Foods To Prevent Colon Cancer
Foods To Prevent Colon Cancer
Video Transcript:
How to reduce your risk of colon cancer is the question for today. I've had people ask me this over the years and we have some research to share.
I'm Ashley Oswald, I'm a gut health dietician and founder of Oswald Digestive Clinic, where we help people improve and eliminate bothersome gut issues like gas, bloat, diarrhea, constipation, and more. And we now take insurance, so many of our clients get full coverage. If you wanna become our client, visit our website and schedule an appointment. And without further ado, let's talk about preventing colon cancer.
So the research shows that by adding three servings of fiber to your eating every single day, you could reduce the risk of colon cancer by 20%. And it makes sense that this might be related to the fermentation of that fiber in the large intestine, where the bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which is very healing to the gut lining.
So what does three servings look like, Ashley?
Well, one serving would be one cup of raw fruits or veggies, or a half cup of cooked fruits or veggies every single day. So you just need to get three of those in, and I'll share some ideas at the end of this blog.
Let's talk about the current fiber recommendations. For men, the fiber recommendation is 38 grams a day. And for women, it is 25 grams a day. Hunter-gatherers, for perspective, were eating over a hundred grams of fiber every single day.
So hopefully we can try to get in the 25 to 38 grams and how you can do this is for men. It is eating two servings. So again, a serving is one cup raw or half cup cooked vegetables, two cups of vegetables, two servings of fruit, two servings or cups of a legume, and then two servings of whole grain.
And then for females, it is two servings of fruits with two servings of veggies a day, one serving of a legume, and then one serving of whole grain. If you don't eat whole grains, it is fine. I know everybody has different needs, but just for perspective, then you would sub out some other high-fiber food. Right? I know we have our own food sensitivities and things that we do or do not tolerate.
I mean, that would be a good point for me to bring up our free guide on five ways to improve gut health and end food intolerance for good. So if you find that you're only eating like 20 foods because you can't tolerate other foods, please download our free guide. Or if you're just having gut issues in general, there's gonna be some great functional nutrition, thoughts, and tips that you might not have explored yet. So check it out.
Now, for how much fiber is in different foods. I wanna pull this up. So you have it as a reference and then I'll kind of read through it with you.
So one cup of raspberries is about 8 grams of fiber. One cup of black beans, it's about 15 grams of fiber. An apple with skin is about 4.4 grams of fiber.
A cup of broccoli is about 5 grams of fiber. And then a baked potato or a sweet potato is about 4 grams of fiber. Now...
how can you incorporate more fiber into your day-to-day eating?
Let's chat through some creative ideas. Breakfast tends to be the easiest way to get in more fiber for people. Add a handful of frozen spinach to your smoothie or to your omelet.
You can even buy the pre-chopped onions, peppers, and carrots that you can throw into your omelet. You could add chia seeds to your smoothie or to your oats. A lot of foods you can actually add chia seeds to.
And just one tablespoon has 5.5 grams of fiber. Try eating a whole orange instead of orange juice, so that you get that fiber from the orange.
At lunchtime, you could simply add a salad to your lunch, or a side of cooked vegetables. If you're doing leftovers, sometimes that's easy just to make double in the evening. And then, for that lunch, you can have a nutrient-dense lunch the next day.
For dinner, you could do a nutrient-dense soup. So like in the colder weather, sometimes I think of soup as like a winter salad, you know? You can make it with some really yummy bone broth to support your gut health.
If you have histamine issues like you get itchy or kind of during allergy season, bone broth might make those symptoms worse. If you're experiencing that, schedule a call with our clinic. Then for snacks and desserts are another great way to try to get in more fiber.
So some creative dessert ideas would be like heated fruit. Maybe it's chopped and heated apples with berries, with some coconut cream, some fresh mint, and even maybe some dark chocolate on that for snacks. Really easy to grab and go. Just grab a piece of fruit, maybe with some nut butter, veggies with hummus, you're getting some of the beans from the hummus, which are a really rich source of fiber.
Nowadays you can even buy the individual package hummus or just do the big jug and portion it out at the beginning of the week. And then you can do a mixture of like nuts and berries. Lots of ways to try to get fiber up, to think about what foods have fiber just think about plants.
So all those really colorful plant foods are gonna be fiber rich for you and just get a variety because you're gonna get different nutrients from the different types of plants. You can check our link below if you want to buy Professional Quality Supplements.
Thank you And I hope you have a great rest of your day.
If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic. We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.
Or you can just start by downloading our FREE GUIE: 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH
