Rosa Pens Plant-Based Eating Guide and Cookbook with His Nutritionist Nena Niessen

Draco Rosa wants you to eat healthy…

The 46-year-old Puerto Rican rock singer-songwriter and cancer survivor has collaborated with his nutritionist to publish an eating guide and cookbook with recipes like “Draco’s Super Juice” and “Miracle Salad.”

Draco Rosa

Rosa penned the book with Nena Niessen, who was also diagnosed with cancer and beat it, twice.

“This is a book born of our healing from the terrible disease cancer,” Rosa stated in a release about the book, published in Spanish by Penguin Random House imprint Aguilar.

Draco Rosa Cookbook

El secreto de la vida a base de plantas has climbed to the top of Amazon’s Spanish language books alternative medicine section since its release on July 28.

Draco Rosa’s Vida, the 2013 Latin Grammy Album of the year, was a personal as well as professional triumph. The album had been recorded with collaborators including Juan Luis Guerra and Ricky Martin after Rosa was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Rosa underwent a stem cell transplant. Upon the album’s release he was cancer free.

After a euphoric tour of concerts that were, literally, life-affirming for both the artist and his audience, the cancer had returned. Rosa went through another round of treatments, and moved his family and his recording studio to Hacienda Horizonte, the coffee plantation he owns in Puerto Rico.

Niessen, who is Nicaraguan and lives in Southern California, is known for her “cooking for cancer” classes. She worked with Rosa to change his own diet during his illness. Now the two “want to spread the word about plant-based nutrition as a fundamental weapon in the fight against illness in general and cancer in particular.”

The book outlines a healthy vegetarian diet and a plan for detoxing, and explains the nutritional and medicinal properties of specific plants.

“Having been attacked twice by cancer was a blessing and a new awakening,” Rosa said. “We found the way to healthy eating. We don’t pretend to be doctors, we just want to share what we learned, and the benefits that plant-based eating has given us.”

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