Thursday, June 13, 2013

Alternative protein sources for Breast Cancer Survivors

This was the topic for our survivor's cooking class last night. Many BC survivors avoid meat as a protein source due to 1) fat 2) hormones and 3)antibiotic residue. Ditto to dairy products. This leaves us with:

Soy. Now this one is controversial  as soy contains phytoestrogens that may stimulate ER+ tumors though BC rates are much lower in cultures that use a lot of soy. However fermented soy as in tempeh has much less of these possibly offending estrogens. She prepared braised tempeh that soaked up ginger and garlic flavors. Sounded gross to me but it actually was tasty.

Seteine: This essentially a big gray cake of gluten that some people make artificial meat out of. You can make it taste like anything you want. Now some people there thought gluten is just as evil as soy, sugar, meat,etc so there wasn't much enthusiasm for this but it is a low fat form of pure protein. To showcase this ingredient, stuffed zucchini filled with mushrooms,seteine, olives, garlic and onion was prepared with a roasted red pepper sauce.

Legumes: No one could object to this. A salad of lentils, food yeast (I would leave that out), peppers, tahini, garlic, onions and spinach was prepared and served over brown rice. This was my favorite dish though I am not a fan of brown rice. In the past, brown rice was always prepared with lentils as one lacks the essential amino acids that the other has to make a COMPLETE protein but this theory seems to have fallen out of favor.

Minor sources of protein: nuts and seeds, microalgae such as spirulina, and grains such as quinoa. And there is always fish.

It is fun to see the regulars and to provide each other support.

Storms moved through last night but somehow to both Steve and my amazement, I slept through them. However the night before, I could not sleep. I spent most of the night reading.

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