Mac & Cheese for Cancer 🧀

Fight carcinogens, free-radicals, and other nasties

Velvety & creamy WFPB NO SOS No Nuts Mac and Cheese

This creamy and gooey one-pot pasta is packed full of cancer-fighting ingredients and compounds such as lignans, spermidine, curcumin, sulforaphane, and many more that promote apoptosis and activate NK cells (natural killer cells) to aid in fighting, killing, or even reversing cancer cells back to normal cells¹.

The other nice thing about this dish is that it has anti-aging properties, including photo-protective properties to fight sun and DNA damage that leads to early signs of aging²!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
First the food, then the science.

🥣 Ingredients

Makes 2 servings (~640 kCal per serving)

• 2 cups pasta (I use brown rice penne pasta that has 1 ingredient: brown rice but see the science note; try chickpea, lentil, or whole-wheat pasta instead)

• 1/2 cup diced red onion

• 1 clove minced garlic

• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric

• 1/8 tsp ground mustard powder

• 1/8 tsp ground chili powder

• 4 tbsp tahini (sesame seed butter/paste)

• 6 tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 2 cups water

• 4 tbsp tomato paste/tomatoes

• (4 tbsp nutritional yeast — highly recommended!)

Ideas: Suggested Veggies To Add

For extra flavor and cancer-fighting power!

Broccoli, Bell peppers, White button mushrooms, Beans, Edamame, etc.

🥄Optional (Extra Rich & Gooey) Cheesy Powder

This “cheese” powder mixed in makes it rich and gooey, or try it as a sprinkled cheesy topping

• 2 tbsp raw hulled pumpkin seeds (raw hulled sunflower seeds work too)

• 4 tbsp raw flax seeds

• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast

• 1 tbsp garlic powder

Cheesy Powder directions: blend all 4 items in a clean spice/coffee grinder until they resemble a powder (you could also add black pepper before blending).

🥄Optional Ketchup

Some people sometimes like ketchup on mac & cheese.

• 4 tbsp tomato paste

• 2 tbsp white vinegar

• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  (you can substitute apple cider vinegar if you don’t have red)

• 3 tbsp water

• (1/2 tsp garlic or onion powder)

Mix all ketchup ingredients until it’s smooth and tangy. Add extra water, as needed, to make it thinner, or more vinegar if doesn't taste right still.

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🔪Directions

1. Put the water on to boil according to the pasta directions. If you haven't already, dice the onion and prep the rest of the veggies.

2. When the pasta is still firm (al dente) remove pasta from the water and, if rice pasta, rinse with cold water.

3. Now put the same empty pot back on the burner on medium-high heat.

   If a single drop of water sizzles when it hits the pot then it's time to add your onions (and mushrooms, broccoli, and peppers, etc.).

Add onions to medium-high heat pot

Stir or saute veggies every few seconds, if they start to stick or caramelize/color to much then add 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar and stir/saute, if it keeps happening use 1 tbsp of water and lower the heat if too much color.

4. When the onions become translucent, with a bit of color, add the turmeric and chili powder, and lower the heat to medium while stirring to toast them.

Deglaze with apple cider vinegar if veggies stick

5. Now add the tahini, (nutritional yeast), mustard powder, and 2 more tbsp apple cider vinegar and stir well every minute or less.
   

6. The tahini will start to stick, ball up, and release a bit of oil, now it’s time to add the tomato paste, minced garlic, and any remaining vinegar, and keep stirring.
   

7. When it gets nice and thick, and the tomato paste has had time to cook, then start slowly adding small amounts of the water (about 4-6 tbsp at a time) and stirring and incorporating the water, slowly, so the sauce remains thick and creamy.

Add water slowly to get a thick rich sauce

(Now taste it and if it's too bland then add more vinegar and cook for 1 minute and taste again—repeat until seasoned correctly, if too much/strong vinegar taste to it then do the same but 1 minute cooking time but with 1 tbsp tomato paste instead.)

8. Now add noodles back to the pot and any other veggies, like cooked beans or edamame, and the cheesy powder if you want it (try the cheesy powder on a single portion, or on the side the first time). Stir it well and remove from heat.

Cheesy Powder will make it extra gooey!

If the sauce is too thick then add more water, if the flavor fails, then put back on the heat and add more apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, it’s ready to plate and serve.

Enjoy!

Black pepper is recommended to activate the turmeric, so the liver can process it.

If you absolutely must add salt then try to add it to taste and in small amounts. The same goes for other “less healthy” additions, but the idea should be too try to slowly limit and remove them when you are ready.

Suggest Sides

Make this a complete meal with added synergy by including any of the following:

• A spinach salad with lemon juice and apple slices³

• Grapes to help fight colon cancer⁴

Please let me know how it turned out, any changes or additions you might have made, and any thoughts 💭 and feedback 📢 is most welcome!

Recipe requests are also welcome! What unhealthy meal do you want to see transformed next?!

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🔬The Science

Onions & Garlic: a large cohort study in Europe showed that people who ate more garlic and onion got less: oral cavity and pharynx cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer, laryngeal cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and renal cell cancer⁵. A second study showed that eating onions and garlic makes your blood more effective at killing only cancer cells vs a control, although this was all done in a petri dish⁶.

Tomato (Paste): while the research is ongoing, tomatoes (especially processed such as tomato paste and sauces—one of the few foods that’s healthier processed) they seem to help fight prostate and cervical cancer although, strangely, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious preventative aspects against cancer with tomatoes⁷.
💡Lycopene in tomatoes also has many other health aspects from anti-aging and a lot more that you’ll learn about from future recipes⁸!💡

Tahini: sesame seed paste is full of lignans (almost as much as flax seed!) and lignans have been shown to fight breast cancer and prostate cancer in multiple studies⁹ ¹⁰.
🍴Tahini is an amazing whole-food thickener— it’s just ground-up sesame seeds. Tahini is bitter by nature, but cooking (or freezing) will cut the bitterness down substantially!🍴

(Apple Cider) Vinegar: I haven't seen any studies yet showing vinegar fights cancer, directly, but it can blunt blood sugar spikes by around 20%¹¹ and lower insulin resistance, reducing chances of multiple NCDs including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
🍴From a culinary point of view the vinegar is actually acting as a seasoning for the sauce & veggies—like how salt is a seasoning and pepper is, well…complex…—the vinegar seasons the food and brings out the flavors without adding salt. Apple cider vinegar is really good at this task. 🍴

Turmeric: is a chemopreventive with both protective and preventative aspects against cancer¹². It’s recommended to add black pepper to your food to ensure your liver will process it correctly.

Mustard Seeds: mustard seeds are from the same family as broccoli and kale, and all are chocked full of sulforaphane, which has shown amazing results for decades now on almost every type of cancer¹³ ¹⁴.

Chili Powder: capsaicin, which is the chemical in chilis that gives it its heat/spice, is also in chili powder and capsaicin seems to reduce the risk of death from all causes¹⁵, including cancer.

Flax Seeds: see tahini for lignans as flax has even more than tahini, but flax also fights multiple forms of cancer, in other ways, including breast cancer and prostate cancer¹⁶, even while still eating super unhealthy diet of mostly junk food, and it still reduces inflammation¹⁷—inflammation can cause cancer and DNA damage.

Pumpkin Seeds: pumpkin seeds have been shown to stop and kill cancer cells in multiple studies, here are a few: ¹⁸ ¹⁹²⁰
Pumpkin seeds have also shown promise in hair growth and reversing balding in both men²¹ and women²² although this was topical pumpkin seed oil, but it’s still worth a try.

Nutritional yeast: rich in beta-glucans, nutritional yeast has immune-boosting effects²³. There have even been tests that show it fights cancer cells, but all of those tests have only been done on mice²⁴, and mice aren’t people so it doesn’t really count, but the immune-boosting effects alone might be enough to fight off many diseases, including cancer.

Brown Rice Pasta: all rice is high in arsenic so make sure you rinse the pasta well after and don’t eat rice every day in any form as it can increase risk to lung and bladder cancer chances²⁵. If you are still weary try whole-wheat pasta if you can, otherwise these pastas will work but have a different texture: chickpea/garbanzo, lentil, quinoa, etc.
🍴If want to fully replace noodles you can try edamame or medium diced or batons/sticks/french-fry-shaped of par-cooked: broccoli stems, asparagus, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, or just some peas.🍴

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Nutritional Facts

Pasta (makes 2 servings):

🔥 640 Calories (single serving size; 1 cup)

🧈 21g Fat

🌾 75g Carbs

💪 28g Protein

🥬 6.5g Fiber

🧂 5mg Sodium

Cheesy Powder:

🔥 290 Calories

🧈 19g Fat

🌾 18g Carbs

💪 25g Protein

🥬 12g Fiber

🧂 45mg Sodium

Ketchup:

🔥 40 Calories

🧈 0g Fat

🌾 4g Carbs

💪 1g Protein

🥬 1g Fiber

🧂 20mg Sodium

A final note: just even adding healthier additions to your normal meals can improve your physical health, but mental health is just as important so remember that all forward progress—no matter how small—is progress, so above all else: be kind to yourself.

If I’ve made any mistakes, or something doesn't make sense, or if you want more/less details, please let me know.

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe and share! 🙏

Sources

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