Cancer in Other Non-Industrialized Cultures

In Cancer, Disease of Civilization (1960), Wilhjalmur Stefansson mentions a few cultures besides the Inuit in which large-scale searches never turned up cancer. Dr. Albert Schweitzer examined over 10,000 traditionally-living natives in Gabon (West Africa) in 1913 and did not find cancer. Later, it became common in the same population as they began "living more and more after the manner of the whites."

In Cancer, its Nature, Cause and Cure (1957), Dr. Alexander Berglas describes the search for cancer among natives in Brazil and Ecuador by Dr. Eugene Payne. He examined approximately 60,000 people over 25 years and found no evidence of cancer.

Sir Robert McCarrison conducted a seven year medical survey among the Hunza, in what is now Northern Pakistan. Among 11,000 people, he did not find a single case of cancer. Their diet consisted of soaked and sprouted grains and beans, fruit, vegetables, grass-fed dairy and a small amount of meat (including organs of course).

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HOMEMADE STRAWBERRY JAM

local vine-ripened strawberries make fabulous homemade jam

If everyone made strawberry jam, the world would be a better place.

Stick with me here on this one...okay? Home canning and preserving, now a somewhat lost art, is eco-friendly. Now, I know for a fact that none of my friends or family can or preserve foods. I realize my mom doesn't even know how to do this sort of stuff. I suspect my maternal grandmother knew how because she knew everything about food and how to prepare it.
I'm spearheading this canning/preserving local food thingy because someone's got to scream out the benefits of our local produce.

For goodness sake, making jam is COOL!

I don't have doilies on the back of my sofa. I'm a Jam-maker and I don't own wicker or have that "country" feel in my kitchen. I hate those ceramic cat knicknacks, red and white checked aprons with frilly white lace trim, and my kitchen doesn't have tiles with fruit images on them.
No offense btw if you do.

I'm an urban momma and I make Jam. There, I said it.

If everyone took a little wee step and made something like homemade locally grown strawberry jam, the world would be a whole lot better because we would be lessening our reliance on imported foods and the fossil fuels that deliver them. So, if you live in the Philippines, make mango jam and if you live in Sweden, make lingonberry jam. Hopefully this will lead to you making other stuff like tomato sauce and salsa! That's fun too!

Today, at Kin's produce market in Vancouver, the local strawberries were on sale for $2 for a huge box. The box must have weighed more than 3 pounds. They were discounted because they were extremely ripe. A bit of strawberry juice was pooling on the bottom of the boxes from the weight of the berries as they rested on top of each other. The berries had a little sign that said they should be consumed today. They weren't all too pretty-looking in general. Some of the berries were a bit bruised and soft looking but they were a deep, ruby red and fragrant. I bought two baskets and took them home to make Jam. these pics don't do the berries justice as i had to use the point-and-shoot. the colours are actually a ruby red.

I left them on the counter and took Bebe to the bookstore and upon arriving home, discovered that more than a cup of the berries were pilfered! A strawberry bandit had poked a hole into the plastic wrap of one of the boxes and a whole corner of the berries had disappeared

While we were out, Stomach couldn't resist the scent of the dark ruby red berries and had eaten them on the sly over the kitchen sink. When he stands over the sink eating something, he doesn't count that as a meal. He says he's just "tasting". Yeah right.

the batteries in my Nikon were dead, so i apologize for using my point-and-shoot Sony

I was miffed, but I guess in the end I had plenty to make jam with so I didn't sweat it too much. Even after eating more than a cup, I still had more than 12 cups of berries, I figured (for $4...crimey, that's cheap!) I sent him back to see if he could buy more, but he returned empty-handed, saying that they were all gone. No wonder. They were only $2 a box! 2 bucks! a toonie! As I hulled them and sliced them in preparation for jam-making, I noted how the deep red colour penetrated throughout to the berry's core. The California strawberries on display in the store next to the local strawberries were huge in comparison; they were not as deep red in colour and I know from experience that if I were to cut one open, I'd see a white core indicating how tasteless and watery they would be.My recipe for strawberry jam produces a soft jam. This way, I can use it for breakfast scones, croissants and toast, or I can pour it over cheesecake and ice cream. It's way more versatile. I used a traditional canning method that incorporates a whole lot of sugar and no additional commercial pectin. Once you've tasted homemade strawberry jam, you wonder why you would bother buying commercial again! It's so good and so cheap! If you do it every year, all you do is buy those sealing lids, because the jars and the rings can be reused and resterilized. So it's eco-friendly too! Stomach bought me two boxes (of 12 count) lids for $1.60 each. In the end, I had made 4 1-cup jars and about 27 mini half-cup jars of jam from this one purchase of strawberries. I have tons to give away and a lot of strawberry sauce as well to pour over homemade vanilla ice cream!

Poor Bebe and Bib. We're not allowing Bib to eat strawberries yet in case she's allergic. She tends to break out in eczema with some things, so we're playing it safe. Bebe is ready to try strawberries again and so we gave her a little jam straight off the spoon to see how she would react. When she was a toddler, she had broken out in eczema after eating one of those fruit leather snacks containing strawberry. She didn't react today after a spoonful of jam. She kept hopping up to see over the counter and asked for more, but I didn't want to let her overdose yet. She kept telling me how yummy it was and said she really like it. I told her if she didn't break out by the next morning, I'd give her some for breakfast on toast.

this makes a great sauce to pour over ice cream or cheesecake!

STRAWBERRY JAM
8 cups of sliced strawberries
6 cups sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice

• Wash, hull and slice strawberries
• Use a potato masher and slightly crush the berries in a large stockpot
• Simmer over med-low heat for 10 minutes
• Add sugar and lemon juice, stirring to dissolve
• Increase heat to med-high and cook, stirring frequently, for 15-20 minutes more until thickened
• Can using traditional canning methods. I sterilized jars, rings and lids, poured jam into jars, sealed as per manufacturer's instructions and boiled the jars for a further 10 minutes.

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Blueberry Tart

During our usual weekend grocery shopping, I bought a pack of blueberries which was on discount. This is not the first time I bought fresh blueberries, but it seems such a small pack now...especially compared to the 1 lb (more than 500g) pack we bought from Costco (a wholesale club) when we were in the States.

Although blueberries have got very high antioxidant activity, we don't really enjoy eating them plain, unlike strawberries. So, I use them to make a fruit tart.

This photo was created using the dumpr site's 'amazing circle' effect. I was surprised that the orange peels which I placed in the centre of the tart has now been transformed into the circumference. How interesting!


I followed a tart recipe which is quite similar to the peach tart I made previously. Although the original recipe is meant for a strawberry tart, I went ahead with it as I prefer frangipane fillings over a custard one. However, I was quite disappointed with the amount of fillings used...it was too little for me! I would have to double the portion for the fillings or follow the recipe under this Triple Almond Tart, the next time I make this.


Instead of making some strawberry jam as called for in the recipe, I slabbed the tart surface with a layer of Smucker's blueberry jam before topping it with blueberries. I never knew that it could be a tiring business to arrange the blueberries one by one! It was a good thing that I used this brand of jam (my favourite)...as I could use one or two berries from the jam to double up as fresh ones...to fill up the missing gaps ;)

This tart proved to be a good way to get the kids to eat the blueberries fresh. The sweetness from the jam made up for the slight tangy taste of the berries. I love the pastry crust most.



Ingredients:
(makes one 18cm tart)

pastry:
80g cake flour
20g almond powder
30g caster sugar
40g unsalted butter , soften at room temperature
1 tablespoon (15g) lightly beaten egg

filling:
2 teaspoons cake flour
40g almond powder
3 tablespoons brown sugar
30g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
2 tablespoons (30g) lightly beaten egg
1 teaspoon Rum (I replaced it with vanilla extract)
some blueberry jam
some fresh blueberries
icing sugar for dusting

Method:

Pastry base:

1. Lightly grease an 18cm tart pan, set aside.
2. Toast almond powder at 100 degC for 10 mins. Stirring in between. Let cool.
3. Sieve flour and almond powder, set aside.
4. With a manual whisk, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
5. Dribble in the egg, whisk and mix well.
6. Sieve over the flour/almond meal mixture in 2 to 3 additions into the batter. Fold the mixture gently with a spatula.
7. Form and shape the pastry into a round ball. Roll out the pastry in between 2 sheets of cling wrap or baking paper (I used two sheets of cut-out plastic bags) to about 23cm in diameter.
8. Remove one side of the cling wrap or baking paper. Place pastry over the prepared tart pan. Mould the pastry into the tart pan, smoothing the edges and the rim carefully...if the pastry is too soft to handle, chill it in the fridge for 10~15 mins.
9. Chill the moulded pastry in the fridge for 20mins. (This helps to prevent the pastry from shrinking too much after baking.)
10. Use a fork to poke holes on the pastry surface. Brush the top of the rim with egg wash. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 degC for 10~12 mins until the edges turned slightly browned. Let cool completely.
    
    filling:
    
11. With a whisk, cream butter and brown sugar till the mixture turns fluffy. Add in the egg gradually, mix well each time the egg is added.
12. Add in almond powder. Fold with a spatula till well incorporated. Sieve over the flour onto the mixture. Mix with a spatula. Add in rum (or vanilla extract) and mix well.
13. Spread the filling onto the cooled pastry base. Ensure that the edges are filled up. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 degC for 15~20 mins, until the edges and filling turn golden brown. Let cool.
14. Spread a layer of blueberry jam on the tart surface. Arrange blueberries on top and dust lightly with icing sugar. Serve on the day it is made, keep in fridge if left overnite.

Recipe Source: adapted from Delicious!! Baked Cakes, Ikuko Omori

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Mortality and Lifespan of the Inuit

One of the classic counter-arguments that's used to discredit accounts of healthy hunter-gatherers is the fallacy that they were short-lived, and thus did not have time to develop diseases of old age like cancer. While the life expectancy of hunter-gatherers was not as high as ours today, most groups had a significant number of elderly individuals, who sometimes lived to 80 years and beyond. Mortality came mostly from accidents, warfare and infectious disease rather than chronic disease.

I found a a mortality table from the records of a Russian mission in Alaska (compiled by Veniaminov, taken from Cancer, Disease of Civilization), which recorded the ages of death of a traditionally-living Inuit population during the years 1822 to 1836. Here's a plot of the raw data:

Here's the data re-plotted in another way. I changed the "bin size" of the bars to 10 year spans each (rather than the bins above, which vary from 3 to 20 years). This allows us to get a better picture of the number of deaths over time. I took some liberties with the data to do this, breaking up a large bin equally into two smaller bins. I also left out the infant mortality data, which are interesting but not relevant to this post:


Excluding infant mortality, about 25% of their population lived past 60. Based on these data, the approximate life expectancy (excluding infant mortality) of this Inuit population was 43.5 years. It's possible that life expectancy would have been higher before contact with the Russians, since they introduced a number of nasty diseases to which the Inuit were not resistant. Keep in mind that the Westerners who were developing cancer alongside them probably had a similar life expectancy at the time. Here's the data plotted in yet another way, showing the number of individuals surviving at each age, out of the total deaths recorded:


It's remarkably linear. Here's the percent chance of death at each age:


In the next post, I'll briefly summarize cancer data from several traditionally-living cultures other than the Inuit.

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Cancer Among the Inuit

I remember coming across a table in the book Eat, Drink and Be Healthy (by Dr. Walter Willett) a few years back. Included were data taken from Dr. Ancel Keys' "Seven Countries Study". It showed the cancer rates for three industrialized nations: the US, Greece and Japan. Although specific cancers differed, the overall rate was remarkably similar for all three: about 90 cancers per 100,000 people per year. Life expectancy was also similar, with Greece leading the pack by 4 years (the data are from the 60s).

The conclusion I drew at the time was that lifestyle did not affect the likelihood of developing cancer. It was easy to see from the same table that heart disease was largely preventable, since the US had a rate of 189 per 100,000 per year, compared to Japan's 34. Especially since I also knew that Japanese-Americans who eat an American diet get heart disease just like European-Americans.

I fell prey to the same logic that is so pervasive today: the idea that you will eventually die of cancer if no other disease gets you first. It's easy to believe, since the epidemiology seems to tell us that lifestyle doesn't affect overall cancer rates very much. There's only one little glitch... those epidemiological studies compare the sick to the sicker.

Here's the critical fact that modern medicine seems to have forgotten: hunter-gatherers and numerous non-industrial populations throughout the world have unusually low cancer rates. This idea was widely accepted in the 19th century and the early 20th, but has somehow managed to fade into obscurity.  Allow me to explain.

I recently read Cancer, Disease of Civilization by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (thanks Peter). Stefansson was an anthropologist and arctic explorer who participated in the search for cancer among the Canadian and Alaskan Inuit. Traditionally, most Inuit groups were mostly carnivorous, eating a diet of raw and cooked meat and fish almost exclusively. Their calories came primarily from fat. They alternated between seasons of low and high physical activity, typically enjoyed an abundant food supply yet also periodically faced famines.

Field physicians in the arctic noted that the Inuit were a remarkably healthy people. While they suffered from a tragic susceptibility to European communicable diseases, they did not develop the chronic diseases we now view as part of being human: tooth decay, overweight, heart attacks, appendicitis, constipation, diabetes and cancer. When word reached American and European physicians that the Inuit did not develop cancer, a number of them decided to mount an active search for it. This search began in the 1850s and tapered off in the 1920s, as traditionally-living Inuit became difficult to find.

One of these physicians was captain George B. Leavitt. He actively searched for cancer among the traditionally-living Inuit from 1885 to 1907. Along with his staff, he claims to have performed tens of thousands of examinations. He did not find a single case of cancer. At the same time, he was regularly diagnosing cancers among the crews of whaling ships and other Westernized populations. It's important to note two relevant facts about Inuit culture: first, their habit of going shirtless indoors. This would make visual inspection for external cancers very easy. Second, the Inuit generally had great faith in Western doctors and would consult them even for minor problems. Therefore, doctors in the arctic had ample opportunity to inspect them for cancer.

A study was published in 1934 by F.S. Fellows in the US Treasury's Public Health Reports entitled "Mortality in the Native Races of the Territory of Alaska, With Special Reference to Tuberculosis". It contained a table of cancer mortality deaths for several Alaskan regions, all of them Westernized to some degree. However, some were more Westernized than others. In descending order of Westernization, the percent of deaths from cancer were as follows:


Keep in mind that all four of the Inuit populations in this table were somewhat Westernized. It's clear that cancer incidence tracks well with Westernization, although other factors could be involved in producing this result (such as poorer diagnosis in less Westernized regions). By "Westernization", what I mean mostly is the adoption of European food habits, including wheat flour, sugar, canned goods and vegetable oil. Later, most groups also adopted Western-style houses, which incidentally were not at all suited to their harsh climate.

In the next post, I'll address the classic counter-argument that hunter-gatherers were free of cancer because they didn't live long enough to develop it.

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Cancer and the Immune System

My understanding of cancer has changed radically over the past few months. I used to think of it as an inevitable consequence of aging, a stochastic certainty. The human body is made of about 50 trillion cells, many of which replicate their DNA and divide regularly. It's only a matter of time until one of those cells randomly accumulates the wrong set of mutations, and loses the molecular brakes that restrict uncontrolled growth.

Strictly speaking, the idea is correct. That is how cancer begins. However, there's another check in place that operates outside the cancer cell itself: the immune system. A properly functioning immune system can recognize and destroy cancerous cells before they become dangerous to the organism. In fact, your immune system has probably already controlled or destroyed a number of them in your lifetime.

I recently read a fascinating account of some preliminary findings from the lab of Dr. Zheng Cui at Wake Forest university. His group took blood samples from 100 people and purified a type of immune cell called the granulocyte. They then evaluated the granulocytes' ability to kill cervical cancer cells in a cell culture dish. They found that it varied dramatically from one individual to another. One person's granulocytes killed 97% of the cancer cells in 24 hours, while another person's killed 2%.

They found some important trends. Granulocytes from people over 50 years old had a reduced ability to kill cancer cells, as did granulocytes from people with cancer. This raises the possibility that cancer is not simply the result of getting too old, but a very specific weakening of the immune system.

The most important finding, however, was that the granulocytes' kung-fu grip declined dramatically during the winter months. Here's Dr. Cui:

Nobody seems to have any cancer-killing ability during the
winter months from November to April.

Hmm, I wonder why that could be?? Vitamin D anyone??

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GIRLIE CUPCAKES: CHOCOLATE BUTTERMILK CUPCAKES WITH MARSHMALLOW FLUFF FILLING

the girlie cupcake
What's a girlie cupcake look like?

Well, it's gotta have chocolate. And it's got to include pink somewhere. Bebe is so girlie girl. Hey, I can't explain it because I hate the colour pink myself and I was a tomboy growing up.
I even made sure not to expose her to all that commercial stuff early on. I have no idea how she got the feeling as early as toddlerhood that princesses are cool because she hadn't seen any Disney movies and she hadn't read any princess stories. I doctored a lot of Grimm's fairy tales and edited all the Mother Goose classics to be more empowering to females. Har har. I did it on the fly at night lying next to her in the dark. I even mangled the endings sometimes to support whatever cause I had, whether it had to do with potty-training or learning to love your veggies. She doesn't play with dolls and she doesn't really know the storylines to many of the Disney princess movies. So how on earth did I get a girlie girl? She talks of princesses and tiaras and proclaims to love everything pink. I think it's all hard-wired. Ah well.
Bebe's all over cupcakes. It's pretty much her favourite dessert. Make it chocolate and cover it with sprinkles and she's doing her happy dance. I wanted to surprise Bebe with something inside the cupcakes so I squirted some marshmallow fluff into the cupcakes too.
The best part of making cupcakes for Bebe is sprinkling on the stars. It's her decoration of choice. Bib and Bebe ate a handful of these little star-shaped sprinkles in the time it took me to decorate these cupcakes.
decorated with dragees, star sprinkles, dark chocolate shavings & pink sanding sugar
I found Sherry Yard's Buttermilk cupcake recipe deceptive. In her introduction to the recipe, she says that the cupcake's texture is dense. When she states "dense", I think fudgey, like a brownie. I found that instead, these cupcakes were more like a sponge texture. In fact, after whipping the eggs for 8 minutes and then on low speed for another 2 minutes to "stabilize" the foam, I thought that this process would add volume and lighten the crumb. The crumb was more dense than a chiffon and it had more substance than the typical genoise. This is probably due to the additional buttermilk and higher proporation of butter. However, it was lighter than a brownie. The genoise technique is a bit time-consuming, but I really loved the flavour and mouth-feel of the cake itself. So this one's worth it.
Yard's cupcake technique yielded a spongey cupcake that, like typical genoise, upon removal from the oven, kind of shrunk a bit from the sides of the baking pan. Some of them even puckered in a bit from the paper liners. It was kind of weird but not wholly unexpected with the genoise technique. Well, I thought this was a positively perfect opportunity to fill up those puckered cupcakes with something sweet. I squished some white chocolate ganache in a few and marshmallow fluff into others. I liked the marshmallow fluff better than Yard's white chocolate ganache recipe. The ganache was kind of greasy-feeling to me. This recipe is a keeper and I'll probably try making it again in another flavour variation just to make sure I did it right.
cupcake cross-section showing oozing marshmallow fluff!
The marshmallow fluff filling was a real surprise for Bebe when she dug in. She was all smiles and exclaimed that it was really neat and she loves marshmallow. Then I received a big kiss on the cheek and a hug for my endeavours. How sweet.



GIRLIE CHOCOLATE BUTTERMILK CUPCAKES
(adapted from Sherry Yard's "Buttermilk Birthday Cupcakes", The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts)

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 6 oz (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted (still warm and liquid)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of marshmallow fluff (for filling) [I used store-bought, in a jar!]
• 1 batch pink buttercream (check out below for the recipe)
• girlie decorations: dragees, sprinkles, sanding sugar, dark chocolate shavings etc.

For the Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degreesF. Adjust oven rack to the centre. Prepare a muffin pan by coating it with nonstick cooking spray and inserting paper cupcake liners.
2. Triple-sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside
3. Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring the water to a simmer over medium heat. Combine sugar and eggs in the bowl of your standing mixer and place it over the simmering water, creating a double boiler; be careful that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Insert a thermometer. Whisk continuously until the temperature reaches 100degress F, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and transfer the bowl to your standing mixer fittted with a whisk attachment, or use a hand mixer. Whip on high speed for 5 to 8 minutes , or until the eggs are three times their original volume, are thick and pale yellow colour, and form a ribbon when drizzled from a sptatula. Turn down the mixer to medium speed and whip mixture for 2 minutes more. This stabilizes the foam. On low speed, stream the warm melted butter into the batter and mix it in until incorporated.
5. Fold one-third of flour mixture into the batter using a balloon whisk. Be careful not to deflate foam. Add one-third of the buttermilk and again fold carefully. Continue alternately adding the flour mixture and buttermilk in thirds until all ingredients are incorporated. Add vanilla.
6. Pour batter into the prepared muffin cups, leaving 1/4 inch of space at the top of each cup. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the tops are spring back when touched with a finger. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and set on the rack to cool. The cupcakes are ready to be decorated and served when cooled, or they may be stored undecorated at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks, if wrapped airtight.
   
   Makes about 2 dozen 2-inch cupcakes.
   

For the Filling:

• Scoop the marshmallow fluff into a piping bag with a 1/2 inch tip and plunge the tip into the tops of the cupcakes. Squeeze the fluff into the cupcakes until you the cupcakes appear to swell and stop just as the fluff begins to back up and before the cupcakes explode!

For the Decoration:

• Decorate with pink buttercream frosting (see below for recipe), and share the fun and have your loved ones sprinkle on the dragees, sprinkles, sanding sugar & dark chocolate shavings.
  

GIRLIE PINK BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
6 oz (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 T milk

• Place the softened butter in a large mixing bowl and gradually add the confectioners' sugar a little at a time to the butter, beating continuously. Continue until all the sugar is blended in.
• Beat with the mixer until the icing is pale and fluffy. Beat in the milk until well combined
  Use pink gel food colouring (not too much! a dab'll do ya) to colour the buttercream.
• Scoop the buttercream into a piping bag with a "1M" tip (Wilton) and pipe swirls on the tops of the cupcakes.

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