Women who ate spinach daily had a 43 percent lower risk. Cancer Fighting Foods Researchers have found that populations that omit meat and dairy products from their diets, or use them sparingly, and eat large amounts of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and starches such as rice, potatoes, and cereal grains have a forty percent lower incidence of cancer. These foods are high in beta carotene, folate, and vitamins C and E as well as the B complex vitamins, all of which play a role in reducing and controlling free radicals in your body. Free radicals cause cell damage and mutations which can lead to cancer. Researchers now know that fruits and vegetables contain, in addition to vitamins, a complex array of cancer fighting and health promoting compounds called phytochemicals-thousands of them, in fact.
Phytochemicals appear to have the ability to block the multiple processes that lead to cancer.
These anticancer enzymes detoxify carcinogens by hooking them up to molecules that move them out of cells before they can do damage. Onions and garlic contain allylic sulfide which ratchets up a family of enzymes that detoxify carcinogens. Capsaicin in hot peppers keeps toxic molecules from attaching to DNA which can initiate cancer as does a phytochemical in tumeric and cumin. And almost every fruit and vegetable contains flavonoids-compounds that race to sites on the cell where cancer causing hormones attach themselves, and keep the hormones from settling down on the cell's surface. Soybeans may be another powerful natural ally in preventing cancer.