Korean Killer

At dinner last night with Mrs Che, the discussion veered towards the food on the table and its individual health benefits. (Our conversations have to revolve around tangible subjects otherwise we get nowhere! For example, after dinner I was invited to join their family at the cinema for the Incredible Hulk (?) and was instead, quite surprisingly, dropped off in front of my building and bid adieu...no idea what happened there, I was looking forward to popcorn!) Her husband was telling me that we were seated in front of a myriad of cancer-fighting foods and spices: kimchi, garlic, pickled vegetables, green peppers, ginseng, dwen jan (soybean). He believes that if we eat these foods everyday we are making our bodies strong and we can beat disease, especially cancer. I believe that the foods have many health benefits but the fact that the incidence of stomach cancer is higher in Korea than any other developed nation makes me a little sceptical of the anticarcinogenic theory...