Alternative Cancer Therapies
Do I Have to Turn Vegetarian?  

An Emotional Question in Alternative Cancer Therapy

Practitioners of alternative cancer therapies are very divided when it comes to dietary advice about meat. I have done many searches and found a great many sites and advisors who insist that vegetarianism is the way to go. However I have not discovered sufficient justification to persuade me that it is useful.

The usual argument is that meat metabolises into a form that makes the blood more acid and cancer only grows in an acid medium. I can find no evidence that this is the case beyond multiple claims without evidence given (and lots of people insisting "Yes there is!"). The body has a very effective acid-base balancing system. This is not to say that the acid-base mechanism doesn't have something to offer in the exploration of good health. I suspect there is something of value, but not sufficient to outlaw range fed meat for people wanting to improve their immune system. Good quality protein is needed in healing. 

In addition a diet with lots of vegetables, some fruit and range fed meat is close to the diet that our forebears ate for thousands of years. When in doubt I look backwards to our genetic and behavioral past.

There is, however, absolutely no argument in the community that promotes alternate cancer therapies that any meat consumed should be range fed, that is, fed grasses and herbs native to the area in fields and paddocks with plenty of room to move around. Most meat available today is lot fed on corn, soy and wheat, not to mention a cocktail of hormones and antibiotics to improve growth rates and to prevent to spread of disease in the closely packed lot.

[Before becoming a researcher I was a plant nurserywoman and one year we discovered that a new drench for animals produced manure that was so full of poisons that the manure killed many vegetables. We had to advise the farmers that they had to either give up the new drench or give up on their "organic" tomatoes.]

There is the suggestion that the reason that meat is now so tender is that constant inflammation causes the marbling. This means that the antibiotics have done their job in keeping the inflammation from developing into something worse before the animal became our food. I don’t know how old you, my reader are, but I remember that the meat of my childhood and the meat we grew on our farm was always so tough - perhaps it was tough because it was healthy!

While it was natural for range fed beef beasts to eat some seeds such as corn and wheat during the autumn to build up body fat for the winter it was never the whole form of diet and never for all of its life.

The issue of soy is different. Soy has not been a traditional animal food, nor even a traditional human food, other than as a condiment. There has been a huge push to have (genetically modified) soy admitted as a genuine meat replacement food into the human diet. We are being human guinea pigs in a major dietary experiment. If you have cancer now is NOT the time to experiment with a food new to humans. Ignore the claims that people in China and Japan have eaten it in quantity for centuries - it isn’t true. They have used soy as a fermented extra, not as a main component of their diet.

You will need to do your own research in your own locality for affordable range fed meat as meat type and prices vary from place to place. The cheapest range fed meat is Australia is kangaroo. But this will not be the case in the US. You may need to do a little research to locate your affordable sources.

Practitioners of Alternative cancer therapies are mixed in their interpretation of the issue of the need to become vegetarian. To my mind the acid-base argument is not sufficiently conclusive to either change my diet or to recommend to people who are ill that they do so. However I do think that common sense is sufficient reason to recommend that people eat their meat in as close to a natural form as possible avoiding the antibiotics, hormones and as many drenches as possible.