Breast Cancer Awareness - Eat Your Broccoli!

Surgeon Marsha Nelson, MD, from the Valley Health Breast Center encourages a healthy diet to help reduce the risk of developing breast cancer and shares a recipe featuring a particularly beneficial vegetable.

Eating a healthy diet can be one of the most important things you can do to lower your risk of breast cancer. Most Americans eat the “Standard American Diet” which is high in animal products and processed food. Increasing your fruit and vegetable intake to 5 or more servings a day can not only lower your risk of developing breast cancer, it can improve survival for those with the diagnosis.

Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage are particularly important to include on a daily basis. For women on tamoxifen, for example, if one of their five daily servings of fruits and veggies was broccoli or cauliflower, collards, cabbage, or kale, the risk of cancer recurrence may be cut in half¹.

Try this easy and budget friendly recipe at home!

ROASTED BROCCOLI

• 2 lbs. broccoli
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic seasoning

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Wash and chop the broccoli into bite-sized florets.
2. Place broccoli in large bowl and drizzle the olive oil over top, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss the broccoli until it is fully and evenly coated in oil.
3. Spread the florets out over a large baking sheet.
4. Roast the broccoli for 20-25 minutes, or until it has achieved the level of browning you desire, stirring once after about 15 minutes of roasting. Total roasting time may vary depending on the size of your florets and the type of baking sheet used (darker surfaces brown faster).

Servings: 4

You can add other seasoning if desired to vary the flavor such as parmesan cheese, lemon pepper, etc. Omit the salt if you are on a salt-restricted diet.

¹Thomson CA, Rock CL, Thompson PA, Caan BJ, Cussler E, Flatt SW, Pierce JP. Vegetable intake is associated with reduced breast cancer recurrence in tamoxifen users: a secondary analysis from the Women's Healthy Eating and Living Study. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2011 Jan;125(2):519-27. doi: 10.1007/s10549-010-1014-9. Epub 2010 Jul 6. PMID: 20607600.