Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
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 Many phytochemicals found in plant foods are currently being studied for anticancer properties, including:
• Lutein, one of the carotenoids, is under investigation as a possible anticancer nutrient. Good sources of lutein include dark, leafy greens and broccoli.
• Genistein and diadzein, two isoflavones found in soy, act as antioxidants and may protect against most forms of cancer, especially prostate cancer, breast cancer, leukemia, glioblastoma multiforme, and bladder cancer. Soy's soluble fiber reduces the risk of many digestive system cancers, such as colon and rectal cancer. |
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
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 As the company puts it, "Soybean phytochemicals are food micronutrients required for optimal health" and "health problems are directly related to these nutrient deficiencies." Yup, and depression is a Prozac-deficiency disease.
SOURCES: Nair, Vijaya. Hernandez V. Fermented soy: an aid to cancer prevention and therapy. Well Being Journal, 2002,11, 6, and Haelan product literature. phytoestrogens are safe, useful and effective because, unlike other estrogens, they are "weak" estrogens. |
Michael T. Murray
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 Citrus fruits are an important part of a cancer-fighting diet because they provide vitamin C, other essential nutrients, and important phytochemicals. But grapefruit contains high levels of a flavonoid (plant compound) called naringin that can be a problem if people are taking certain drugs. Naringin reduces the activity of CYP3A enzymes, part of the P450 enzyme family. |
| Among the most important groups of phytochemicals are the pigments. As you might have guessed, pigments give foods their color. Color contributes to food's
"eye appeal." Equally important for survival, color helps us recognize when a food has spoiled. But pigments do more than just make food look pretty or rotten. They are powerful chemicals that contribute to your body's metabolic activity.
The carotenes are the best-known pigments and the ones found most widely in foods. |
Bruce Fife and Jon J. Kabara
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 During this process all contaminants as well as phytochemicals (naturally occurring plant chemicals) are removed leaving a highly refined, tasteless, odorless oil. This is the most common coconut oil used in the cosmetic and food industries.
Most virgin coconut oils are made from fresh coconuts. The oil is extracted by any number of methods—boiling, fermentation, refrigeration, mechanical press, or centrifuge. Since high temperatures and chemical solvents are not used, the oil retains its naturally occurring phytochemicals (plant chemicals) which produce a distinctive coconut taste and smell. |
Michael T. Murray
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| These products—packed full of phytochemicals, especially carotenes and chlorophyll—are more convenient than trying to sprout and grow your own source of greens. An added advantage is that they tend to taste better than, for example, straight wheatgrass juice. Some of the more popular brands are Enriching Greens, Green Magma, Greens +, Bar-lean's Greens, and ProGreens. Of these, we rate Enriching Greens the highest.
Green foods such as young barley grass, wheat grass, spirulina, and chlorella are exceptionally high in nutritional value. |
Barnet Meltzer, M.D.
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 Thousands can be found in fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. phytochemicals are the biologically active substances that give plants their unique flavors, colors, and therapeutic value. They protect plants against their own plant diseases and, by extension, prevent illness in humans, too.
Phytochemicals bestow medicinal properties upon natural foods. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains rich in phytochemicals reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, premature aging, macular degeneration, and most cancers. |
Michael T. Murray
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| Vegetables also provide high quantities of anticancer phytochemicals.
It is very important not to overcook vegetables. Overcooking not only will result in loss of important nutrients; it will also alter the flavor of the vegetable. Light steaming, baking, and quick stir-frying are the best ways to cook vegetables. Do not boil vegetables unless you are making soup, as most of the nutrients are left in the water. If fresh vegetables are not available, frozen vegetables are preferred over their canned counterparts. |
| We recommend drinking one to two servings daily in addition to eating a diet rich in phytochemicals. Try to consume these drinks 20 minutes before or 2 hours after a meal.
Pharmaceutical-Grade Fish Oil Supplements
Adding a fish oil supplement to your daily routine provides extra insurance that you are getting sufficient levels of these important oils. Using a high-quality fish oil supplement is the perfect solution to people wanting the health benefits of fish oils without the mercury, PCBs, dioxins, and other contaminants often found in fish. |
Mike Adams
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| Instead, you want to get your vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals from natural sources — plant sources. And there are several categories of foods we can talk about here that provide this kind of nutrition.
Get your nutrition from superfoods
I often talk about superfoods. And "superfoods" is just a label given to foods and food sources that meet these criteria of offering high-density nutrition without excess calories and fiber. |
Barnet Meltzer, M.D.
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| I'm confident there are yet-to-be-discovered phytochemicals that regulate our metabolism and balance our hormones, and still others that stimulate the release of neurotransmitters responsible for our emotional well-being. Some phytochemicals may even protect our DNA from breaking down.
The point being, there is an expanding body of evidence supporting the belief that phytochemicals contain antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancerous properties. |
Jonathan V. Wright, M.D. and Alan R. Gaby, M.D.
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 That possibility was supported by a study of 16 European populations, in which blood levels of vitamin E were more closely related to heart-disease risk than was serum cholesterol} In addition, the protective effect of fruits and vegetables against heart disease may be attributable in part to the wide array of antioxidant "phytochemicals" that are found in these foods.
DR. WRIGHT'S CASE STUDY linn
1 he doctor I saw for my check-up wants me to take a cholesterol-lowering drug ..." David MacElroy began.
"And his wife won't let him!" Wendy MacElroy finished. |
Gary Null
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| Phytochemicals That Lower Cholesterol
The healing phytochemicals in fruits and fruit juices are also very important. For people with high blood sugar, there are now concentrates on the market without the fruit sugar in them, so everyone can get the benefits of drinking a lot of fruit juice. Remember that red fruits and their concentrates repair damage to your DNA. This is crucial because once you repair the damage to the DNA, the cell can regain much, if not all, of its previous functioning. |
Michael T. Murray
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| Meat lacks the antioxidants and phytochemicals that protect us from cancer. At the same time, it contains lots of saturated fat and other potentially harmful compounds—including pesticide residues, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which form when meat is grilled, fried, or broiled. The more well-done the meat, the higher level of amines it contains.
Some proponents of a diet high in meats claim that we should eat the way our cave-dwelling ancestors did. That argument doesn't really hold up. |
Mike Adams
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| Broccoli, cauliflower, and other cruciferous vegetables contain powerful anticancer phytochemicals and compounds that can help keep you cancer free. (Also, add onions, garlic, and ginger to the anti-cancer list.)
• Soy products contain isoflavones known to support the immune system and fight cancer.
• Macadamia nuts contain heart-healthy oils that actually promote high metabolism and fat burning rather than fat storage.
• Sprouts are loaded with vitamin C, digestive enzymes and the mysterious "live" element that you only get from living foods. |
John A. McDougall
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 This means a diet very low in animal protein, fat, and cholesterol, and high in complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, and healthful phytochemicals. These are the components of a healthful human diet, and by no coincidence, the foundation of the McDougall Diet.
Many "mysterious" diseases that plague people living on the Western diet are easily understood when you realize the importance of the foods you consume. This same understanding will lead you to prevent, and quite often to reverse, these conditions by making the right choices about what you put in your mouth. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 There are more than 4,000 of these compounds, and they fall into many classes and subclasses including flavonoids, anthocyanins, and isoflavones. |
Mike Adams
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| Aloe vera plants contain newly-discovered phytochemicals that enhance the viscosity of human blood, reducing clotting and the risk of heart attacks or strokes.
• Superfoods are an excellent source of macrominerals such as calcium, magnesium and zinc (for which most Americans are also deficient). A glass of broccoli juice, for example, contains more calcium than a glass of milk. Spirulina is also high in natural calcium.
• Ounce per ounce, spirulina contains twelve times the digestible protein of beef. Soy-based products, nuts and seeds are also outstanding protein sources. |
| There are many more examples of nutritional elements found in superfoods; But to summarize, superfoods provide everything you needfor outstanding nutrition:
• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Trace minerals
• Antioxidants
• High quality, digestible protein
• Digestive enzymes
• Essential fatty acids
• Isoflavones
• Natural fiber
• Complex carbohydrates for energy
• Heart-healthy fats
• Disease-fighting phytochemicals that prevent every major chronic disease (diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. |
Elaine Magee
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 The more the merrier! Get as many vegetables as you can as often as you can.
Get your daily dark greens. Try to enjoy a dark green veggie almost every day. The dark green veggies ended up on many of the lists in this book—for vegetables high in vitamin C; with multiple carotenoids; and tops in potassium, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin E. My favorite way to get a daily dose of dark green veggies can be summed up in two words: raw spinach. Buy a bag of triple-washed, ready-to-go spinach leaves, and a quick salad can be yours at a moment's notice. |
Barnet Meltzer, M.D.
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| And I'm ready to make the next logical leap in reasoning by asserting that phytochemicals in living foods swing the body into a high-energy state. They prevent and heal illness. It's only a question of time until the specific phytochemicals that enhance our emotional well-being are discovered, just as the specific phytochemicals that protect the immune system are now being identified by scientists all over the world.
Choose phytonutritive quality over caloric quantity! The top Ten energy-increasing foods I'm about to list all contain high percentages of phytonutri-ents. |
| I'm confident there are yet-to-be-discovered phytochemicals that regulate our metabolism and balance our hormones, and still others that stimulate the release of neurotransmitters responsible for our emotional well-being. Some phytochemicals may even protect our DNA from breaking down.
The point being, there is an expanding body of evidence supporting the belief that phytochemicals contain antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancerous properties. |
Richard Beliveau, Ph.D. and Denis Gingras, Ph.D.
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 We will discuss these different molecules in detail in later chapters, but one fact bears mentioning right away: it is the high levels of different classes of phytochemicals present in certain foods that allow them to act as agents in cancer prevention and thus be considered nutraceuti-cals. In other words, a nutraceutical may be defined as any food (fruit, vegetable, beverage, or product of fermentation) that contains a large quantity of one or more molecules with anti-cancer potential. |
Stephanie Beling
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 The orange fruits—both the ordinary orange and more offbeat specimens like papaya and apricot—are particularly rich in carotenoids, the best known of which is beta carotene.
The Beta Carotene Controversy
Yellow as well as orange fruits contain large stores of beta carotene. Beta carotene is a precursor of Vitamin A; that is, the livers of most mammals manufacture Vitamin A from the beta carotene found in plants. Beta carotene is also one of the trendiest antioxidant discoveries of the 1980s. |
Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Forrest Batz, Pharm.D. Rick Chester, RPh., N.D., DipLAc. George Constantine, R.Ph., Ph.D. Linnea D. Thompson, Pharm.D., N.D.
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 Flaxseed is the most abundant food source of lig-nans, a family of phytochemicals that is drawing the interest of many health researchers.9'10'11 Lignans are not actually present in flaxseed; rather intestinal bacteria produce them from precursors in flaxseed.12'13 Lignans have antioxidant activity,14 and test tube and animal research suggests they may also have significant effects on the metabolism and function of the hormone estro-gen.15-16'17
Where is it found? |
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
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| Researchers visited dozens of native cultures to discover which herbs and plants were being used to prevent pregnancy, examined hundreds of plants and analyzed their phytochemicals. Although they found many contraceptive plants—soy, flax and red clover among them—they ultimately abandoned the project. Not because "natural" methods didn't work, but because the side effects were similar to—and just as serious—as those of the birth control pill.
SOURCE: Farnsworth NR, Bingel AS et al. Potential value of plants as sources of new antifertility agents. II. J Pharm Sci, 1975, 64, 717-754. |
Tanya Harter Pierce
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 They are part of the larger family of compounds known as "phytochemicals," and are a natural and important part of any healthy diet. There are presently 18 different phytochemicals known to be estrogenic in humans. These phytoestrogens bind to estrogen receptors in the body and convey many of the health benefits of human estrogen to men and women alike. And because they bind to estrogen receptors, they compete with our own estrogen hormones for the same receptors. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 As a dietician, I see them using whole foods put together in a way that they can deliver the same nutritional benefit, with the phytochemicals and all the antioxidants that come with them, too.
Mike: Absolutely.
Leventry: I see that coming. It's just going to take a while.
Mike: I see the trend. The Atkins Diet backlash is happening now, where people say maybe that went too far in avoiding all carbohydrates. And I see a very strong movement now toward people saying, "Let's choose wisely in our carbohydrates," which almost always means whole grains. |
Gary Null
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| We also know that juices contain hundreds of phytochemicals (plant-based chemicals) that have an antiviral, antibacterial, and immune-boosting impact. They carry a full spectrum of nutrients that gradually heal on very subtle levels. And, the more variety of vegetables and fruits you use in juicing the better results you will have.
Imbibing the Juice
In the first four to eight weeks of your new detoxification and cleansing program I suggest that you drink one 10 oz glass of juice a day, preferably diluted green juices. |
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