Let's face it -- we're screwed. No matter what we eat, or what we don't, there will be a study out there to tell us that our habits might ship us straight to the grave. I've given up caring, and just try to live with some sort of foodie balance, even if I can devour a few bottles of homemade pop in a day if I'm thirsty, or finish up Christmas cookies in the blink of an eye.

But back to the latest cancer-causer -- The Washington Post reports that a new study has found that rats who were fed diets rich in inorganic phosphates suffered an accelerated growth of lung cancer. However, Dr. John Heffner says: "an individual shouldn't act on these results as yet, other than to encourage funding organizations such as the National Institutes of Health to support research to see whether dietary phosphates encourage cancer."

What foods have phosphates? Leafy veggies. Fruits. Meat. Poultry. Plus, the stuff is added to other foods like baking powder, ice cream, preserves, and carbonated colas. See? We're screwed, so I say: Let's indulge!

If you're in Philadelphia over the weekend, be sure to check out Let Them Eat Cake, a wedding cake design competition whose proceeds will go to benefit City of Hope, a California-based cancer care center.

Whether you're a participant (entry fee is $100 for professionals, and students can compete for free!) or just drooling spectator, it'll be totally worth it to take in the scene and watch as pastry chefs battle it out for nine different titles, including Most Artistic and Best Tasting (the cakes, not the chefs).

The 2006 Best of Show winner (pictured) was a delicate pink and white number from Ann's Cake Pan of Horsham, Pa.

The special guest judge will be Sylvia Weinstock, baker of extraordinary cakes and wearer of over sized glasses. (Her cakes are amazing, but the intricacy of the website alone tells me I could never afford one).

So, go! Marvel! Drool! And cross your fingers that they give out free samples at the end.

Have you had a brush with cancer? Is there someone in your life who has? This is a chance to show your support. In honor of LiveStrong Day, the Lance Armstrong Foundations cancer awareness day, you can join a blog event to join in on the activities.

A Taste of Yellow is an event that is officially recognized by the Lance Armstrong Foundation as a participating activity for Live Strong Day. All you have to do is create a recipe using some kind of yellow food. Make the recipe, take a picture, and send it to the host of this event. The host will then create a round up of entries for Live Strong Day. You can find more information, as well as deadlines and guidelines, here.

This is a great way to do your part to help raise cancer awareness. It's fun, it's easy, and it could really brighten the day of a cancer victim.

[Via IsMyBlogBurning.com]

I don't know how I didn't catch this one yesterday.

Grant Achatz, chef at Chicago's Alinea, and one of the most notable young chef talents out there, reported yesterday that he has cancer. He told NY Times Dining Editor Pete Wells that he has an advanced stage of squamous cell carcinoma in his mouth, and says the following about it via his publicist:

"I wanted to personally report that I have been very recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth. I have consulted several prominent physicians and will likely begin aggressive treatment within the next few weeks. I remain, and will remain, actively and optimistically engaged in operations at Alinea to the largest extent possible. Alinea will continue to perform at the level people have come to expect from us - I insist on that. I have received amazing support from friends, family, and everyone who has thus far been told of the disease, and I look forward to a full, cancer-free, recovery."

Slashfood will be thinking of you as you go through treatment and are looking forward to your full recovery, Chef Achatz!

[via: Eater]

A new study gives a good reason for young women to switch to whole grain bread and to generally increase the amount of whole grains in their diets. Conducted at the University of Leeds, the study showed that women who ate at least 30 grams of fiber each day cut their breast cancer risk by half.

The average fiber intake in the UK is 12 grams per day for adults and 15 g per day in the US. Since the results of the study suggest that benefits will not occur when women eat less than 20g per day, it is worth noting that there are a couple of easy ways to eat more fiber. A medium apple, for example, has 4g of fiber. An artichoke, cooked, has 4.5 grams. Beans vary in their fiber content, but tend to have around 16gper cup. 1/2 cup of corn has 5g. There are many other vegetables and fruits that provide low calorie ways to add fiber to the diet, as well.

The benefits of eating more fiber could be overridden by other factors, including weight, but a generally healthy lifestyle that includes the recommended amount of fiber should decrease the risk enough to make dietary changes worth the effort for young women.

Scientists at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh say that they have developed a genetically modified chicken that lays cancer-fighting eggs. The eggs themselves don't fight cancer (although that does present an interesting mental picture), but they do contain a very high concentration of a potentially cancer-treating protein in their egg whites. This particular protein has been used to develop cancer antibodies before.

These eggs are still being studied, and the first "production line" is about five years away, by some estimates. A few other groups, including the US company AviGenics in Georgia and GeneWorks in Ann Arbor, Michigan, have also been working on developing on producing similar antibodies in egg protein, research which may help to speed the process up. Imagine the surge in popularity that the egg white omelet would have if they were to become commercially available!

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a report last month that suggested that people who eat a significant amounts of onions and garlic may have a lower risk of some types of cancers. The report analyzed eight studies that were based in Italy and Switzerland and found that the risks for mouth, kidney, colon, ovarian and throat cancers were much lower for adults who ate plenty of these two veggies. Benefits were generally attributed to those who ate seven or more servings of onions per week, with numbers suggesting that their cancer risks were less than half of the risk for those who rarely or never ate either vegetable. Some scientists have found that the sulfur compounds in garlic and the antioxidant flavonoids in onions seem to inhibit the growth of tumors. The results also support previous research done in China that show the same trend.

All this being said, one of the researchers behind a Italy study says that it is still possible that those who eat onion and garlic-heavy diets may just have healthier diets and lifestyle habits in general, and just about everyone involved still recommends maintaining a vegetable-heavy diet.

If you want to believe the most recent food-causing-cancer study, you'll have to cross another thing off the list of foods that we aren't supposed to eat. A Swedish study has just linked sugar consumption to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. The study followed almost 80,000 people aged 45-83 for about 7 years and noted that those who added five or more servings of sugar to their food were "69 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who never added sugar to their food or drink." Drinking multiple soft drinks and eating sweetened or stewed fruit increased the risk, too.

But like the study that linked bread to cancer, this is far from conclusive. The study found no evidence of increased risk from eating "sweets, marmalade, or jams," all of which are typically high in sugar. And other studies have linked diabetes and obesity to an increased risk on pancreatic cancer, both of which are not necessarily only linked to the consumption of sugary drinks. There was no mention of what the difference might be between the quality of sugar found in stewed fruit versus that found in jam.

Every time we turn around it seems that there is some expert or some study telling us that another food is "bad" for us. And given a little more time, there will be another person saying that the food is, in fact, "good." Red meat -- a category that includes beef, pork and lamb -- has been subject to this time and again and it is getting difficult to keep track of all the things that it can -- and cannot -- do. Fortunately, an Independent columnist neatly summarized the benefits and risks of eating red meat.

Benefits

• High in zinc, which is important for a healthy immune system.
• Contains more iron than most foods, and it is more easily used by the body than iron from other sources
• Also a good source of other vitamins and minerals, including phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, selenium and b vitamins.
• Excellent source of complete proteins
• A high-protein diet based on lean red meat has been shown to help weight loss

Risks

• An increased risk of bowel cancer was found for people who ate more than two servings of red meat per week.
• The Mediterranean diet, which is low in red meat, has been shown to decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease
• Excessive amounts of red meat can lead to a higher risk of osteoporosis due to an acid byproduct from digesting very large amounts of protein.
• Eating red meat every day can double the risk of Arthritis
• Red meat is high in saturated fat and cholesterol
• A recent study found that rating more than one serving of red meat per day can double the risk of breast cancer, especially in young women.

Some new research suggests that there may be a link between breast cancer and the amount of red meat women consume. Researchers said that having "one-and-a-half servings of red meat per day almost doubled the risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer compared to three or fewer per week." The conclusion was drawn from data from the Nurses' Health Study II, which was collected from 1989 to 2003, and where one portion of meat was defined as having a meat main dish (or major component of the name dish) at any meal, including in a sandwich, hamburger, hot dog or bacon.

There are a few reasons attributed to the increase in risk. First, some cancer-causing chemicals "such as heterocyclic amines" are created when red meat is cooked. Second, there may be a link with some of the growth hormones given to cattle. That being said, previous forays into this area have proven to be inconclusive, so even though there was a correlation it doesn't mean that anything is completely certain at this point.

An Italian study found that people who ate five or more slices of bread a day, or 35 per week, were twice as likely to develop Renal Cell Carcinoma, a leading cause of kidney cancer, as those who ate bread only half as often, or less. The scientists behind the study felt that an increase in blood glucose levels might be a factor in the increased cancer risk. High GI foods are usually things that are highly processed with a lot of sugar or contain a lot of refined white flour. Some sources are saying that the study linked eating white bread with cancer because of this GI link, but "the study did not specify what type of bread [participants] ate," so statements of that sort are just speculation. The study did not actually "establish exactly what in bread may be to blame."

Besides, it seems that a significant portion of the food-related media tries to convince us that in Italy everyone only eats the best bread from their local bakeries, not processed white bread. If the results of the study turned out to be a result of eating three loaves of Wonder Bread each week it might make sense, but baguettes?

Add another product to the list of things that have going pink in support of breast cancer awareness. This special edition set of Mundial knives is a ten piece set and includes seven knives, a carving fork, kitchen shears and the wood block holder to keep everything organized. One of the included knives is a granton edge santoku knife, one of the most popular models available, and this is the first Mundial set to include it.

Even though the set was created in honor of the company's partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the charmingly feminine pink color of the set should make it appealing to many for purely aesthetic reasons. In other words, whether you intend to support the cause or not, a girly set of kitchen knives is a nice change from the basic black of most manufacturers.

After getting all that Pink tea from the Republic of Tea, it's probably a good idea to have something to drink it out of and, since we're already looking at a lot of pink-themed things for breast cancer awareness month, why not a pink ribbon cup, as well? While buying one tea cup at a time isn't the most practical way to outfit a kitchen, it's nice to be able to get one to support a cause. The Pink Ribbon Tea Cup is another product where a portion of the proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and its connection to the charity extends beyond the color outside cup to the little pink ribbon within.

We think that a cup like this would make a great gift set when paired up with some favorite teas. The teas mentioned above would be a good choice, but other purveyors, including Adagio, will give you a wider range of tea options to choose from, although coffee is always an option, too.

We love it when we can support a good cause with some of our favorite things, especially when those things happen to be delicious cookies like these. Eleni's New York, one of our favorite specialty cookie companies, has a whole line of cookies to raise breast cancer awareness. Everything is either pink or adorned with pink ribbons, as are these Reach for a Cure handbag cookies. No matter which set of cookies you choose from the collection, 50% of the proceeds will go directly to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

The cookie tins make fantastic gifts, too, especially if you know anyone who has had breast cancer. They range in price and the number of cookies that they include, but the cookies pictured here come in a box of 18 and sell for $58.50.

Sure, we can't help but think of heavy stockpots simmering with stews and deep dark caramelized root vegetables braising in wine-stained casseroles when the month of October hits. It's autumn, right?

Ah, but October is also National Breast Cancer Awareness month, and to show your support for the cause, think pink! Sure, we know all about wearing the little looped pink ribbon, but you can go even further to show your support in the kitchen. We've already started the morning with the Sip for the Cure line of teas from the Republic of Tea, and as we come across more of them, we'll point you to cool, pretty, delicious pink things that are on sale specifically to support breast cancer research and awareness.

These pots and pans are covered with pink porcelain enamel and are available from Neiman Marcus for $140 for the set. Neiman Marcus has a whole area of their online Home catalog dedicated to the pink ribbon products, too.