A varied diet can help when it comes to prostate cancer, but there's no room in that diet for sheep dip, according to the experts.
It sounds like sound advice, even obvious - especially the part about the sheep dip.
But it was a point nutrition expert Prof Lynnette Ferguson felt compelled to make at the annual Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand conference in Dunedin recently.
Apparently, the attraction in sheep dip is selenium, but Prof Ferguson said men could do better than line up beside the woolly ones.
Indeed, she told the conference, eating two brazil nuts daily would bring people up to the amount of selenium they needed. Just two.
Prof Ferguson, who heads the nutrition department at the University of Auckland's medical school, said people should not eat a bag of nuts.
Her message is that people need to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables and to be aware that while a little of something, such as selenium, is beneficial, too much can be toxic.
There is increasing research suggesting a varied diet rich in a range of coloured fruits and vegetables has a role both in preventing prostate cancer and slowing its growth.
Once again, the key here is variety. Prof Ferguson was not talking about superfoods or eliminating foods (though she did say that the one thing people should "never never do" is smoke cigarettes).
For all that, there are some foods and drinks that get a special tick from the professor as particularly beneficial. These include boysenberries, blueberries, broccoli, salmon, red wine and green tea.
But it is most important "not to get hung up on one thing", she says.
People should not eat broccoli every meal of the day (witness cheers from the children), nor should they have more than one or two glasses of wine - which is regarded as beneficial because is it is high in resveratrol.
Other presentations at the two-day conference included one from Maree Gould, of the University of Otago, whose doctoral research into oxytocin receptors in the prostate gland may eventually lead to the development of a urine test for prostate cancer.
The difficulty with the existing controversial prostate specific antigen blood test (PSA) is that a raised level is not a reliable indicator of malignancy and, if there is malignancy, whether the cancer is aggressive or passive.
Labour MP Kris Faafoi, who is a member of the National Health Committee and attended hearings into the diagnosis and early treatment of prostate cancer, was also at the conference and said there would be a screening programme eventually.
The quality improvement programme advocated in the committee's recommendations would ensure that when there was evidence for a suitable screening test there would already be a quality system for treating the disease "spread throughout the country", he said.
A select committee report, released last month, said age was the strongest risk factor for prostate cancer.
Incidence of the disease rises with age, but there is no significant evidence that older men are more likely to develop more aggressive prostate cancer, it states.
The report says a diet high in animal fats and protein "may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer".
On the other hand, it is unknown what environmental factors are protective, it said.