For the love of lentils!

A platelet boosting & anti-cancer superfood.

As promised, the writing here will transition! My own treatment has concluded at this time. As with any tumour patient, I’ll report in future for MRI’s to ensure all remains stable but no other action is needed. I’m free to accelerate with building my next startup - we’ll take the wrappers off and accept first money in during January!

The book I wrote with Kiri over the last year is now finished & published, getting rave reviews already and seeing prospective Rodeo customers come our way. While it was a tough year I’m really pleased to be closing it with the book launched and major next steps clearly mapped out.

Attention here therefore turns as promised to finding some anti-cancer tweaks to life! It’s actually a fun diversion for me and will deliver a brighter future for me and those I love. First up: Lentils. I started eating a load more of these this year. While going through Chemotherapy, your blood count tends to take a real battering and in my particular case it was the Platelets taking a pounding. Obviously oncologists are aware of the risks here and constantly monitor the state of play, as shown:

When they crash too far, treatment is placed on hold until it’s safe to continue. My oncology team advised that I simply eat a balanced diet, pause treatment and wait for platelets to climb again. I felt like there might be something I could do with nutrition that went beyond this, so I started researching - I wanted to keep moving forward and get this done.

All sorts of recommendations came up from Papaya Leaf Extract to Legumes, Pulses and more. I ended up reaching for Lentils more and more because the ease with which I could add them to other things - a fistful into ragu, stews, vegetable soups etc. Super easy so long as they had 20 minutes to simmer in plenty of liquids, a decent texture and I could make them taste of anything I wanted! It was a fun mental distraction from the medical situation and gave me a sense of agency. I started increasing lentils around late July when things got very difficult with the platelet count and you can see they were more stable thereafter.

Reading more widely though, I found a load more evidence for maintaining the increase in Lentils after treatment. I found a variety of studies showing higher lentil intake reduced risk (20-50% reductions) of cancers including breast, oesophagus, colon and more. One study published in the journal Cancer (6 year study, 14,000 men, three or more servings of lentils per week) found a 52% risk reduction for Prostate cancer.

For something that can be so easily added to a range of things I already eat either with meat or as a meat substitute, eating more of them seems like a no brainer. Add to that, they’re also incredibly high in soluble fibre meaning they’re great for cholesterol management too. Let’s finish this with a suggested dinner!

The health win of the lentils leaves me feeling I can justify some slightly less healthy things on the plate too, like a pork steak! Here, served up with some seared apple and griddled broccoli, broccoli is a huge win too, containing glucoraphanin. The body metabolises that into Sulforaphane which also has anti cancer properties. I cooked the lentils in a rich stock with a sofrito of red onions and mushrooms, both of which are showing anti-cancer properties in recent studies.

Since this is the first post of the new incarnation of this newsletter, do let me know what you think, candid feedback welcome. Peace and love all, hope you’re having a splendid Christmas or seasonal break, however you choose to spend your time.