NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial wizard Michael Milken has come clean with the real inside information about himself - the junk bond king was a junk food king. Now Milken, who confided to Reuters that his college nickname was "the bottomless pit," has a hot tip that he wants to share with the public: A change in diet can prolong and perhaps even save your life. Milken, who was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 1993 and was not expected to live more than a year, has coauthored "The Taste for Living Cookbook ... Mike Milken`s Favourite Recipes for Fighting Cancer". The recipes have convincing-looking pictures of everything from a vegetable Reuben sandwich made with tempeh bacon strips to "Devil`s Fool" cake using applesauce and silken tofu. Once a champion hot dog eater, Milken says now he is 95 percent vegetarian, eating fish occasionally. "I am a clinical study here ... my view is that I am living proof that these recipes taste good and quite possibly contributed to my own health," he said by telephone. Milken, who lives in Encino, California, was 46 when he was told his life expectancy was 12 to 18 months. He turned 52 on the Fourth of July. Time-Life Books, a unit of Time Warner, will begin distributing the $27.50 cookbook next month. Proceeds will go to CaP CURE, the Association for the Cure of Cancer of the Prostate, a research group Milken founded. He wrote the book along with his personal chef Beth Ginsberg, a natural foods specialist who has catered parties for many celebrities including Paul Newman. Milken admitted that, while he has tried all the recipes in the book, he rarely does any cooking himself. Milken, who has always appeared athletic and trim, said a fast metabolism hid his long-running love affair with calorie-laden, greasy foods. His food spree continued when he entered the investment banking field and eventually became the driving force at Wall Street powerhouse Drexel. After his close friend Steve Ross, chairman of Time Warner, died of prostate cancer in early 1993, Milken was tested and discovered he also was in the advanced stages of the disease. But Milken plays to win and cancer became another challenge. He literally prepared himself for the battle of his life, establishing CaPCURE, which has awarded more than $53 million in grants to more than 365 projects worldwide. Through its work, he found out that diet could play a major role in his health. Then he found Ginsberg, who showed him that all of his favourites could be reproduced in a nonfat and meatless way. So they launched the cookbook project together. One of his upcoming projects related to the book is to go into schools and try to get children to sample the recipes. He will not tell kids that the recipes are aimed at preventing cancer, just that they are nutritious, he said. Milken predicted that the children will not notice the difference.