Food science is a major topic for discussion on Sunday House Call. To me, there was one seminal interview that beautifully encapsulated the exciting science and discovery of the biochemistry of foods and the role they play in fighting cancer.

The interview in June 2006 featured Dr. Richard Beliveau, author of Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer through Diet. To date, 200,000 copies of the book have sold in Canada, an incredible number given that 5,000 is considered a best-seller.

As we discussed in our last interview of June 25, 2006, phytochemicals in the foods we eat can play a significant role in cancer prevention and overall health; literally a non-toxic version of chemotherapy. Our current Western diets seem to have weakened our body’s ability to fend off certain types of cancer among other diseases. In short, our society’s food choices have become divorced from reality and from our biology and physiology.

It seems the next logical step was to expand on the science and, at the same time, produce a book on how to incorporate these foods into our diet. With that in mind sprung his next book, Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer.

• Dr. Richard Beliveau, author of Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer Through Diet and Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer, Biochemistry professor and Chair in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer at the University of Quebec at Montreal and director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory at Sainte Justine Hospital.  He is also professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal.