Jane Plant’s breast cancer recurred five times before she learned of the relationship between diet and the disease. Now her programme for adopting a healthier diet and lifestyle has been hailed by sufferers of the disease around the world. 

The Plant Programme consists of eight Food Factors and nine Lifestyle Factors that not only help to prevent and overcome breast and prostate cancer, but are also protective against osteoporosis.

These food factors, in addition to helping you fight cancer directly, will help your state of mental and emotional well-being by providing a better balance of the essential nutrients (including zinc, iodine, B vitamins and the essential fatty acids) your brain needs.

• Full of Beans: Substitute soya products for dairy products (whether from cows, sheep, goats or other animals) in your diet.
  
  
• Don’t Hesitate to Vegetate: Increase the amount of vegetables and fruit you consume, noting that vegetables are even more important than fruit.
  
  
• Protein Foods: If you have active breast, prostate or colon cancer you should eliminate all animal produce until you are better. For those without breast cancer but who wish to cut their risk or those who have recovered from breast cancer, keep total animal produce to no more than 15% of calories each day and concentrate instead on eating good sources of protein (e.g. nuts, cereals).
  
  
• Oils and Fats: Minimise saturated fat in your diet and opt for monounsaturated (olive oil) and polyunsaturated (Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids) fats instead.
  
  
• Seasoning and Flavourings: It is helpful to your health generally to reduce your salt and refined sugar intake as much as you can, as soon as you can.  Eliminate or reduce to a minimum food that has been tinned, preserved or overcooked so that its content of fibre, vitamins, minerals, natural colours or other natural constituents have been removed or reduced.
  
  
• Cereal Foods, Snacks and Treats: Avoid eating sugary sweets, cakes and biscuits as snack food, seeds and fresh or dried fruit are much healthier and nutritious. Eat organically grown cereals including porridge and oatcakes, organic whole rice, and organic wholemeal brown bread and pasta.
  
  
• What to Drink: Drink freshly-made vegetable and fruit juices from organic produce. Don’t drink water straight from the tap, filter it through charcoal into a glass jug first and then boil the water before drinking. Don’t drink bottled mineral water. Drink green, herbal, and fruit teas instead of black tea or coffee. Reduce your alcohol consumption.
  
• Sweetners: Avoid products containing man-made sweetners such as aspartane, cyclanates, or saccarin, or refined sugar. Some of these artificial sweetners have been linked in laboratory studies to a range of diseases. They are found in a large number of products so read all labels carefully.

• Vitamin and Mineral Supplements: Avoid taking artificial vitamin or  mineral tablets, although I did take tablets which combined selenium with vitamins A, C and E when I was undergoing chemotherapy.
  
  
• Food Packaging: Avoid buying food pre-packed in plastic, and whenever possible try to buy food in brown paper bags. If you can’t, try to wash food as thoroughly as possible or, in the case of vegetables, peel or scrape off the surface which has been most in contact with the plastic.
  
  
• Cooking: If you cook with fat don’t let it become so hot that it starts to smoke; fats which have been used for cooking once should be discarded; boil food for the minimum amount of time and use the water for stock afterwards; don’t add bicarbonate of soda to cooking water; prepare food immediately before cooking; use pans with close-fitting lids and avoid using copper pans; once food is cooked, eat it straight away.
  
  
• Dealing with Stress: Scientific evidence shows that stress has physiological effects, suggesting it is worthwhile working on methods of reducing or removing sources of stress. Coping strategies to deal with the stress of breast cancer include reducing your emotional baggage and negative emotions, cognitive therapy to learn to think and behave in positive ways, and relaxation and visualisation.
  
  
• Avoiding Harmful Substances in your Environment: Cut your exposure to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) (e.g. tobacco smoke, engine exhausts, grilled food, coal and wood smoke, road and roofing asphalt); Dioxins (e.g. waste incineration, chemical and pesticide manufacturing, and pulp and paper bleaching, which causes dioxin release into the environment and contaminates human and animal food supplies such as meat and dairy products); Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) (e.g. as coolant-insulation fluids in transformers and capacitors, as impregnation of cottons and asbestos; as plasticizers and as additives to some epoxy paints which enter the body through contaminated food and air and through skin contact); Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) (e.g. pesticides, plastics and household chemicals, and steroid hormones which leach into our food and water).

 This is edited text taken from Your Life in Your Hands