: an immersion blender, a food processor and a stand mixer, ceramic cookware and good quality wood and non-black cooking utensils. All can be purchased at thrift stores for very low prices.
You will have to find your own groove to this so you can sustain it long-term. It has to be a permanent lifestyle change in order to be effective. Think long-term when planning this change. Roxann’s favorite thinking when it comes to habit change is this:
I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I said it would be worth it
You have to make another simple yet impactful change: Stop. Eating. Out.
Instead, take a premade lunch & snacks to work and carry non-perishable snacks with you wherever you go. Take a cue from Roxann, who always keeps a jar of unsalted nuts in her car and a stainless steel tumbler with fresh water and a stainless steel straw on hand. This way, she’s never tempted to grab something processed on the go.
When you eliminate ultra-processed foods (UPFs) from your diet, you’ll notice incredible changes. You’ll feel less hungry, and your cravings for sugar will disappear. The transformation in how you feel will be astonishing – you didn’t even realize how bad you felt until you start feeling better. Most of us grew up on processed foods, so we’ve become accustomed to feeling less than our best. But within just two weeks of making this change, your gut microbes will begin to replenish, and you’ll experience a newfound sense of well-being.
You didn’t know what you were missing until you get it back! Take charge of your breast cancer healing today, and discover the amazing benefits of a diet free from UPFs, its amazing!
If you have any tips, tricks or recipes you would like to share email us, you just might find yours on our website! [email protected]
Empower Yourself Now!
Emotional Support is critical to your healing. Even if everything goes smoothly with your treatment a cancer diagnosis is stressful – reach out to your support network to help you emotionally on a regular basis. And then there is Duality to fill in the gaps!
Your Healing ToolKit
References
- DoCancer.org provides science backed nutritional information post diagnosis
- CDC nutritional advice for cancer healing
- Stanford Healthcare offers over 1000 cancer fighting recipes & snacks