#415 Nutrition Myth-Busting After Breast Cancer

#415 Nutrition Myth-Busting After Breast Cancer - What You Need to Know

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach, we’ll dismantle three of the most common—and misleading—nutrition myths that many women encounter after a breast cancer diagnosis.

Whether you’re in active treatment or navigating life post-cancer, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and practical advice rooted in science, not fear.

You’ll learn:

Why not all carbohydrates are harmful and how whole-food carbs can actually support healing
The truth about plant vs. animal foods and how to identify clean, high-quality animal proteins
How “organic” and “plant-based” labels can mislead your food choices—and what to look for instead

If you've ever felt confused or overwhelmed by nutrition advice, this episode will help you reconnect with your body, make informed choices, and feel confident in the way you nourish yourself.

Topics Covered:

The real difference between simple and complex carbohydrates
How to eat carbs while maintaining stable blood sugar
Nutrient density and bioavailability of animal vs. plant foods
What qualifies as a clean animal food and why it matters
The “health halo effect” of organic and plant-based labels
Tips for tuning out food fear and tuning into what works for your body

Resources & References:

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Read the full transcript:

You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started. Hi there, my beautiful friends. Welcome to Episode 415 of better than before breast cancer. With me. Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach, you know, I want to share start off with a little story. When my youngest son was a kid, there was a show called Mythbusters, and he was obsessed with this show, and he watched it so much that I kind of really got engaged in it as well, because it was pretty fascinating to learn truths behind certain things that we believed, whether those things were actually true or whether they weren't. So it's a super interesting show. So for this week's episode, I want to do some myth busting, because I hear a lot of challenges that women face after a breast cancer diagnosis, when they're trying to support their body's recovery and their healing, and they're optimizing their terrain, and there's so much confusion over different foods and what is safe to eat because of what we believe and all the misinformation that we're bombarded with. And maybe some of it isn't misinformation, but it's not appropriate for you and your unique individual, bio individuality, right? If anything that I learned in studying the metabolic approach to wellness, in all that I've learned with my studies with Dr Nasha winters, it's common sense, it's being reasonable, and it's understanding your own special body. And so I want to talk about that so we can get really clear on a couple of popular myths. Because God knows, I could go on probably for a week talking about all of the myths when it comes to nutrition and what serves us. But I want to just address three important things, because they come up, I would say, very commonly with me, and I want to help you understand it from a perspective of the metabolic approach to supporting your body. All right, so after a breast cancer diagnosis, even before, I mean, people that don't have cancer are still overwhelmed with all of the things that they see on the internet, right on social media, there are influencers out there who are making money off of promoting certain products or certain eating methods and just claiming that this is the best thing for everybody. And I've said this before, and I'll say it 100 million times, there's not one thing that's good for everybody, and that's what we're going to talk about today. So we don't want to be so concerned with what people tell us we have to avoid, or we can't, like, take a sip of coffee, have a piece of fruit, right? It's it's just not helpful to have these very restrictive guidelines when it comes to food, and I think it fuels fear, and God knows, we've got enough fear already after a cancer diagnosis, especially when it comes to food. So I want to start off with reminding you that food has different purposes depending on what your body is going through. What is your goal with food? So let's say that you want to be in a fitness competition. Your goal with food is going to be very different than if you are trying to support your body in regulating blood sugar and insulin after being told you have diabetes or pre diabetes. It's going to be very different if you are malnourished, is going to be very different if you're supporting the health of your terrain, because you want to heal from cancer or support healing or reduce your risk of recurrence. So we have to think about what our body needs and what our goal with food is, because if we're using food from a therapeutic point of view, a therapeutic perspective, making food choices to support a certain goal that has to do with our health, then we're going to approach it differently. If you're an active treatment or you have active disease, your food choices are going to carry a different urgency than someone who has no active cancer, but they're just trying to support an overall healthy terrain. So we have to keep that into consideration. What is the goal with food? What's the urgency in our state of wellness and being when it comes to the way we're using. Using food right is your goal to reduce inflammation, Is your goal to support immunity? Is your goal to preserve muscle mass, Is your goal to calm the nervous system? So, so many different goals, but if you are post treatment with no current evidence of disease, that conversation might shift from, how am I supporting the terrain so that it can support my treatment and my healing, versus how do I shift to nourishing this body long term so that it continues to support the balance of hormones, so that I can figure out how to bring back the joy of food and eat without fear, but still support my wellness goals, right? There's so much that can be involved in this, so we have to understand what's important to us, and what do we want from this amazing, joyful, beautiful thing we call food. So we always have to remember that nutrition can't be discussed without considering the context of what your body needs right now, right? That's the most important voice in the room, and it's going to change throughout the seasons of life. So today I want to break down three myths that I see over and over and over. And these can not only create unnecessary fear, but they can actually get in the way of supporting your healthiest way of living and eating. So if you have wondered and debated or or stressed about whether you need to cut out all carbohydrates, whether you need to stop eating animal food, whether you need to buy only organic keep tuned in, my friend, because this episode is for you. Let's start off with the big myth. Myth number one, you gotta cut out all carbohydrates, because sugar feeds cancer. Okay, let's start here. This myth causes so much fear, and I certainly have felt that fear after hearing sugar feeds cancer. Many of us believe that we have to eliminate all forms of carbohydrate, including greens, fruits, removed vegetables. But here's the real truth, vegetables are carbohydrates. One day, I was having lunch with one of my friends, and she was saying something about no carbohydrates. And I said, Well, we have to consider all forms of carbohydrates, like vegetables. And she goes, Well, vegetables aren't carbohydrates. Well, we've got three macronutrients, right? Fats, protein and carbohydrates. We don't have additional and fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are carbohydrates, so are lentils, berries, squashes, and that doesn't mean they're bad foods. They're they can be very nourishing when eaten as part of a balanced diet, or if they fit into your nutrition needs and goals. So there's a world of difference between simple carbohydrates like pastries and soda and white bread and complex carbohydrates that contain fiber and vitamins and antioxidants. So also thinking about consuming carbohydrates whole, healthy carbohydrates that suit your needs, we also have to think about the way that we eat and the way that we combine our foods, so even if we're eating a piece of fruit, for example. So I happen to be very sensitive to fruit, and it can spike my blood sugar super easily. But I like berries, and I want to have some sweetness every now and then, what human being doesn't so when I have my blueberries or my raspberries or my blackberries, I also have them with some form of fat, right? I am not sensitive to dairy, so I can have dairy. So I have a whole pasture raised version of heavy whipping cream that I drizzle on my berries and I sprinkle them with cinnamon. Cinnamon also helps regulate blood sugar, and it also supports good digestion. So we have to think of the way we eat our food in its totality, and when we do that, we can help that food digest a little more slowly, which supports healthy blood sugar management and can be very nourishing for our metabolism. So let's talk about some of the science behind this in 2013 there was a study in the nutrition journal that found that low glycemic load diets. What is a glycemic load? It is the basically the amount of blood of sugar and the way that's going to affect your blood sugar when you eat it, right? So a low glycemic load is a food that's not going to have a huge impact on your blood sugar when it's consumed. So in the study, they found that low glycemic load diets that prioritized whole food carbohydrates help to reduce insulin resistance. What's insulin resistance? When our we eat something that increases our blood sugar, our pancreas produces insulin, and if we. Have too high a blood sugar for too long a period of time, and our body keeps producing more and more insulin to get ourselves to absorb that blood sugar. Eventually, the cells become resistant to that insulin. It's like we're full. We're stopped. The house is full of sugar. The pantry can't take anymore, and then the body continues to produce more insulin. And this is a whole other podcast, right? Because this is what is kind of the driving diabetes, pre diabetes, inflammatory processes in the body, it can be a big mess, right? So this study found that these low glycemic diets that prioritized whole food carbohydrates reduced insulin resistance so your body doesn't have to make as much of it, and it improved metabolic markers in breast cancer survivors. In this study, it said that low glycemic load dietary patterns were associated with reduced risk of recurrence and all cause mortality. What does all cause mortality means? It means everything that could result in our death, right? So these low glycemic diets improved our risk of all cause mortality, which is super powerful. There was another study that I found in 2020. Was published, and it was a meta analysis in the anals of oncology. A meta analysis is where you take multiple studies and look at all of the data together. And this study showed that the higher fiber intake from whole food carbohydrates was associated with lower breast cancer risk. The finding was that each 10 grams a day in of increased fiber intake was associated with a 7% lower risk of breast cancer. That's pretty impressive. And then research in diabetes care, published in 2009 showed that combining carbohydrates with fats and proteins significantly reduced blood sugar and insulin spikes. So it said that CO ingestion of fat or protein with carbohydrate blunted postprandial or after eating, glycemic response blood sugar spikes, and it reduced these postprandial glycemic responses by up to 50%

so instead of thinking about cutting out all carbohydrates, the real healing opportunity is to choose wisely, pair, mindfully, honor your body's responses and needs. So as someone who's healing from active disease, I keep my carbohydrate intake at 20 grams of carbohydrates or less a day. That's pretty restrictive, but there's a bigger sense of urgency in supporting my body's ability to heal from active disease. For other people, maybe 50 grams of carbohydrate per day can keep their body in a healthy and balanced state between their blood sugar and their insulin. It's different for every person, and we have to understand how we manage that within our bodies. How do you know what's working, and how do you come across a dietary program that serves your needs? So this is about food quality and remembering that not every food is good for everybody, and not one food is bad for everybody. All right, now, of course, I am not talking about Ultra processed food, and we're going to get to that in a minute here, but I'm talking about Whole Foods. Okay, always Whole Foods. We're starting with food first, so choosing our foods wisely and thinking about what our goals are and the state of our health in this moment that we are using food to serve, okay? Myth number two, plant foods are always better than animal foods. When you get a diagnosis of something as serious as breast cancer, how many people tell you, you gotta be a vegan, right? How many people say, Oh, you gotta cut out meat. Stop eating meat. Well, friends, I can tell you that I was a vegetarian for nearly a decade before my first diagnosis of breast cancer, and I can tell you that I have worked with multiple people who are vegans who still have cancer. Okay, so this is a very wellnessy kind of mentality, right? So it's just like, Wow, a plant based diet is the absolute best diet anybody could be on and the healthiest. Well, plant foods are very deeply healing and nourishing, but saying that they're always better than animal foods over simplifies again a complex picture, right? Nutrition is not black and white. So here's what matters most in our overall health, in supporting and optimizing the health of our terrain. What. Matters most is nutrient density and bioavailability. What does that mean? Nutrient density, how much nourishment, how many nutrients are in your food, how easy is it for your body to absorb and use those nutrients in your food? So some of the most important nutrients for healing, like B, 12, heme, iron, zinc, vitamin A, D, d3, omega threes. These can either be hard to get from plants or not as bio available. So when we look up, let's say, like in some kind of food tracking or we ask Google, hey, what's the nutrient value of a cup of spinach? And it tells us what's in that food. That does not mean that our body can absorb all of that. And in fact, in many plant foods, there are different elements in the food that block certain other nutrient absorptions in that same food. So we had to understand what we're what our body is actually absorbing, which obviously we have to think about the health of our gut, and we also have to think about our genetic snips, our genetic variants. And I will tell you, in my personal experience with dozens of people who have looked at their nutrition genomes,

I'm trying to think of maybe one or two in all of them, less than a handful of people whose assessments I've done have had optimal levels of vitamin D. So what does that tell you? B 12, high homocysteine, which is a reflection of absorption and utilization of B 12. So it's a really interesting, complex kind of state of being. So there are important nutrients. Are we getting enough of them? Are we absorbing them, and do we need to increase them through different food intakes to support what our body is capable of doing, right? So this is why clean, high quality animal foods can play a very meaningful role in your healing. They can especially impact your energy, your muscle mass, and your nutrient status, especially even if it has already or is consistently taking a hit from treatment. Right? I am on an oral chemotherapy, so when I'm using my food, I am constantly trying to support my terrain, the health of my overall body, so that the treatments that I'm on can be more effective, but that I can also feel good and have a good amount of energy while I'm undergoing harsh treatments. Okay, so we have to think about the role nutrient plays nutrients plight. So let's talk about what a clean animal food is. So when we're talking about beef, we want grass fed and grass finished. Right? A lot of people look at grass fed and don't take that next step and say, Is this also grass finished? What does that mean? Well, when we eat grains. So let's go back to talking about carbohydrates. When we eat grains, it typically fattens us up. All right. So when different farmers or ranchers are raising cows and they are grass feeding these cows, many times they grain finish them and they are grain finished to fatten them up. Because the more fat a cut of meat has in it, the juicier and more tender that meat tends to be when you cook it, right? So when you go to many butchers, they're going to grain finish their beef to fatten it up. Okay, so we need to think about that. Why is this important? Because beef that comes from cows that eat only grass, not corn, not soy, not grains, this means that it's higher in anti inflammatory, omega threes and antioxidants like vitamin E. When we're talking about poultry and eggs, we want pasture raised poultry and eggs. This means that the chickens are raised outdoors on a natural diet, and they produce eggs that are richer in vitamin D, choline, choline, which is a very important part of of supporting our DNA repair, reducing inflammation in the body, and supporting a process called methylation when we have these pasture raised poultry and eggs, we tend to have more vitamin D, more choline and healthy fats in them, and they're less likely to contain any antibiotic residues. We want to eat wild caught fish, especially fatty fish, like salmon. Mackerel is a very healthy one. You gotta have a certain taste for mackerel. I don't have that taste sardines. I actually really love sardines. To me, they're just just like tuna and so wild fish typically have fewer toxins. Now, again, caveat, right? You gotta know what's going on in your ocean, right? And understand that. Because, unfortunately. Definitely there's a huge toxic burden in our ocean these days, so we have to be mindful of how much fish we're actually consuming. But if it's wild caught, it does tend to have fewer toxins and a better Omega three to omega six ratio than a farmed fish, and a farm having that bigger Omega three to six ratio can reduce inflammation and support heart and brain health. Another great animal product is organ meats, like liver, okay, gross. I know a lot of people like to eat it. I certainly don't. So we can get some of that through supplementation, but there are different ways. Like, I know Whole Foods carries a kind of a it looks like a ground beef, but it's a mixture of beef and organ meats, so it makes it a little less strong and intense. But liver is one of those really nutrient dense foods, one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. It's packed with iron and vitamin A and B 12, and these are nutrients that are often depleted after cancer treatment. You know, I've done a few podcasts now, or I don't know, I've at least one that talks about how different cancer medications impact our ability to absorb certain nutrients. So it's an important thing to keep in mind, just because we're eating something, and we say, and I hear this often, but I eat plenty of vegetables, are we absorbing it? What else are we doing, like taking medications or undergoing treatments that may be impacting the availability of those nutrients or blocking the absorption of those nutrients? Okay, so it's an important thing to think about. Another thing is raw or low temperature, cooked when possible. Of course, we're not. We're going to be very careful with cooking animal foods, because we want to make sure that we do not get food poisoning or E coli or anything else like that. So we want to make sure we're very careful with the way that we eat and that is safely prepared. But gentle cooking can help to preserve nutrients like omega threes and certain B vitamins, and it can help to reduce formation of harmful compounds like advanced they're called advanced glycation end products or ages. And so even when we're we're grilling meat or cooking something really fast, we get that charcoal stuff on them that can be hard for our body to detoxify, right? So slow cooking the meat and making sure that it's cooked to a safe temperature to consume. So let's talk about some of the research behind this in the Journal of Nutrition. In 2018 a study was published that found that women who consumed more animal protein had better muscle mass and strength, and that is critical for healthy aging and for cancer recovery, this study said that animal protein was more strongly associated with lean mass and strength than plant protein. There was a 2013 meta analysis, again, looking at multiple studies and evaluating the findings from these studies in the British Medicine Journal, and this showed that a higher intake of marine omega threes was associated with a lower risk of breast cancer. So it said that each point one gram increment of marine Omega three intake was associated with a 5% lower risk. That's pretty impressive. Then there was a 2020, review in the journal nutrients, and that explained that plant only diets often lacked key nutrients unless meticulously supplemented or plant and I want to make sure that's an important thing, because I have met a couple, not a lot, a couple of People who are follow a vegan diet, who are very careful. Vegan diets can be very high in carbohydrates, and these people are trying to support themselves in recovering from cancer, so they're very careful that their vegan diet is not full of grains, but that it's full of vegetables, right? So this is an important thing, and they have to be understanding and watching labs and understanding where they may be experiencing nutrient deficiencies and working with someone who's a professional and who is capable of recommending and prescribing the right kinds of supplements to support their diet, right so when that's done, but it takes a lot of intention and energy, than a vegan diet can be healthy, right? But meticulous, I think, is an is a very important word here. It does take intention and planning, right? This study said that supplementation or careful planning is essential to avoid deficiency in exclusively plant based diets. And I could not agree more from my own experience and what I see in clients that I work with. So let's be clear, this is not about meat versus vegetables. It's about how you nourish your body with the right tools that it needs to recover and feel strong again, and how do. We understand the body's needs and what foods serve that, right? So just like an integrated approach to wellness, as I always say, it's not about standard care or complementary care, it's about taking the best of both worlds and bringing them together in a way that serves you all right. Myth number three, I love this one if it's labeled organic or plant based, it's got to be healthy, right? Let's talk about labels, because this really, I don't know, it's frustrating, like I saw some bottles of water that literally had on them, gluten free.

Okay? It's water fat free. I've seen labels on foods that it's just amazing to me what companies are trying to put into people's mind, but it works. And so this really plays on good intentions, right? We have good intentions for ourselves. We see organic, we see plant based, we see natural on the package. And we automatically think this has to be good for me, but that is marketing talking, and not necessarily nutrients. So organic just means a food that was grown or raised without synthetic pesticides or antibiotics. Okay. It does not mean that the product is nutrient rich, nutrient rich or unprocessed. So plant based sounds very virtuous, but it can still be full of starches, gums, artificial sweeteners and seed oils. So this is what we call the health halo effect, and that means when health oriented labels lead us to believe that a food is healthier than it really is, even when the ingredients tell us otherwise. So reading labels is really important, friends. So let's talk about the research when it comes to this. There was a 2013 study in food quality and preferences, and it found that people rated the same foods as healthier and lower in calories if those foods were labeled organic, even though they were identical to conventional versions. This study said that participants believed the organic labeled cookies were lower in calories and healthier even though they were identical to the conventional cookie, right? So we've got to think about what food marketers are doing. I actually spoke to someone recently who was recently diagnosed with cancer, and this person was drinking a Dr Pepper, and they said to me, well, at least it's healthier than the other versions of soda. And I was baffled by that. Why is the doctor pepper in your mind healthier than another version of soda? But they had heard some information that really, they really and truly believed that this was healthy, right? So we've gotta think about what marketers are putting into our minds. There was a 2018 study in appetite that showed natural and plant based labels made participants more likely to view processed snacks as healthier and overlook the sugar, salt or fat content in those foods. This study said that labeling foods as natural or plant based created a false sense of health, reducing concerns about sugar and fat content. So gotta be careful. There was a, finally, a 2019 paper in appetite, and it focused specifically on plant based health halos, and it found that people perceived snacks as healthier based on labeling alone, even when the nutritional profile told a different story. So health halos, this study said, led to significantly lower risk perception of processed plant based snacks, and that fascinating. So what's the takeaway from this myth? It's just because something is organic or plant based, does not mean it belongs on your healing plate. Read the label, ask how it was made. Look for ingredients like seed oils and sugars and dyes, food colorings, flavorings, and most of all, tune into how your body feels when you eat it. If you're making a choice like that, eat it mindfully and notice how your body responds to it. Right? There's so much freedom in learning how to nourish yourself in a way that's grounded in real food. Real food, not fear, not fads, and definitely not food marketing. I think that mindful eating is probably one of the best nutrition practices that we can have because that is means we're sitting with our food. We're connecting to our food. We're seeing how our body responds to our food. And we can ask ourselves, am I choosing this food because it supports my body's ability to heal, or because someone told me I should i. And if you're still trying to figure that out, it's okay, it's a process. But your body is so smart. Human bodies are so innately intelligent, it's absolutely fascinating. Your body will let you know. So pay attention. How is it feeling? Does it have energy crashes? Is there bloating? Is there gas? Is there constipation? Is there diarrhea? Is your skin breaking out? You know, do you feel a funk when you eat certain foods? This is your body telling you how it's responding to food. And if we're mindful and paying attention, and not just eating in front of the computer and watching TV and driving the car and running the kids everywhere, but we're actually sitting with our food, which is a very important health practice, that we're going to start to tune into what our body needs and what it loves. Now, if you want more help and support with that, go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com I've got free downloads right there on the homepage, how to eat without fear and guilt after breast cancer is one of them, and you can come and work with me in my better than before breast cancer. It's got a new name that I think really captures what it is better. I used to call it the life coaching membership, but it is now the better than before breast cancer mindset and metabolic membership, because inside that membership, it's all about working on our mindset in every possible aspect of our life, and understanding how to nourish ourself and support optimizing the health of the terrain of the beautiful body that you're existing in. You can find all the details at the breast cancer recovery coach.com and I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, take good care of yourself.

#415 Nutrition Myth-Busting After Breast Cancer - What You Need to Know

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