I Love My GP: Talking about the China Study

I love my GP.

She is about my age and we are both engaged in the same balancing act – aging parents, children, full time jobs that we love and not enough hours in the day. She is monitoring my blood pressure and inevitaHandshake with Doctorbly the conversation turns to weight loss, finding time for exercise, finding time to cook and what is healthy eating anyway?  I am sheepish, pleased with my loss of a few pounds but know I could do more.

Casually she mentions a similar conversation with an earlier patient when she asked him what the new diet craze is. I am pondering on the thought that a medical doctor is asking that question of a patient when she asks me if I have heard of the China Study. She is amazed that I know it; work for an organization that Colin Campbell advised and supported, and that I know about the evidence for a plant-based diet for cancer prevention.

We discuss the science but our conversation quickly turns to the practical – how to reduce red meat and increase other forms of protein in her family meals.  But she doesn’t know any recipes that use beans and other proteins. Quicker than you could say ABC, I wrote down our website address and told her to sign up for AICR Health-e-recipes.

As I leave the Doctor’s office, she is already on our website, has signed up for the recipes and is telling all her colleagues about our Foods that Fight Cancer. “I love this website – I’m going to tell everyone about you.”

In this technical world we sometimes forget the power of the face to face human connection:  a simple conversation can lead to a simple conversion.

You can read more about how AICR and the China Study connect here.


Cancer-Fightin’ Irish Stew

american-irish-stew 2Meat and potatoes can fit into a cancer-preventive diet, as our Health-e-Recipe for American Irish Stew attests. The secret is in the healthy ingredients we’ve added to yield AICR’s New American Plate proportions of 1/3 lean animal protein to 2/3 plant foods (vegetables, in this case).

By keeping the portions of lean stew meat on the lighter side, there’s more room for the cancer-preventive garlic, onions, carrots, parsnips and leeks. And although white potatoes are over-consumed in this country, usually as French fries, adding some unprocessed potatoes to this dish is a healthy way to honor the Irish cooking tradition that inspired it. Parsley and rosemary infuse this hearty stew with even more phytochemicals and an appropriate touch of green.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and every day with healthy recipes from the AICR Test Kitchen. Click here to subscribe to our weekly Health-e-Recipes.