Foods That Control Inflammation
Controlling Inflammation Through Diet
Reducing Inflammation by changing diets, is it possible?
Well! For Controlling Inflammation Through Diet, The answer is yes. There are many scientific studies showing that certain foods cause inflammation while others reduce inflammation.
Some people have chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, ulcerative colitis and they report improvements in their symptoms when changing their eating habits.
What is an Anti-Inflammatory diet? Is it healthy?
For how long do I have to try until I see the benefits?
So, let’s talk about the anti-inflammatory diet. We need to explain what inflammation is, so you understand why the anti-inflammatory diet is so important. And maybe that will help you to adhere to this diet for the rest of your life, not only for a few months.
Inflammation is a normal reaction of the body to any threat, insult, trauma, attack, or infection. Your immune system reacts by sending white blood cells to combat the insult, for example, to kill the bacteria or eliminate the cancer cells.
However, in auto-immune diseases, there will be chronic inflammation that is not normal. Auto-immune diseases occur when your immune system recognizes your own cells as something that is threatening, and then, it will start attacking the normal cells.
This is what happens in Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, some types of Thyroiditis, diabetes type 1, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.
We don’t know if fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition is an auto-immune disease or not, but there are some recent indications that people with fibromyalgia have some chronic inflammation going on because there are some inflammatory markers that are higher in people with fibromyalgia.
Now, if you are overweight pay attention to this. Fat tissue releases pro-inflammatory molecules, such as leptin and cytokines.
So, even if you adhere to an anti-inflammatory diet, your levels of inflammation may not go down because your body is constantly releasing these pro-inflammatory substances from the excess fat that you are carrying around.
Before we continue, remember that this Health fitness article is just for knowledge purposes only. If you have a condition that needs medical advice, please talk to your doctor.
And if there is an emergency, go to the nearest emergency department to do a radical diet for a particular span of time. Our approach is to incorporate healthy eating habits in your life for good. If this diet is overwhelming to you, try changing one thing at a time.
It is better to go slow and stick to it than to abandon it because you could not persevere. Remember, you are what you eat.
So, What is an Anti-Inflammatory Diet?
We’re sure you will NOT be surprised by it, as there is a lot of common sense in this diet.
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1. Avoid white bread, white flour, and gluten. Replace with gluten-free flour like almond flour, oat flour, brown rice flour, cornflour, tapioca, or cassava flour.
2. Avoid white sugar any kind of sugar or artificial sweeteners. Replace with homemade sugar-free jams or just plain fruit that already contains sugars. It takes time to retrain your taste buds to sense natural sugars in fruits, vegetables, or milk.
Once you train your taste buds without any added sugar or sweetener you will be surprised how awful it tastes when you add anything to sweeten your drinks or food.
3. Avoid soda, pops and any kind of carbonated drinks replace by water, homemade teas, freshly squeezed citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, and limes, or berry smoothies, like strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, or blueberries.
4. Avoid processed foods replace them with fresh, raw vegetables and fruits. Replace processed meat by buying raw meat, poultry, or fish, and you cook yourself at home, then it is very different from boxed meat or fish.
We found that very few people understand what processed food is. Just look at the packaged food that you have on your kitchen shelf. Is it in the original state that you would find in nature?
So, if the food that you have has been cooked, canned, frozen, packaged, or changed with fortifying substances or preservatives, then, this is processed food. Even the healthiest ingredient can be processed and then you lose all the benefits.
For example, fish is very healthy, we will talk about that later, but if you buy a box where the fish has been prepared in a factory, fried in unhealthy oil, and added preservatives to last longer on the shelves, then it is processed fish.
5. Avoid unhealthy fats like trans fats or hydrogenated oils. Just read the labels and you will find these unhealthy fats in a lot of ingredients, including margarine, shortening, packaged meats, hot dogs, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, frozen pizza, microwave popcorn, and many more.
Replace with healthy fats, like extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, and nuts like walnuts and almonds. Check our other health info article about omega-3 fatty acids.
Well, if you like this health info article so far, do share it with your loved ones. Let’s continue.
6. Reduce red meat. There is no need to eliminate all red meat from your diet if you want to follow an anti-inflammatory diet. Explore our health fitness article about vitamin B12 to read more about the deficiency of this vitamin, especially in people who restrict red meats from their diet.
But it is good to limit the amount of red meat to one or two meals per week. Replace red meat with beans, lentils, chickpeas, and whole grains like kernels, quinoa, bulgur, brown rice, or oatmeal. Also, green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, and broccoli are highly recommended.
7. Get rid of alcohol, it is important to stop using it for a number of reasons, to avoid intoxication, alcohol use disorder, and also obesity, as alcohol contains a lot of calories.
Replace sweetened cocktails, beer, sprites with some organic fresh juices which are safe and are rich in antioxidants.
8. Limit the amount of coffee. There is no need to eliminate coffee as there are benefits, but drinking too much is not healthy. Also, you may be adding too much cream, milk, sugars, or sweetener to your diet.
Replace some coffee with green tea. Green tea contains antioxidants and many healthy compounds.
9. Avoid packaged snacks, especially when you are in a rush, hungry, and tired.
You know when you get home, after a long day when you want to grab a quick bite, sit and relax for a while. That is the dangerous hour. Have some containers with healthy snacks ready to grab. Keep an individual portion of nuts or fruits. Keep the leafy greens in your fridge clean and ready to eat, toss some olive oil and vinegar and eat a big salad.
Leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collards are excellent anti-inflammatory ingredients, you may use and abuse them. Toss them in smoothies, meat, or bean dishes.
The anti-inflammatory diet is a healthy diet. So, even people who do not have chronic inflammation or chronic pain may benefit from adopting this diet.
In order to stick to this diet, we recommend the PSCE approach: (Plan Shop Cook Eat)
PLAN
Plan your meals before you go to the grocery store, including the recipes and ingredients, and make a list of what you need to buy.
SHOP
Only buy the ingredients on your list. Well, of course, if you see a similar ingredient that is on sale, or in season, and you can easily replace that in your meal plan, then go for it.
But avoid the isles of processed foods, sweets, artificial drinks, and canned foods. Spend more time in the vegetables and fruit sections. Explore and be adventurous.
COOK
Try to cook all your meals at home. Limit the number of take-outs and restaurants to very few special occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries.
Invest in a nice pan set, maybe a slow cooker, a good blender, and measurement tools. If finding time to cook is a problem, then try to cook large batches for the whole week and freeze.
EAT
Mindfully take your time to enjoy the meal, eat mindfully observing the aroma, colors, texture, and taste. Eat slowly and if possible, make it an occasion to socialize with family, neighbors, or friends.