To your health!

It’s clear there is a link between what we eat and how well our bodies fight disease. But there is such an overabundance of information on the subject — and the data is, so often, conflicting — that the end result is that we throw our hands in the air and keep eating the same (potentially unhealthy) foods we were eating before.

Cancer is one of the diseases (heart disease is another) that can be diminished or, possibly, avoided through smart diet and lifestyle choices.

Happily, a group called the Cancer Project has arrived with a virtual Rosetta stone of cancer-diet information. The nonprofit group’s Web site offers comprehensive and easy-to-navigate explanations of exactly which foods help fight cancers and why.

It even offers specifics on which foods help you avoid which cancers, which ones can shrink existing tumors, which ones are useful in avoiding the growth of destructive cells.

The project also offers free anti-cancer cooking classes across the United States, such as the series that will be offered on four Tuesdays at the Litchfield Community Center from April 3 to 24 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Cooking instructor Jane Sirignano will offer recipes and cooking tips in classes that focus on increasing fiber; finding alternatives to meat; planning meals with a variety of antioxidants and phytochemicals; and learning to love foods that boost your immune system and keep your weight at a healthy level.

Whether or not you’re able to attend the cooking classes, check the cancerproject.org Web site.

The information there is organized so skillfully, that it empowers the user, and makes you feel as though you can actually do something good for your body simply by planning sensible daily menus.

"More than a third of all cancer deaths in this country are due to poor diet," according to registered nurse Jennifer Reilly, a senior nutritionist for the Cancer Project.

The Web site explains exactly why, in short easy bursts of text, and provides easy-to-comprehend charts and innovative but yummy-sounding recipes. Best of all, instead of offering bits and pieces of information that seem to contradict each other, the site actually explains how different foods and nutrients work hand-in-hand to strengthen the immune system and fight free radicals.

It even offers a clear explanation of what free radicals are (at last!), and how antioxidants decrease their destructive power.

For example: Vitamin E, which is found in whole grains, nuts and beans, can protect the body from arthritis; heart disease; diabetes; bowel, lung and renal (kidney) disease; and cancer, according to the page devoted just to this essential fat-soluble vitamin.

"Unlike vitamin A, which is stored in the liver in enormous quantities and is easily accessible," the page explains, "vitamin E is kept in fat tissue and is more difficult to retrieve. Your body can go without taking in vitamin A for up to one or two years without suffering from a deficiency, but only two to six weeks without vitamin E consumption."

Vitamin E works at high speed, the site also reveals, "and reacts with destructive substances called free radicals, rendering them harmless before they get a chance to harm DNA, therefore preventing mutations and tumor growth."

Vitamin A doesn’t get a page at the Cancer Project Web site. But vitamin C does —not only because it’s a powerful cancer fighter, but also because it helps boost your body’s supply of that essential vitamin E .

Once you can begin to rank the vitamins and nutrients you need in something resembling an order of importance, you can make smart choices about what to eat when. And you can avoid that syndrome where you feel you must cram as many different food groups into one meal as possible. The site empowers you to make intelligent, strategic choices.

By offering this information in such an easily accessed form, the Cancer Project makes one other important contribution to decreasing cancer in this country: It helps reduce stress, which can trigger cancer and other illnesses.