Cancer prevention starts on your dinner plate; actually it starts in the garden. Growing your own nutrient-rich cancer fighting vegetables allows you to grow pesticide-free vegetables, harvest them at their peak, and use them right away, insuring the highest nutrient value and best flavor. Then seal in those nutrients and cancer fighting enzymes by preparing your food in Saladmaster Cookware. The waterless cookware preserves the exquisite flavor, nutrients and cancer fighting substances in your homegrown vegetables.

Be sure to include some broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and turnip greens. These cruciferous vegetables release cancer fighting substances that help fend off lung, breast, liver, colon and prostate cancer. Three weekly servings of these vegetables can greatly reduce your cancer risk. Include these vegetables in your stir fries, as a side dish, as an appetizer or eat them fresh as a snack.

In the garden grow these cruciferous beauties during the cooler parts of your growing season. Their flavor will be at its peak. And don’t worry about frost; they can tolerate a light frost and, for some, their flavor even improves.

And if your space is limited, these plants can easily blend into your current garden space. The bold texture and form of red cabbage makes an eye-catching focal point. Turnips can easily be mixed with flowers or planted between longer season vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and cauliflower. Or mix some kale in with your pansies or mums or asters; the color and upright growth habit creates a nice vertical accent in the garden or containers.

Another popular vegetable that is a cancer-fighter, the tomato, can easily be grown on any size balcony or landscape. And nothing beats the flavor of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. Whether eaten fresh, juiced, sauced or added to your favorite dish, this lycopene vegetable (a powerful antioxidant) will help in the fight against cancer.

To grow tomatoes, all you need is a container of soil or a sunny spot in your landscape. Save space and reduce pest problems by growing these vines on a stake, in a tomato cage or supported by any decorative structure. I like to mix these colorful vegetables with my flowers. The orange, red and yellow fruit complements the yellows and golds of many marigolds, zinnias, calendula and nasturtium. Or combine them with blue and purple flowers like sweet alyssum, ageratum and petunias. Select a tomato variety suited to your growing conditions. Check the instruction tag to make sure you have enough warm frost-free days for the plant to grow and produce in your area.

So get busy growing and cooking your way to better health!

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