How often have you heard someone say – ‘you are what you eat’?

The meaning behind that saying is that if you eat good and healthy, you will be good and healthy, but if you eat poorly, your health will likely be poorly as well.

I recall a friend saying that to me one time just as he was biting into a piece of pork, so I called him a pig. Never heard him use that saying anymore, but I know what he meant.

I know, as a type 2 diabetic, that I need to watch what I eat as it will directly impact my blood sugar. Also found out that too much of a good thing isn’t necessarily good either. For the past few months, I’ve added more fruit to my diet. I’ve been eating blackberries, cantaloupe, plums, pineapple and papaya. My last blood work showed that my A1C had climbed to 8.0. even though fruit is good for you, and they contain natural sugars which are also much healthier than processes sugars, an abundance of fruit can still raise one’s blood sugar. Lesson learned, but I do love blackberries and pineapple.

I also have to watch what other foods I eat. I’ve learned the difference between GOOD and BAD carbs. It really annoys me when people talk about eliminating carbs as they are using wrong terminology. Vegetables are carbs and even then some are good carbs and some are bad carbs. The difference is how quickly they digest. Those that digest quickly cause blood sugar to spike, followed by a crash. Those carbs that digest slower, help maintain a stable and steady blood sugar level.

I also have high blood pressure, which means I have to watch salt and bad fat intake. I have to limit the amount of red meat and processed meats (bacon, sausage, lunchmeats, etc.). The greatest factor is watching salt and reading labels as so many of the foods we get at the store have added salt and/or sugar.

We’ve all been hearing that our diets can have an impact in increasing or reducing our risk of developing some form of cancer. A recent study strongly supports that fact:

“An estimated 80,110 new cancer cases among adults 20 and older in the United States in 2015 were attributable simply to eating a poor diet, according to the study, published in the JNCI Cancer Spectrum on Wednesday.”

“‘This is equivalent to about 5.2% of all invasive cancer cases newly diagnosed among US adults in 2015,’ said Dr. Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition and cancer epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston, who was first author of the study.”

“‘This proportion is comparable to the proportion of cancer burden attributable to alcohol,’ she said.”

“The researchers evaluated seven dietary factors: a low intake of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and dairy products and a high intake of processed meats, red meats and sugary beverages, such as soda.”

“‘Low whole-grain consumption was associated with the largest cancer burden in the US, followed by low dairy intake, high processed-meat intake, low vegetable and fruit intake, high red-meat intake and high intake of sugar-sweetened beverages,’ Zhang said.”

There is a lot more information in this report about how our diet impacts our risk of developing cancer and you can read the rest of the report here.

So, if you eat foods that are known to cause cancer, then you do have a stronger risk of becoming what you eat.