Objective: Cancer remains the major cause of death globally apart from cardiovascular diseases. Behavioural and dietary risks could trigger up to 70% of new cancer cases in the next 20 years based on speculations. The risk of cancer is becoming more rampant mainly because of various environmental carcinogens which are responsible for their initiation and progression. Consideration has now been given to the roles of medicinal foods as cancer chemo-preventive agents.

Materials and Methods: Cancer treatments and / or management can be overwhelming, hence prevention is pivotal to decrease incidence and mortality rate. We reviewed some medicinal foods with potential chemo-preventive and pharmacological activities. Frugal chemo-prevention, using natural products was considered due to some factors such as availability and cost-effectiveness; this is very important when we consider the current state of the economy of many countries worldwide considering the cost of herbs, spices and foods that are known universally.

Results: The anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties of medicinal foods, their bioactive compounds, mechanism of action as well as their possible chemo-preventive roles against various forms of cancer such as lung, breast, prostate cancers with high incidence and mortality driven by environmental pollutants and carcinogens were explored.

Conclusions: In this current review, we pointed out the chemo-preventive possibilities of some medicinal / functional foods on environmental carcinogens - induced cancers in a bid to enhance plant medicines and compounds for possible drug development.