Marchioness of Worcester: organic diet helped me beat breast cancer
The Marchioness of Worcester has spoken for the first time about her successful battle against breast cancer, and has credited an organic diet and complementary medicine with helping her beat the disease. The former actress had breast and lymph cancer diagnosed in 2009.
The Marchioness of Worcester is more passionate than ever about the importance of eating organic food Photo: CHRISTOPHER JONES
10:16PM GMT 30 Dec 2012
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Despite having to deal with the rigours of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the
Marchioness continued her environmental and animal cruelty campaigns.
The Marchioness, 54, said that she did not tell anyone about her cancer battle
because “it is just so boring”. “Why become obsessed by something so
boring and negative when the world is such an interesting place?” she said.
Now clear of the condition, the Marchioness is adamant that her diet of
organic food played a key role in maintaining her strength and aiding her
recovery.
“I am almost religious about it now,” she said.
The Marchioness, who as Tracy-Louise Ward starred in the 1980s television
detective series C.A.T.S. Eyes, is more determined than ever to improve
awareness about food.
She said that an “alkaline diet”, which removes processed food, meat and
alcohol, helped her to get through the chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
“My doctor said he had never known anyone be quite so well,” she said. “I would put it down to complementary medicine and alkalining my body.”
An alkaline diet is a common form of alternative medicine that claims to prevent cancer and help the treatment of it by making body fluids less acidic.
The veracity of such claims is questioned by the medical establishment.
The Marchioness said that she had “never felt better” since switching to the diet and, for now, was clear of cancer.
She recommended that everyone should eat more raw vegetables, take supplements such as omega 3 and avoid meat.
Although her husband’s estate was not organic, the Marchioness said that people should try organic food because it contained fewer chemicals from pesticides.
She married the Marquis of Worcester, the eldest son of the 11th Duke of Beaufort, who owns Badminton estate, in 1987.
The mother of three also revealed that she did not want to send their children to boarding schools, which she said were elitist and failed to teach children about the real world.
However, she said that she was expected to do so by her husband’s family.
Her two sons and daughter went to Marlborough College in Wiltshire, which the Duchess of Cambridge attended.
“I did not want it but it was demanded in this family,” she said.
The great-granddaughter of the Earl of Dudley said that her experience of boarding school had been negative and that she was expelled a number of times. “For me, when I came out of boarding school I was totally ignorant of the world,” she said.
“This country is the only country in the world where normal children are sent to boarding school, normally it is just problem children.”
The Marchioness said that she did not want boarding schools to be banned but instead wanted more money for national schools.
“We are enslaved to earning enough money to send people to the boarding school club. It would be great to be freed from that so that everyone’s children had a good education,” she said.
“It makes a division in society. Wouldn’t it be better if we all had the time, and money made sure everybody’s school was good?”
The Marchioness, who played Miss Scarlett in the first television adaptation of Cluedo, is parcelled in with the eco-chic crowd along with friends Zac Goldsmith and Trudie Styler.
Her sister, Rachel Ward, was in the 1980s television series The Thorn Birds and is now a director.
However, Tracy Worcester, as she prefers to be known, insists that her priority is fighting the “big business” behind intensive factory farming, which she says is poisoning the environment by flushing effluent into rivers and using up water.
She is seldom seen on the social circuit and instead travels the world campaigning against factory farms.
In the midst of her cancer battle, she made a film, Pig Business, which exposed the use of chemicals in intensive pork farming.
She is currently updating the documentary to include footage from intensive pig farms around the world.
Some of the worst conditions are in Chile, and the Marchioness claimed that meat from Chile was ending up in cheap pork in Britain. She said that pigs continued to be kept in cruel conditions, where sows are unable to turn around in their stalls.
She added that it was impossible to trace where this meat ended up, but advised consumers to buy British, where welfare standards are higher.
“My doctor said he had never known anyone be quite so well,” she said. “I would put it down to complementary medicine and alkalining my body.”
An alkaline diet is a common form of alternative medicine that claims to prevent cancer and help the treatment of it by making body fluids less acidic.
The veracity of such claims is questioned by the medical establishment.
The Marchioness said that she had “never felt better” since switching to the diet and, for now, was clear of cancer.
She recommended that everyone should eat more raw vegetables, take supplements such as omega 3 and avoid meat.
Although her husband’s estate was not organic, the Marchioness said that people should try organic food because it contained fewer chemicals from pesticides.
She married the Marquis of Worcester, the eldest son of the 11th Duke of Beaufort, who owns Badminton estate, in 1987.
The mother of three also revealed that she did not want to send their children to boarding schools, which she said were elitist and failed to teach children about the real world.
However, she said that she was expected to do so by her husband’s family.
Her two sons and daughter went to Marlborough College in Wiltshire, which the Duchess of Cambridge attended.
“I did not want it but it was demanded in this family,” she said.
The great-granddaughter of the Earl of Dudley said that her experience of boarding school had been negative and that she was expelled a number of times. “For me, when I came out of boarding school I was totally ignorant of the world,” she said.
“This country is the only country in the world where normal children are sent to boarding school, normally it is just problem children.”
The Marchioness said that she did not want boarding schools to be banned but instead wanted more money for national schools.
“We are enslaved to earning enough money to send people to the boarding school club. It would be great to be freed from that so that everyone’s children had a good education,” she said.
“It makes a division in society. Wouldn’t it be better if we all had the time, and money made sure everybody’s school was good?”
The Marchioness, who played Miss Scarlett in the first television adaptation of Cluedo, is parcelled in with the eco-chic crowd along with friends Zac Goldsmith and Trudie Styler.
Her sister, Rachel Ward, was in the 1980s television series The Thorn Birds and is now a director.
However, Tracy Worcester, as she prefers to be known, insists that her priority is fighting the “big business” behind intensive factory farming, which she says is poisoning the environment by flushing effluent into rivers and using up water.
She is seldom seen on the social circuit and instead travels the world campaigning against factory farms.
In the midst of her cancer battle, she made a film, Pig Business, which exposed the use of chemicals in intensive pork farming.
She is currently updating the documentary to include footage from intensive pig farms around the world.
Some of the worst conditions are in Chile, and the Marchioness claimed that meat from Chile was ending up in cheap pork in Britain. She said that pigs continued to be kept in cruel conditions, where sows are unable to turn around in their stalls.
She added that it was impossible to trace where this meat ended up, but advised consumers to buy British, where welfare standards are higher.
