Welcome radiant viewers to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. According to the World Health Organization, cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Each year over 12 million people across the globe are diagnosed with cancer and 7.6 million succumb to the disease. The numbers are projected to continue rising, with an estimated 12 million deaths by 2030.

Today we have the honor to share the third part of an eight part series featuring excerpts from The Cancer Project’s “Eating Right for Cancer Survival,” a two-set DVD of presentations by esteemed nutrition researcher and author Dr. Neal Barnard, MD that is a companion to the book The Cancer Survivor’s Guide written by Dr. Barnard and registered dietician Jennifer Reilly.

Dr. Barnard is the president of The Cancer Project, a US-based non-profit organization advancing cancer prevention and survival through distribution of information on nutrition and research. Since its founding in 2004, the Project has strived to promote the vegan diet as the answer to cancer.

The Cancer Project is an affiliate of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group created by Dr. Barnard in 1985 that is comprised of physicians and concerned citizens in the US wishing to improve public health. The Committee is also actively involved in raising awareness of the benefits of a plant-based diet through such projects as the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program and seeking to amend federal nutrition guidelines.

Dr. Barnard has served as the principal investigator on many clinical studies examining the links between diet and health and his work has been published in top scientific and medical journals. He is often interviewed by the national media in the US for his perspectives on important issues in nutrition, health and medicine.

We are now pleased to show the conclusion of Dr. Barnard’s presentation “Fueling Up on Low-Fat Foods,” and his talk called “Favoring Fiber,” two chapters from the “Eating Right for Cancer Survival” DVD.

If you compare a man in Hong Kong to a man in Sweden, the man in Hong Kong is about half as likely to have cancer cells in his prostate. And if he gets cancer he is about eight times more likely to survive compared to the man in Sweden. So the difference can really be huge. And researchers have put this to the test and found that indeed it works.

Dr Dean Ornish, who became famous for showing that a vegetarian diet along with other healthy lifestyle changes can actually reverse heart disease. In the arteries to the heart they actually open up again, when you get the cholesterol and the animal fat out of the diet and you get healthy vegetables and fruits into the diet.

He did a study in which he brought 93 men into the study. Everybody have prostate cancer, but they all had the form of the disease where you didn’t have to have surgery right yet, you could wait. You track something called PSA. Have you heard of this? It’s prostate specific antigen. It’s just a blood test and it shows you if the cancer is progressing rapidly or very slowly if it’s not progressing rapidly you can wait.

So the men came into the study, half of them followed a vegan diet. Now, vegans are not people from the planet of Vegas. A vegan is a person… is pure vegetarian diet, okay, no animal products and they kept the oils very low and that was the program. And the other group followed whatever diet they came into the program on.

Ninety-three men and what they found was in the control group, I mean the people who didn’t make the diet changes, their PSA levels do just what PSAs do in men with cancer. They got worse. As time went on they went up about six percent. And out of the men in that group, six of them couldn’t wait anymore. They had to have treatment. Their cancer was getting worse.

But the vegan group, something different happened. Their PSAs weren’t holding steady, they were actually on average falling, meaning they were getting healthier and there wasn’t a single man in that group that needed to go on to get treatment in the course of this stuff. So it really does work, it’s a very effective thing.

Getting the fat out of your diet is just the first step, but it’s a very important step. Okay, so we’re going to get the fat out, we’re going to slim down and we’re going to make room for all the healthier foods. Let’s put it to work.

We now present Dr. Barnard’s lecture entitled “Favoring Fiber” from the “Eating Right for Cancer Survival” DVD.

Welcome, thanks for joining us. When researchers have looked for parts of the diet that can help us against cancer, prevent it or improve survival, or improve health overall, one of the things we’ve really keyed in on is fiber. What is fiber?

Fiber means plant roughage, and by that I mean it’s the part of plants that doesn’t get digested right away and it helps us in many ways. One thing you know is it helps keep you regular, you hear people say that. All that means is it moves things along, but it doesn’t just move food along, it moves carcinogens along.

Let’s say there was something not too healthy in the food I ate, well the quicker it leaves your body, the better off you are. Now that can mean that if something was going to increase the likelihood of developing colon cancer, because it’s attacking the cells of your intestinal tract, it’s gone, it’s gone much faster, that’s a good thing.

Now there’s another thing though: Fiber helps remove things that are circulating in your blood. How does that work? Your liver is filtering your bloodstream, every minute of every day, blood is going through the liver and the liver is looking for things that don’t belong there. It’s looking for hormones like estrogen or testosterone.

You need some of those but you don’t need a huge excess so your liver takes them out. It gets rid of cholesterol, it gets rid of medicines and things like that. And what it does is the liver filters the blood, finds a little excess estrogen, pulls it out of the blood, and sends it down a little tube called the bile duct. And it ends up in the intestinal tract and there this little bit of estrogen goes down attaches to some fiber, that carries it out of the body. Very nice.

So, if you’re thinking well a high amount of estrogen in my blood is linked to too much risk of breast cancer, a high fiber diet helps pull it away. One problem: a lot of people don’t have much fiber in their diet. Let’s say for breakfast I had bacon and eggs. How much fiber is there in that? Well, bacon and eggs aren’t from plants, they don’t have any plant roughage in it.

Let’s say for lunch I had yogurt and chicken breast; how much fiber is there? None, right? So the liver filters the blood, the little estrogen gets pulled out, goes down the bile duct, ends up in the intestinal tract, looking for fiber, looking for fiber, where is it? There isn’t any! It reabsorbs back into the bloodstream.

The estrogen goes around ends up back at the liver. The liver says, “What are you doing here? I thought I got rid of you.” It pulls it out of the blood again, sends it down the bile duct into the intestinal tract, looking for fiber, where is my fiber? There isn’t any, it’s absorbed again. That estrogen will do this cycle over and over and over and over again. It’s called enterohepatic circulation. Entero means intestinal tract, hepatic means liver, like hepatitis.

And this works not just for estrogen but also cholesterol. Cholesterol will go around and around and around until you eat fiber. You hear about oat bran and oat cereals, they will reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood. That’s all they do. It’s not rocket science. What they do is they grab that cholesterol that the liver has sent down and they make sure it cannot get reabsorbed. That’s a good thing.

Same for testosterone, a man says, “I don’t want those testosterone excesses that are going to increase my risk of prostate cancer.” Fiber is your friend. It puts the lid on it. It helps you to remove those excesses.

Now let me walk you through an exercise. I want to help you to see how much fiber there is in the foods you eat. And inside of just a couple of minutes you are going to know how much fiber there is in just about everything in the store without reading the label. Will you do this with me? Okay.

Let’s take something like a banana. How much fiber is there in a banana? Now you may not know right off hand but give me a guess. Give me a guess. Is there one gram, 16,000 grams, how much fiber would you say there is in a banana? Anybody.

Eight...

Five? Eight? (Two.) 10? Two? Okay, very good. It’s about 2.7 (grams) in an average banana. Okay, so not quite three. How about an apple? Now is it, an apple is kind of like a banana so it’s not going to be 25, how much fiber would you guess is in an apple?

Five. 10. 10.

Ten, three, what? About 3.7. So similar to a banana, a little bit more. How about cantaloupe? Now here is a clue for you. If I take a cup of cantaloupe, it’s a little bit more watery so a little bit less fibrous.

So if a banana is 2.7, and an apple is 3.7, what’s cantaloupe? (One, two.) Okay, one to two. Right, good. About 1.3. So let’s say an average fruit, you walk in the store, an average fruit is going to be about three. Three grams per fruit. Alright.

Let’s take some vegetables. How about if I have a cup of broccoli? Give me a guess. Now here is a clue. It’s maybe, broccoli is not quite as watery as a typical fruit is it? A little more fibrous. So how much fiber would you say is maybe in a cup of broccoli? (Seven. Six.) Six? Seven? (Eight.) Eight? Okay about 4.6. So a cup of broccoli is about 4.6 (grams).

How about carrots? Are they more like broccoli or is a carrot is more like cantaloupe? Well it’s more like broccoli, it’s fibrous, right? So, how much fiber will... (Five.) About five? Very good. About 5.2 in a typical cup of, cup of carrots.

How about iceberg lettuce? (Nothing. Zero.) Well, it’s not zero. It is a plant. Okay? But you also know, you’re thinking right, it’s not huge, it’s not like broccoli. So give me number. (One and a half.) One, one and half? Okay, perfect. 1.2. Alright. So a typical cup of vegetables we’re going to say four. Alright where am I? Fruit, three; vegetables, four. Very easy, unless it’s iceberg lettuce, we’re going to cut that down a little bit.

Give me beans now. How about if I have a half cup serving of black beans? How many grams of fiber in that? Now here is a clue. Beans are not really watery. They’re pretty fibrous. So half cup of black beans? (Eight. Six.) Eight? Six? Seven? Very good. About 7.5.

How about baked beans? (Baked?) Baked beans. Six? Seven? Okay. About 6.4, good. So a typical half cup serving of beans about seven. Alright. Where are we? Fruit, three. Vegetables, four. Beans, seven.

Now let’s go to our grain group. How about pumpernickel bread? Actually a slice of pumpernickel has about two grams about 2.1. It’s less than you’d think. How about white bread? (Nothing. Zero. )Zero? Well now it’s not going to be zero because it is from a plant. Now they’ve done their best to make sure there is no nutrition in there but they did leave a little. So let’s call it about a half, about a half a gram of fiber. Okay?

So a typical bit of a white bread maybe up to a gram or more or whole grain bread, maybe about two. But does that surprise you? Fruits is three, vegetables are four, and beans are seven. The breads which we think of as being high fiber are lower.

Okay. So our fiber champions – the bean group, at about seven for half a cup.

And then the vegetables at about four, fruits at about three and if I have a slice of bread, if it’s white maybe a gram, if it’s whole grain about two. Typical cereals about three. Okay?

You walk in the store and you can look on the left, you can look on the right and you can estimate even for a packaged food ...food or a canned food what’s inside and you’re going to have a pretty good ball-park of whether it has fiber or not.

Okay, extra credit. How much fiber is there in a pork chop? (Zero.) Zero? Zero? We agree? Well why? Why? Is it from a plant? (It’s from an animal.) It’s from an animal. Animals don’t have plant roughage so the answer is zero. How about a cup of milk? (Zero!) Zero because it’s from ... (animal.) An animal, not a plant.

Wait, how about if it’s skim milk? How about if it’s organic skim milk? (Zero.) Still zero? You’re with me. Okay. How about eggs? (Zero.) Zero. How about eggplant? Okay. Very good! So there’s fiber in eggplant. Okay. So animal... I always like things that are easy to remember: animal products don’t have fiber, plant products do. So what? Does fiber really help? The answer is yes.

Let’s say I want to knock off a few extra pounds one of the best things you can do is pump up the fiber intake in your diet. I’m going to give you a number. Every 14 grams of fiber that are part of your regular daily menu, every 14 grams of fiber cuts your calorie intake by about 10%.

So let’s say a typical person in the United States is eating maybe 12 grams of fiber per day. Add 14, I get 26 (grams), I’m going to feel fuller and even though I think I’m eating the same amount, my calorie intake drops about 10%. So if I go up another 14 from 26 to… where am I now? 40. My calorie intake drops again.

Again, I think I’m eating the same amount but all that fiber fills me up, my calorie intake falls. Something is happening to my scale. I’m losing weight automatically, without ever going hungry. Fiber is a good thing. It improves your digestion, it slims your waist line, it reduces cholesterol and it will reduce your cancer risk too. That’s the power of healthy fiber. Thanks.

Our deep appreciation Dr. Neal Barnard for starting The Cancer Project to inform people how a plant-based diet is superb protection against cancer and a host of other diseases. May you continue your important contributions to the advancement of public health for many years to come.

For more details on The Cancer Project, please visit www.CancerProject.org
The two-set DVD “Eating Right for Cancer Survival” and The Cancer Survivor’s Guide, a free to download e-book, are available at the same website

Thank you honored viewers, for being with us on today’s program. Please join us the third Monday of each month on Healthy Living for the remainder of this eight part series. Up next is Science and Spirituality, after Noteworthy News, here on Supreme Master Television. May you always enjoy the very best of health.