A Guide for Families & Their SuperKids - Squarespace

LO V E | H O P E | T H R I V E FIERCE FOODS

VOLUME

No 3

Fierce Foods A Guide for Families & Their SuperKids

WHAT’S INSIDE 2 Five Reasons Food Matters 5 5 Food Fights: Controversies Over Nutrition, Health, and Cancer 11 5 Fierce Foods Grocery Shopping Skills 15 6 Steps to Getting SuperFood into SuperKids 19 Additional MaxLove Project Resources 21 5 Fierce Food Recipes for One Full Day

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Thank you for joining us in thriving against the odds! As a family affected by childhood cancer, we know what it

Welcome SuperKid Families!

means to fight, collapse with exhaustion, and get up and fight again. But through it all, we know that families like us don’t just want to survive, we want to thrive. One key to thriving in the face of cancer is nutrition. But when we left the hospital and began chemotherapy after our son’s brain surgery, we were told by doctors to let Max eat whatever he wants, just get him calories. This stunned us; he’s fighting for his life, yet we should fuel him with junk food? We weren’t oncologists, surgeons, or any other type of medical professional. But as parents, we knew that there was more we could do to give our kid the best possible chance against this frightening disease. This was the beginning of our journey to survive and thrive.

At MaxLove Project, we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all diet. We are all about giving families the tools and information to use food to meet their own needs and goals. To do this, we draw on decades of experience from certified nutritionists and researchers who specialize in anticancer nutrition. The booklet you’re holding is an introduction to anticancer nutrition and an invitation to our MaxLove community.

www.maxloveproject.org

Fierce Foods: A Guide for Families & Their SuperKids | MAXLOVE PROJECT

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REASONS FOOD MATTERS in Cancer Treatment and Survivorship

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A healthy diet is the foundation for surviving and thriving.

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The right nutrients can strengthen our immune system.

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Cancer is promoted by inflammation. We can lower inflammation through diet.

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For many cancers, diet can have a direct anti-cancer effect.

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Oncologists don’t treat late effects. Proper nutrition can help.

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A healthy diet is the foundation for surviving and thriving.

The foods we eat everyday create an overall environment in our bodies. While an anticancer diet alone is not curative, it can make our body more or less favorable to cancer, and more or less favorable to a healthy recovery from cancer treatment. No diet has ever been shown to completely cure or prevent cancer. But many high-profile, peerreviewed studies show that the right dietary strategies lead to lower cancer rates, better quality of life while in cancer treatment, and a longer survival time.1 Most researchers believe that an overall healthy diet works on so many different parts of the body and in so many different ways, that it is easiest to talk about creating a healthy overall bodily environment, rather than about how a diet can have a single, specific effect.

MAXLOVE PROJECT | Fierce Foods: A Guide for Families & Their SuperKids

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While there are sometimes good reasons to depress the body's immune system (as in bone marrow transplants or auto-immune diseases) the immune system plays a key role in healing from cancer. As a group of researchers stated in a recent study: The strength of the immune system is “the strongest prognostic factor for [cancer] recurrence and overall survival.”2 The immune system is a complex system of organs, tissues, cells, and cell products that fight substances harmful to the body. It’s not fully understood, but we do know that stress, exercise, sleep, and diet influence it in powerful ways. Diet not only boosts the immune system, with foods like slow-cooked broths, mushrooms, broccoli, berries, but diet can also suppress the immune system, with things like sugar, refined carbohydrates, and highly processed foods.

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The right nutrients can strengthen our immune system.

Cancer is promoted by inflammation in the body. We can lower inflammation through diet.

Inflammation is the body’s natural immune response to damage (shocks, cuts, burns, poisons, infections, etc.). But it is now widely accepted that inflammation plays a large role in cancer growth, “including initiation, promotion, malignant conversion, invasion, and metastasis.”3 Diet can affect inflammation in the body. Sugar, refined carbohydrates, and too much omega-6 fat from grains and vegetable oils can contribute to inflammation. Most whole foods are anti-inflammatory: cold-water fish (wild salmon, cod, halibut, haddock, chunk light tuna), grass-fed beef and dairy, organic omega-3 eggs, dark leafy greens, berries, sugar-free chocolate. Specific plant extracts are strongly anti-inflammatory: turmeric (curcumin), green tea extract, quercetin, and resveratrol.



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5 Reasons Food Matters in Cancer Treatment and Survivorship

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Many solid-tumors use blood sugar (glucose) at a much higher rate than normal cells, and are less able to use other types of fuel (like ketone bodies that are derived from fat). The ketogenic diet is a promising new dietary strategy for treating cancer. It is a diet designed to lower blood sugar and increase other fuels like ketone bodies and thus suppress the growth of tumors.4 Patients greatly restrict refined and starchy carbohydrates and greatly increase dietary fat like coconut oil, olive oil, avocados and butter. For more information on this diet please see our Quick Guide to the Ketogenic Diet at www.maxloveproject.org.

REASON NO 5

Oncologists don’t treat late effects. Real food can help.

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Childhood cancer survivors are at a much greater risk for diabetes, obesity, and malnutrition.5

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If children start on a healthy diet while in treatment, their risks will likely decrease.

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For many cancers, diet can have a direct anti-cancer effect.

If our goal as parents is for our children to not only survive, but thrive, nutrition needs to be a major part of their treatment.


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FOOD FIGHTS

Controversies Over Nutrition, Health, and Cancer

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the information and competing nutritional dogmas out there. As busy and stressed parents, we’re inclined to just tune it all out. What we want to do is simplify the conversation by clearly addressing the main points of conflict. Our goal is not to settle these debates but rather to help families find their own best answers.

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Does Sugar Cause or Promote Cancer? Sugar does not independently cause cancer but it might promote it. By sugar we mean any carbohydrate that our bodies can convert into blood sugar (also known as glucose) for example, table sugar, flour, starches, honey, syrup, etc. Here are the ways that sugar might promote cancer: Most solid tumor cancer cells consume glucose up to 100 times faster than normal cells. This is what makes PET scans possible. They also need glucose to survive whereas most normal cells can switch to using a byproduct of fat called ketone bodies. This is what the ketogenic diet is designed to do: get the body to produce ketones as a supplemental fuel. This diet is now in almost a dozen clinical trials for cancer patients. In less serious situations, there might not be a need to go on a ketogenic diet; but recent research suggests that simply limiting the amount of glucose circulating in the blood stream can have a positive effect in long-term outcomes and overall health.4 When glucose enters our blood stream our bodies need to produce insulin and insulin-like growth factors in order to process it into energy. When there is a large amount of these and when they fluctuate wildly, as when we eat a lot of sugar and highly-refined carbs at once, a pro-inflammatory environment is created in our bodies. Over time and in conjunction with other dietary, genetic, and environmental factors, this can provide a favorable environment for cancer.6 Finally, high blood sugar is connected to many non-cancer diseases like diabetes and obesity, which raise the risk of developing cancer or cancer recurrence.



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5 Food Fights: Controversies Over Nutrition, Health and Cancer

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Does Meat Cause or Promote Cancer? In the past, some researchers have shown a link between red meat consumption and cancer risk. And other researchers have argued there are links between overall meat consumption and cancer risk. But recent, large, and well designed studies have shown the only clear link between cancer and meat is with processed meat and burnt meat.7 And even then, the cancer risk is not high. Many researchers believe that this cancer-meat link is due to the high levels of sodium in processed meat and the carcinogenic chemicals produced when meat is charred. In other words, the meat itself is not the issue. Other researchers believe that the quality of meat makes a big difference. In organic grass-fed beef and free-range chickens there are higher levels of good fats, and no antibiotics and growth hormones. Organic, grass-fed beef is also an excellent source of vitamin B-12, iron, and zinc. We all know that organic meat is usually very expensive. And while there are some cheaper places to get it (check your local farmer’s market and don’t be afraid to tell your story and see if the price goes down), a good way to bring the cost down is to do smaller portions of muscle meat and add in offal (organs and bones; the internet is abound with tasty recipes). Bone broth is one of the most nourishing foods a cancer patient can have. Finally, be aware that the long “established” link between animal fat and heart disease has turned out to be based on shaky science. As one major study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found, when you take all the relevant studies together, animal fat has no negative effect on heart health.7

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Isn’t Juicing Part of an Anticancer Diet? Most cancer families find juicing to be attractive because of the rationale behind it: if fruit and vegetables are good for us, then a concentrated dose of them in the form of juice must be extra-good for us. Many anticancer nutritionists point out two major problems with this. The first is that there is no good evidence that juicing has any beneficial effect. While there are dozens of studies showing the anticancer properties of different phytonutrients (plant nutrients) there is no evidence that these phytonutrients make it to the tumor environment. Most are changed in important ways in the gut and might not have any direct effect on cancer. The second problem is the sugar and carbohydrates. Juices are the worst offenders, but smoothies (where the entire fruit is blended and included in the drink) are unhelpful in this regard as well. One bottle of Naked brand berry smoothie has 58 grams of carbohydrates, all of them sugar. We might

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5 Food Fights: Controversies Over Nutrition, Health and Cancer

expect a “green” smoothie to be better, but Naked’s “Green Machine” has 66 grams of carbohydrates, 56 of them sugar. Making your own at home isn’t much better. One popular cancer juicing website recommends a seemingly healthy spinach-cucumber-celery juice that has 35 grams of carbohydrates in it. To put this all in perspective, the ketogenic diets that are in clinical trial right now for cancer treatment restrict carbohydrates to 20-30 grams for the entire day. Even for families who don’t need or want to restrict carbohydrates, there are healthier ways to get nutrient-dense veggies and fruit into their diet, like eating them whole. When we eat fruit and veggies whole, we’re also getting the benefits of the natural fibers they contain.

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How Bad are Artificial Sweeteners? Controversy has swirled around artificial sweeteners since their inception. Critics argue that because they are artificial they are harmful, cause digestive problems, and trick the body and brain into wanting to eat more than otherwise. A new study has even shown that some artificial sweeteners negatively effect gut bacteria and mess up our metabolism.8 The first thing to recognize is that not all artificial sweeteners are the same. They range from the highly artificial (like aspartame) to those more closely related to a plant source (like stevia or monk fruit). In the middle are sweeteners like erythritol and xylitol. It’s important to distinguish these so we can ask more useful questions like, which artificial sweeteners are the best and which are the worst? The most important things to look for are: l

How much does it raise blood sugar?

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Is it harmful?

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Will it upset my (or my kid’s) tummy?

Using these questions, we’ve found that the best artificial sweeteners are erythritol and stevia, with xylitol coming in third place. Erythritol and stevia have a glycemic index of zero (that is, they don’t raise blood sugar at all), have not been shown to be harmful even in large, super-human doses, and generally don’t upset tummies. Xylitol tastes more like sugar than the other two, but it can upset tummies and raises blood sugar a tiny bit (it has a glycemic index of 13). Many well-respected nutrition experts will caution against using artificial sweeteners because, they say, we just don’t know enough to say they’re absolutely safe. But for parents trying to cut carbohydrates out of their kids’ diets, non-sugar sweeteners like erythritol and stevia can make tough dietary changes a lot easier. Our kids can go to birthday parties, have treats, and enjoy sweets just like all the other kids, all while maintaining a very healthy, cancer-fighting metabolism.

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Do Supplements Help or Hurt? This is one of the most difficult topics to manage in the world of integrative oncology. Anyone who has stepped foot into the supplement section of a health food store knows the overwhelming variety and outrageous claims of nutritional supplements. What’s even worse for cancer patients is that some supplements that are perfectly good for those without cancer could be downright harmful for those with cancer. Folate (and its synthetic version, folic acid) is one of these, according to biochemist Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Folate aids healthy cellular proliferation but can also aid unhealthy proliferation in tumors. Normal levels of folate from green vegetables will not promote cancer growth, but large doses from supplements might. A few good rules of thumb for deciding on whether to include a supplement into your child’s regimen are: l

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Only take supplements that fill a hole in your child’s diet or lifestyle. For example, an omega-3 fish oil supplement might be helpful if your child doesn’t eat a lot of fish. A vitamin D supplement is helpful if your child is not getting sufficient sunlight exposure on his/her skin. Only take supplements that your doctor is not opposed to. Many doctors are ambivalent about supplements, but may not necessarily be opposed to them. Tell your doctor the name and the dose to make sure it’s safe and doesn’t interact with any other treatments your child is receiving. Only buy supplements from well-known retailers and well-known brands. Ask around on our Fierce Foodies Facebook Group and many parents will recommend their favorite brands. Learn as much as you can about the supplement in question so you can make informed decisions as treatment changes.

anticancer diet is NOT about miracle foods or miracle diets “ An that will cure cancer; its about eating the right foods in the right way to create an overall anticancer environment in our kids’ bodies. ”



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FIERCE FOODS Grocery Shopping Skills

Anticancer nutrition is a learned skill. It’s just like learning a language or how to build a car: it takes time, practice, and you are never truly finished learning. Here are the essential skills to get you started.

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The Ingredients List Nothing is as important as learning how to quickly scan the ingredient list and determine what you have to put back on the shelf. The first thing to know is that the closer an ingredient is to the beginning of the list, the more of it there is in that product. So, make sure the first several ingredients are ones that you’re sure you want in your child’s body. The second thing to know is that sugar goes under many different names, so look out for: honey, agave nectar, evaporated cane syrup, molasses, any juice or concentrated fruit, dextrose, glucose, sucrose, corn syrup, maple syrup…The list goes on. One popular health website counted 257 different names for sugar (and high-glycemic sweeteners). Finally, a good rule of thumb is to avoid products with strange ingredients. But not all things strange are bad. Checkout a mobile phone app called Chem Cuisine by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. You can enter any ingredient you find and it will tell you what the science says.

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Know Your Carbohydrates An overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that lowering blood sugar is a powerful way to maintain whole-body health. It also may help fight cancer. The research suggests that limiting blood sugar may restrict the growth of tumors. In blood cancers, a recent study showed that keeping blood sugar in a healthy range might lower the incidence of neutropenia (low white blood cell counts). Combined with other therapies, it can make an important difference in outcomes. Carbohydrate restriction is a great way to lower blood sugar. But not all carbohydrates are made the same. On the nutritional labels for food products, fiber is counted as a carbohydrate. It comes in two


Fierce Foods: A Guide for Families & Their SuperKids | MAXLOVE PROJECT 11

5 Fierce Foods Grocery Shopping Skills

forms: soluble and insoluble. A short hand for differentiating the two is that soluble feeds our good gut bacteria and insoluble passes right through us via fecal matter (poop). Think insoluble is in the toilet! Fiber generally does not raise blood sugar and so some people speak of “net” carbs as the real concern. Net carbohydrates are calculated by subtracting the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbohydrates. For example, three medium strawberries have a total of 2.7 grams of carbohydrates and 0.6 grams of fiber. The net carbs here is 2.1 grams. In order to maximize the nutrition in your carbohydrate intake, choose veggies and fruit with more fiber and lower net carbs. We have suggestions in the recipe section. If you want to begin cutting back on carbs, the best way to start is by eliminating nutrientpoor carbohydrates like sugar and starch and refined grains, and getting more nutrient-dense carbohydrates like green vegetables and low-glycemic fruit like berries.

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Know Your Fats You’ve probably heard that fat is back on the menu. After seeing fat featured in Time, the New York Times, and on Dr. Oz, many people are finding creative ways to get more fat into their diet. But not all fat is created equal. Fats are classified by their molecular structure. When doctors, scientists, and nutritionists speak of saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated fats, they’re referring to the position and bonds of different types of atoms. It’s not important to know what molecular differences there are between omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. What’s important for us to know is that these different types of fats have different effects on our health. BEST FATS: Saturated fats like coconut oil; butter and ghee from grass-fed cows; lard and tallow from pasture-raised pigs and cows. These are the best to cook with because they don’t breakdown as easily in high heat so there is less risk that they will oxidize into harmful, inflammatory fats when cooked. Saturated fats have received a bad reputation over the years, but recent studies are showing that they have practically no effect on heart health or mortality. OK FATS: Monounsaturated fats like olive oil, avocado oil, like macadamia nut oil. They’re perfectly healthy fats, but they get the “ok” label because they can breakdown (oxidize) more quickly than saturated fats over heat. So, they are best used in salads and as add-on fats to a meal already cooked. FATS TO WATCH OUT FOR: Polyunsaturated fats in unbalanced ratios can be inflammatory in the body.9 These come primarily in two varieties—omega-3 and omega-6. Omega-3 fats (found in seafood, some eggs, grass-fed cows, flax seed, and chia seeds) are considered to be very healthy and important for brain health and heart health, so in general are not a concern. Omega-6 fats are found in meat, grains, and seeds. While these fats are necessary for our bodies, modern humans get far too much. Researchers agree the ideal omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is somewhere between 1:1 and 1:3.

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Today most people are eating a diet with an omega-3-to-6 ratio of 1:20. The best way to help even out this ratio is to increase the intake of omega-3 foods (listed above) and greatly decrease the intake of fats from seed oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, corn, cottonseed and vegetable oil, and choose grass-fed beef over conventional when possible.

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Grass-fed vs. Grain-fed Beef Many families are pleasantly surprised to learn that red meat can be in an anticancer diet. (See the “Food Fight” section for more on meat and cancer.) The question then turns to: what kind of red meat is the best? At most health-conscious grocery stores you’ll have a choice of grass-fed or conventional, grain-fed beef. As you might imagine, there’s quite a big difference in the meat of cows fed grass vs. grain. To begin, grain-fed cows are not only fed grain. They’re fed cotton byproducts, corn husks, peanut shells, and even old candy, wrappers and all.10 And many grass-fed cows are fed grain right before slaughter (this is called grass-fed, grain-finished). So these labels are just rough approximations of what the cows actually eat. But even so, researchers have found a significant difference in the nutrients between grass- and grain-fed beef. In grass-fed beef there is far more omega-3 fat, thus bringing the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats close to 1:1. In a review of the literature, one health experts writes that grass-fed beef is “higher in B-vitamins, beta-carotene (look for yellow fat), vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol), vitamin K, and trace minerals like magnesium, calcium, and selenium. Studies show grass feeding results in higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid, the “good” naturally occurring trans fat.”11 While grass-fed meat can be much more expensive than the conventional stuff, there are ways to work around it. Applegate brand makes a great grass-fed organic hot dog that is sold across the United States. And muscle meat is just one part of the animal. Find a good butcher and start exploring organ meats and bone-in meats. They’re packed with nutrients and much cheaper!

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Shop Around Between the internet and brick-and-mortar stores, we get our food from at least 6 different purveyors. It’s daunting at first, but we’ve developed a routine: at one store we know to get a, b, and c, and at the next it’s always d, e, and f. For example, there is only one store near us that carries amazing, fully pasture-raised hen eggs, and another where we can always get Zevia and Lilly’s chocolate for cheaper. And often, a little extra work will save a lot of money. If you have a food processor, make your own nut flours. Always save your bacon grease (as long as the bacon is from a high quality source) and use it to save money on butter. Look for strange but cheap cuts of meat. Lamb neck stew has become our favorite!




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STEPS

to Getting Superfoods into SuperKids

Anticancer nutrition is a journey not a destination. Making small changes and sticking with them is always better than making big changes and dropping them. Here are 6 steps you can use at your own pace to make anticancer nutrition a sustainable lifestyle for your family.

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Keep the Sweets but Lose the Sugar A central goal of an anticancer diet is lowering our blood sugar (see Food Fight Controversy #1). We can do this by cutting down on, and hopefully cutting out, all added sugar. This includes honey, maple syrup, fruit juice, evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, and agave nectar. But this doesn’t mean we have to cut out sweetness. As we mentioned earlier, we can still have sweets on an anticancer diet, but they should be sweetened with something that doesn’t raise blood sugar. Stevia and erythritol are the best choices, but xylitol is also good. There are a number of excellent options for sugar-free sweets out there, but our favorite is chocolate. Brands like Lily’s Sweets are not only sweetened with erythritol and stevia, they’re high in fiber and very healthy fats. Throughout Max’s treatment (and still), chocolate was the go-to treat for rewards, dessert, alternativeto-birthday-holiday-candy, and all-around-mood-enhancer. We eat it as is, melt to dip strawberries, bake with it, and chop it into nut butter.

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Make Anticancer Nutrition Fun! If you’ve seen an anticancer cookbook lately, then you’ve seen tasty, beautiful recipes that our kids wouldn’t touch in a million years. Garlic leek soup, anyone? Fortunately, there are now a number of fantastic healthy, whole-food, kid-friendly cookbooks on the market. Check out our MaxLove Project Book Club list for a range of cookbooks that will have your kids excited about grocery shopping, recipe prepping, and cooking. Let your kids browse through the recipes and pick their own meals for the week. And don’t be afraid to mix-up your low-carbohydrate, high-fat treats. Sugar-free chocolate for breakfast? Sugar-free ice cream for lunch? Scrambled eggs and bacon for dinner? Go for it!



6 Steps to Getting Superfoods into SuperKids

And treats don’t always have to be calorically dense food. Sometimes our kids just want something sweet. Believe it or not, one of the best choices you can make is Zevia, a zero-calorie, sugar-free soda sweetened with our favorites: stevia and erythritol. And if you get the kid flavors, they have no coloring and no sodium. It’s a great treat and is healthier than juice, which has too much sugar. Best of all: it lets our kids be kids.

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Make Fat Your New Favorite F Word Most of us grew up hearing about the dangers of a high-fat diet. It could wreck your heart, make you fat, and maybe even cause cancer! We now know that the low-fat diet wasn’t such a great idea. When you cut out fat, you necessarily have to increase either carbohydrates, which raise blood sugar, or protein, which raises insulin, both of which might be tumor promoting. We also know that fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat. When you replace carbohydrates with fat, your body begins to use fat as a primary fuel, which leads to better appetite control and metabolic health. In one famous study out of Stanford, a low-carb diet was compared to several other major diets and it came out best for weight control and metabolic health.12 Most importantly, recent research has found that a diet very high in fat and very low in carbohydrates (called a ketogenic diet) has been shown to significantly affect the tumor environment of cancer patients.7 By lowering the amount of blood sugar a tumor gets, this way of eating has the potential to limit tumor growth and increase the efficacy of conventional cancer treatment. Best of all, fat is delicious! Sugar-free ice cream, bacon, and broccoli swimming in butter are just some of the fun ways that you can super-boost your kid’s diet.

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Get Creative with Greens Every kid is different, but most have a natural aversion to the color green on their dinner plate. It took us a lot of trial and error to find the right greens and the right way to cook them for Max. Here are the experiments we suggest: l l

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Prepare a vegetable every which way. Bake it, steam it, boil it, pan fry it, eat it raw. Cover it with as many low-carbohydrate/high-fat sauces as you can: butter, cheese sauce, pan sauce, mayo, homemade ranch. Cut them up small and put them in a delicious soup. On our website you’ll find recipes for cream of broccoli, chicken noodle soup, lamb neck stew, and bone broth. All of these are excellent opportunities to add nutrient-dense veggies.

If nothing else works (or in addition), you can turn to Amazing Grass’s Kidz Superfood, a tasty smoothie powder made of dried greens like wheat grass, alfalfa, and kale. It took a while to figure out exactly how Max likes it best. Turns out that it’s not as a smoothie; the texture turns him off. We mix it


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with sugar-free ice cream, make popsicles, and also make peanut-butter and chocolate balls out of it! His sister loves it plain with almond milk.

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Get Back to Basics When you’re in doubt, think back to traditional foods your grandmother or great-grandmother would’ve cooked. Chances are, those foods are very healthy, if not downright anticancer. Take bone broth for example. This is in practically every culinary culture in the world. Some recipes might have different herbs or spices, but they all produce a wildly nutritious and healing food that should be a staple of every anticancer diet. What other traditional foods are in your family’s culinary arsenal? For us, Max’s dad’s family came from New Mexico and had an amazing chile posole recipe. We had to take out the hominey (too high in carbohydrate) and switch in cauliflower. It’s just as amazing as ever, and absolutely full of healing nutrients. Unfortunately, we’ve been taught to look at our culinary traditions with suspicion. In the 20th century, lard, tallow, and butter were replaced with margarine and Crisco. Meat from pastured animals was replaced with meat from sick, industrial farms. And whole vegetables and fruit were replaced by packaged snack foods. By just turning back the culinary clock, we can make a big difference in the health of our entire family.

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Fierce Foods Book Club The more you know about nutrition, the easier it will be to make positive, sustainable choices for yourself and your family. But because there are so many different and competing nutritional philosophies out there, it’s tough to know where to begin. We’ve curated a list of excellent books by doctors and researchers at www.maxloveproject.org/mlp-book-club/ If you’re looking for a place to start, we suggest you try Dr. Cate Shanahan’s Food Rules. Also, we’ll send you a free copy of Food Rules if you’re one of the first 30 Fierce Foods Families to email [email protected] with a review of this Fierce Foods Guide.




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ADDITIONAL

MaxLove Project Resources

Nutritional Consultations Making major nutritional changes can be overwhelming. That’s why families need more than information. They need individualized guidelines, goals, and strategies. To this end, MaxLove Project fully funds consultations for families with experienced, professional dietitians. These consultations are designed to allow families to identify the changes they want to make and the strategies that will help them get there. If you are interested, please go to the following URL to fill out an intake form: www.maxloveproject.org/nutrition-consultation-intake-form/

Quick Guide to the Ketogenic Diet Families with children with solid tumors may want to explore an experimental diet that is currently being studied in several clinical trials in the U.S. and the world. It’s a very low-carbohydrate called the ketogenic diet and it’s been shown to be safe and feasible in both children and adults. To learn more, please download our short manual, A Parents’ Quick Guide to the Ketogenic Diet as an Adjunctive Cancer Treatment. MaxLove Project also offers families private consultations with ketogenic diet nutritionists. You can find these resources on our website at www.maxloveproject.org/introduction-to-the-ketogenic-diet-for-cancer/

Fierce Foodies Support Group Most of the time, families don’t need a focused, hour-long private consultation. They just have a quick question or a concern, or want to share an awesome meal or a hilarious cooking disaster. That’s what our Fierce Foodies Support Group is all about. With hundreds of parents with children in cancer treatment or survivorship, this online group is full of parents fighting the same battles. It’s monitored by our very own MaxLove Project dietitian Blakely Page, RD, and MaxLove Project founders Audra and Justin Wilford. So you can rest assured that the dialogue is always supportive and healthy, and the information is always scientifically sound. If you’re interested in joining this group send a request to [email protected].

Fierce Foods Cooking Classes | Currently for Southern California Families Held several times a year in Orange County, California, these cooking classes bring parents and kids together with dietitians and chefs to get hands-on experience with anticancer foods. To get up-to-date information on our next cooking class please join our Fierce Foodies Support Group.



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FIERCE FOODS RECIPES for One Full Day

There are dozens of great anticancer recipe books out there and hundreds of awesome recipes online. But when you’re a busy parent with picky kids, these recipes can be practically useless. Thriving is about not just doing what’s healthy, but doing what’s practical and sustainable. So, here are some quick and easy ways to get anticancer food on your family’s table!

BREAKFAST NSNG Toast LUNCH The EZ Bento SNACK No Grain CheeZe Crackers and Guacamole DINNER Ancient-Modern Chicken Noodle Soup DESSERT Sugar-free Ice Cream We’d love to hear how you customize these recipes for your family! Share your creativity on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/maxloveproject



5 Fierce Food Recipes for One Full Day

Breakfast

NSNG Toast NSNG = No Sugar, No Grains! Cutting out grains and sugar is only hard if you can’t have a nice piece of toast, right? Here’s a great way to make breakfast fun, get plenty of good fat, fiber, and protein, and have loads leftover for the week ahead.

Ingredients

MAKE IT SWEET!

1 cup of nut butter You can mix cashew, almond, and macadamia nut. Macadamia nut is the best because of its high-fat to carb/protein ratio.

To make a carrot spice bread, cupcake or waffle, simply use this recipe and add 1 cup of ZSweet (erythritol/stevia blend), 1/3 cup of shredded carrots, and ample anti-inflammatory pumpkin spice: 2 tbs Cinnamon, 1 tbs Turmeric, 2 tsp Nutmeg, and 2 tsp Cloves.

5 eggs 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon erythritol and a drop of stevia to taste ¾ teaspoon baking soda ¼ teaspoon sea salt

What to do Preheat oven to 350° and repare baking dish with coconut oil. Blend together the nut butter and eggs in a food processor until very smooth. Add erythritol, stevia and salt, mix. Add apple cider vinegar and baking soda, blend. Pour batter into bread shaped baking dish and bake for 45 minutes. Cool on cooling rack for 2 hours. To store the bread let it sit out for 5 hours to let the moisture evaporate then wrap in paper towels and place inside a large ziplock bag and refrigerate. Tip: Try frying bread slices in ghee/clarified butter or coconut oil to brown. Add a bit of salt, make into a grilled cheese or grilled bread to use with tuna salad, as bruschetta, a flavored cream cheese, or with almond butter and Lily’s chips. There are so many possibilities!


GET CREATIVE! Add garlic and herbs to make an herbed bread. Add chopped olives to make an olive bread. Make peanut chocolate chip bread by subbing in peanut butter, add ZSweet to sweeten, and add Lily’s chocolate chips. Tip: this recipe is flexible and can be used in a bread pan, muffin tin, large cake pan to make into a pizza crust, and even a waffle iron!

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Lunch

The EZ Bento School lunches can be stressful because of all the limitations—ingredients need to keep cold or stay hot, can’t be too messy, has to be eaten quickly, and so on. We’ve found that a bento approach solves a lot of problems. We’ve also found a couple of great ways to sneak in extra fat (for families doing the therapeutic ketogenic diet). This lunch seems too simple to put into recipe format, but that’s part of the point: we can do easy lunches that also fit all the criteria for optimal health. Listed below are all items that can be mixed and matched throughout the week.

Ingredients

What to Do

Ham/Salami/Turkey sliced Salami has the best fat-to-protein ratio

In either a bento box, lunch box with individual compartments, or in individual small containers, put all the foods separately except for the whipped cream, chocolate chips and MCT oil. Use the whipped cream to top the fruit. And mix the chocolate chips into the peanut butter (and add a teaspoon of MCT oil for keto families). Close it all up and put it in a lunch bag with an ice pack. Done!

Cheese from grass-fed cows Kerrygold cheeses are widely available Persian cucumbers, bell peppers, and/or baby carrots Fruit of any kind, sliced Berries are the best because they are nutrient dense and low-glycemic Homemade pasture-raised dairy or coconut cream whipped cream, sweetened with erythritol and/or stevia to taste Peanut butter Or cashew or almond butter depending on your child’s sensitivities Lily’s no-sugar added chocolate chips Roasted seaweed snacks Macadamia nuts Grilled NSNG bread Optional for keto families: MCT oil or coconut oil




Snack

No-grain CheeZe Crackers & Guacamole One of the most difficult things for kids—and parents—to give up is crackers. You can dip ‘em, stack ‘em, or eat ‘em alone. But they raise blood sugar and inflammation, and are nutrient-poor. But we found a way around all that. It’s essentially nuts and cheese mashed up into cracker form. And our kids love it!

Ingredients

What to Do

1 ½ cups grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°

1 ½ cups nut meal mixture We make our own nut meal by combining a mixture of hazelnut, cashew, almond, and/ or macadamia nuts in a food processor and grinding to a fine meal. You can purchase already ground nut meals on Amazon.com or at health food stores.

Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender

¼ teaspoon sea salt 3 tablespoons water To help the dough

Drip the water into the dough as you mix, a little bit at a time When the mixture holds together well enough to roll into balls, pour it out onto parchment paper Separate into two balls and roll out each ball to an ⅛ to ¼ inch thick Using a cookie cutter or knife, cut into whatever cracker shapes your heart desires! Bake for 25 minutes Let cool. Serve with your favorite guacamole.


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Dinner

Ancient-Modern Chicken Noodle Soup There are very few things more nourishing than chicken soup. But if you add in grain-based noodles, have store-bought broth, and go light on the veggies, then the nutrient value goes way down. The good news is that you can have an extremely nutrient-dense and off-the-chart delicious chicken noodle soup if you just make a couple of tweaks. The “ancient” part of this soup comes from the homemade chicken stock. This gives you a traditional broth that a caveman would die for. The modern part comes from the kelp noodles. These are a thoroughly modern invention but they’re excellent as a noodle substitute because they soak up the flavor of whatever they’re in and they don’t raise blood sugar.

Ingredients

Peel off meat, dice to bite size, and set aside.

1 whole, organic, pasture-raised chicken

Cut the chicken carcass in half and throw the entire carcass back in the pot. Also add bones, tendons, and everything but the skin back into the pot.

1 cup of roughly chopped onions 1 cup of roughly chopped celery 1 cup of roughly chopped carrots

Add 3 or so cups of water and the vinegar or white wine. Simmer over low heat uncovered for 2 or more hours. If you see the liquid in the pot go down, add more water.

1 cup of finely diced leeks 3 garlic cloves Salt and pepper to taste

After two hours of simmering stock, remove from heat and strain out the veggies and bones.

2 – 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or white wine 2 packages of Kelp noodles 1 package of organic frozen veggies California style blend is always a good choice

What to do Remove giblets and rinse the chicken. Sauté onions, celery, carrots, leaks, and garlic with lard, ghee or coconut oil and salt. When starting to brown, add the chicken and giblets. Fill pot with water until the chicken is covered. Heat over medium-high for 30 minutes. Turn off heat, remove chicken, allow to cool.


Put the strained liquid back in the pot, add the chicken meat, frozen veggies, and kelp noodles. Salt to taste. Simmer for 15 minutes. Spoon into bowls. We like it with parmesan cheese and a little bit of extra fat (olive oil, coconut oil, or lard). TIP: This soup is a great base. Find recipes for posole (use cauliflower instead of hominy), Thai noodle soup (use kelp noodles instead of rice noodles), or a West African soup (use cauliflower instead of potatoes). Get creative!




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Dessert

Sugar-free Ice cream The amazing thing about the food industry is that their worst inventions (margarine? Twinkies?) are as bad as their best inventions are good. Two of these good ones are stevia and eyrthritol. Both are “natural” sweeteners, in the sense they are derived from plant sources. But they must undergo intense modern processing to get them into a form we can use. And they both do not raise blood sugar at all. The bottom line is that these two sweeteners have been found to be perfectly safe for daily consumption. This is good news because they’re the basis for all the sweets we use on a low-carbohydrate diet. This is a recipe for the most delicious, scoopable ice cream around. You’ll need an ice cream maker but it will be a worthwhile investment. The best part about it is that your ice cream is essentially eggs and organic heavy cream from grass-fed cows, so it can be breakfast and dessert!

Ingredients

What to do

2 ½ cups of heavy cream or coconut cream Grass-fed, organic heavy cream

It’s too easy! Just whip the eggs with ZSweet or erythritol until blended. Add glycerin, stevia, salt, xantham gum and vanilla. Mix well again. Add cream. Gently mix enough to get everything blended. Pour into ice cream machine. Enjoy for any meal or dessert! It’s highly nutritious and perfect for keto-kids.

3 eggs* Organic, pasture-raised  Big pinch of salt  ½ cup of ZSweet or ¾ cups erythritol  Several drops of stevia glycerite to taste  1 ¼ tablespoon of vegetable glycerine** Totally safe to eat, makes ice cream real creamy ¼ teaspoon of xantham gum Optional, makes the ice cream stretchy Vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract to taste. * Consuming raw eggs may increase your risk of food borne illness especially for immunocompromised individuals. Pasteurized eggs can be used in this recipe. ** Make sure that you are using vegetable glycerin. It will say “food grade” on the bottle. If you are unsure, ask your doctor or dietitian.



Sources McGirt, M. J., et al. (2008) Persistent outpatient hyperglycemia is independently associated with decreased survival after primary resection of malignant brain astrocytomas. Neurosurgery, 63(2), 286-91; Derr, R. L., et al. (2009) Association between hyperglycemia and survival in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 27(7), 1082-6; Brunello, A., et al. (2011) Hyperglycemia during chemotherapy for hematologic and solid tumors is correlated with increased toxicity. American Journal of Clinical Oncology, 34(3), 292-6.

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Bindea, Gabriela, et al. (2010) Natural immunity to cancer in humans. Current Opinion in Immunology 22 (2): 215-222.

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Grivennikov, Sergei, et al. (2010) Immunity, inflammation, and cancer. Cell 140 (6): 883-899.

Allen, B. G., et al. (2014) Ketogenic diets as an adjuvant cancer therapy: History and potential mechanism. Redox Biology 2(4): 963-970; Seyfried, T. N., et al. (2014). Cancer as a metabolic disease: Implications for novel therapeutics. Carcinogenesis, 35(3), 515-527. 4

Emily S. Tonorezos and Kevin Oeffinger. (2012) Obesity following childhood cancer: Mechanisms and consequences. Energy Balance and Hematologic Malignancies (5): 141-158; Oeffinger, Kevin, et al. (2006) Chronic health conditions in adult survivors of childhood cancer. New England Journal of Medicine 355 (15): 1572-1582.

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Storey, S. & Von Ah, D. (2014). Prevalence and impact of hyperglycemia on hospitalized leukemia patients. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 18(6), 1-5.

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Micha, R. et al. (2013) Processing of meats and cardiovascular risk: Time to focus on preservatives. BMC Medicine, 11(1), 136; Chowdhury, R., et al. (2014) Association of dietary, circulating, and supplement fatty acids with coronary risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med, 160(6): 398-407. 7

Suez, J., et al. (2014) Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. Published online: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13793.html

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Kang, J. X. & Liu, A. (2012). The role of the tissue omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio in regulating tumor angiogenesis. Cancer and Metastasis Reviews, 32(1-2), 201-210.

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10 Rankins Jr., Darrell L. 2004. By-Product Feeds for Alabama Beef Cattle. Alabama Cooperative Extension System Publications. Mobile, AL.

Sisson, Mark. 2011. The Differences Between Grass-Fed and Grain-Fed Beef. Mark’s Daily Apple Blog. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-differences-between-grass-fed-beef-and-grain-fed-beef/#axzz38QDdBe5e

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Gardner CD, et al. Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN Diets for Change in Weight and Related Risk Factors Among Overweight Premenopausal Women: The A TO Z Weight Loss Study: A Randomized Trial. JAMA. 2007;297(9):969-977.) 12

DISCLAIMER We are a family-run nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to integrative oncology. This means that, in addition to conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, our kids should also receive whole-kid, whole-body wellness approaches to healing from cancer. We are not medical professionals and no information in this package is intended as medical care. The information in this package is intended to be used as a resource to make healthy, anticancer eating easier and more kid-friendly. All information is sourced from a variety of highly-regarded medical doctors, nutritionists, and researchers with bibliographic information listed on each sheet. MaxLove Project does not profit from or have any financial relationship with the companies mentioned in this guide. Photo credit: Jenny Walters inside cover, back cover; Tanya Alexis pages 7, 10, 20, 26, 29. © 2015 MaxLove Project.

199 E. City Place Drive Santa Ana, CA 92705 888.399.6511 toll free + fax www.maxloveproject.org


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Thriving is Not a Destination... It’s a Journey MaxLove Project’s Fierce Foods is not just about nutrition; it’s about physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness too. We believe in combining Fierce Foods with a Fierce Body and Fierce Mind. So we have a lot more coming. We hope you’ll stay connected to our community through Facebook, Twitter and www.maxloveproject.org as we grow, heal, and thrive!

199 E. City Place Drive Santa Ana, CA 92705 888.399.6511 toll free + fax www.maxloveproject.org MLP-FFG-001