Did you know, when it comes to the nutritional value of fruits and veggies, it doesn't matter a whole lot if the fruits and veggies you eat are fresh or frozen (or canned or dried, for that matter).
What matters much more in terms of fighting cancer is the quantity of fruits and veggies you eat, that is, the more fruit and veggies you take in, the lower your overall risk of certain cancers (lung, oral, esophageal, stomach, colon, and others), no matter in what form you prefer to get your produce.
I have one important reservation about this advice, though. Although I agree with the overall message - I do think all of us should be eating more fruits and veggies - I still prefer my fruits and veggies to be fresh, not only because fresh produce tastes better, but also because some processed produce (canned varieties, especially) includes salt and sugar (even preservatives). Although those additives may not raise the risk of cancer, they are surely not conducive to better health.
The American Cancer Society recently launched a campaign to warn Americans to eat better. Although the ACS campaign doesn't target specific food groups, it is reminding everyone that being overweight - and more than 60% of us are overweight ("Speak for yourself, fatso," said my thin wife when I read her this part; I just love when she uses terms of endearment) - is linked to a raised risk of many cancers (uterus, kidney, breast, colon, rectum, gall bladder, and others). In fact, if North Americans just got down to their normal weight, the ACS claims, we could prevent about one-third of cancers, and we could lower the death rate from cancer by another third. That's a pretty good reason, if you ask me, not to skimp on the salad tonight.
Finally, according to a study from the Centre for Occupational and Health Psychology in Cardiff, Wales, your mom was right. Before you get too worried about what that may mean for you, let me reassure you this has nothing to do with wearing clean underwear every day in case you get run down by a car (nearly every male reading this has just breathed a huge sigh of relief), but rather, that she was right about what she told you about the importance of eating a healthy breakfast.
In this study, researchers took one hundred individuals, made half eat breakfast every day, while the other half were allowed to skip breakfast. After ten weeks, the breakfast eaters had fewer cases of colds and fewer cases of the flu than those who skipped breakfast. And just as important, even when they did get sick, breakfast eaters tended to have milder infections.
So remember your mom's advice, folks, and eat your breakfast, although you can ignore her advice about that underwear thing.
You see, as someone who's had to resuscitate motor vehicle accident victims, I can tell you that we don't really pay much attention to your underwear when doing mouth-to-mouth on you. What matters much more, in fact, is what you'd just eaten.