Monday night is cooking class....

About four weeks ago Kerry and I started taking a cancer prevention/survival cooking class sponsored at no cost by The Cancer Project. First off, I guess I should say neither one of us has cancer but I had recently read "The China Study" and learned that more and more research is indicating a strong link between animal protein (meat/fish/poultry/dairy/eggs) and cancer. As it turns out, all of us ingest toxins, intentionally and unintentionally, and animal proteins contains hormones that kick start some of those toxins into cancerous cells. (That is a VERY abbreviated explanation so get the book from your local library and get all the details.) Anyway, we decided we needed to change our diet to a plant based one and eliminate as much animal protein as possible. The success to this approach seemed to be educating ourselves further and learning how to shop and cook more in line with this new knowledge. Shortly after reading the book, we saw an ad in our local paper for this cooking class through our local hospital and signed up. It has been one of the best decisions we ever made! Check their website at www.cancerproject.org for classes near you- we promise you won't regret it.

You get a great booklet with the weekly lesson in it and lots of great recipes. Every week we go over the lesson and the instructor cooks 3-4 recipes that we all get to sample. We have tried so many new things already! The first week dealt with how foods fight cancer and how much fat is in most animal flesh compared to plant foods- even the leanest meat.

The second week we learned about the importance of fiber in our diets and how much it combats colon cancer. Beans are one of the best sources of fiber, as well as most vegetables and fruits and grains, whole grains better than white. We got to try a great brown rice recipe, a quick black bean burrito with tomato corn salsa, and a simple guacamole recipe with green peas added for extra fiber.

Next we talked about dairy alternatives and got to sample soy, almond, and rice milk (we liked them all), veggies and beans that have lots of calcium, and tofu based sour cream and cheese (better than you'd think). We had kale for the first time and it was very good!

The fourth week we learned about replacing meat and the focus was on tofu, tempeh (a soy product with a different texture than tofu) and seitan (made of wheat protein). Portabello mushrooms also have a very meaty-like texture and make great grilled "burgers"!

Tonight's class was about the importance of antioxidants. You may be familiar with the term "free radicals" but did you know that these are oxygen molecules that have become unstable and go looking to replace the electrons they have lost by attacking other cells and even chromosones? These cells can lose their ability to control their basic functions and multiply out of control- and that is the beginning of cancer. Antioxidants attach to regular cells and the free radicals attack them and leave the healthy cells alone, so we all need to eat lots of antioxidants! Beta-carotene (found in yellow-orange or dark green veggies and fruits- carrots, pumpkin, yams, kale, etc), lycopene (found in red veggies and some red fruit- tomatoes, watermelon, pink grapefruit), vitamins E and C, selenium (found in grains), and phytochemicals (found in cruciferous veggies- broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, turnips, etc) and allium vegetables (named because they contain allicin, which has been shown to help the body eliminate carcinogens and slow the growth of cancer cells- these include garlic, onions, scallions, leeks, and shallots.) We tried quinoa (pronounced keenwa), a nutty grain, and yam and collard green dish (really good!), and a delicious chocolate mousse made from tofu and soy milk.

Clif has attended the last few classes when Kerry had to work and he is getting all kinds of good recipes to take back to school when he heads back to Kzoo at the end of next month. The instructor is a "true believer" and very enthusiastic about a vegan diet, always emphasizing how important each week's topic is and how much we are going to like the new recipes. So far we are having a great experience and really feel we are doing something that will have la ong-range positive effect on our health.

Getting started

Reading Kerry's brother Brad's blog got us interested in starting our own, so here we go! With our only daughter expecting our first grandchild, our first son going to school and fighting fires in Idaho, and our youngest son just home from study abroad in France, we thought we would have plenty to write about and hopefully keep our families (in Las Vegas, Boise, Olympia, Indianapolis, and Cedar City) up to date on this adventure we call life!
We hope many of you will start your own blogs at blogger.com, too. Our goal is to post about once a week, so we'll see how it goes.
Kerry and Linda