Eat like you're poor; eat like an athlete

Tarahumara runners, in Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, eat mostly pinto beans, squash, chili peppers, wild greens, pinole, and lots of chia. Bone-strengthening calcium gets worked into tortillas and pinole with the limestone the women use to soften corn.

The beer - Tarahumara tesguino - is very lightly fermented, so it's low in alcohol and high in nutrients.

No access to brew-your-own corn beer? Wild geranium (geranium niveum) is as effective as red wine at neutralizing disease causing free radicals. It's anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, and antioxidant. Still, there's something kinda awesome about elite super-athletes getting crunk on corn beer before race day.

The author is instructed to eat more fruits and veg; specifically, eat fruit, beans, yams, whole grains, and salad for breakfast. Day 1 on the diet is kicked off with a salad containing: an apple, kidney beans, raw spinach, and broccoli slaw, topped with poppyseed dressing. Wow. Reminds me of the Celestine Prophecy - where they talk about our bodies needing to be woken up with raw vegetables in the morning.

Recently my cousin told me that an oncologist advised her exercise would reduce her odds of getting cancer. I found this shocking, since we all know that physical activity reduced the incidence of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and other blood-related illness, but cancer too? Well, here's the missing link, right here in print in this book:

According to Dr Robert Weinberg, MIT cancer professor and discoverer of the first tumor-suppresor gene, 

one in seven cancer deaths is caused by excess body fat... 

cut the fat, and cut your cancer risk.

A little further down, Dr Weinberg postulates we need to build our diets around fruits and veg: When cancerous tumors are removed by surgery, they are 300 percent more likely to grow back in patients who eat a Western diet, as opposed to lots of fruits and veg.

To sum it up, Coach Joe Vigil says,

Eat like a poor person, and 

you'll only see your doctor on the golf course.