| A daily diet of watercress could be a lifesaver |
| TV presenter and survivor of bowel cancer Lynn Faulds Wood applauded the research and the fact that a simple modification to one’s diet could effect such changes. Much of this could be attributed to the watercress farmers raising awareness of bowel cancer – one of the commonest cancers in Europe. |
| Cultivated in pure spring water, watercress has been revered as a superfood down the centuries. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, is said to have located his first hospital close to a stream to ensure fresh watercress to help treat his patients. Greek soldiers were given it as a tonic before going into battle and the 16th herbalist Culpepper claimed it could cleanse the blood. It is brimming with more than 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Gram for gram, it contains more iron than spinach, more vitamin C than oranges and more calcium than milk. |
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| Staple Diet |
| Watercress is the UK’s most historic salad leaf and in the 19th Century was a staple part of the working class diet, most often eaten for breakfast in a sandwich. If people were too poor to buy bread, then they ate it on its own, which is why it was sometimes known as “poor man’s bread.” Bunches were handheld and eaten ice-cream cone style – the first “on the go food.” |
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