Fighting Inflammation With Food

If you suffer from arthritis and joint pain, or chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, you should know that inflammation in the body can make symptoms much worse.  But, there’s hope.



Food can help fight inflammation in your body.  In fact, eating a diet rich in anti-inflammatory foods can also improve any hormone imbalances, and can offer many other benefits like:

• Improved energy


• Reduction in joint and muscle pain


• Less joint swelling


• Improved mobility


• Improved digestion with less bloating and gas


• Bowel regularity


• Clearer thinking


• Reduction in headaches


• Better quality sleep


• More stable moods


• An improvement of fasting glucose levels and lower lipid levels

Foods That Fight Inflammation (And Those That Don’t)

To reduce inflammation in your body, you may need to avoid:

• Refined sugars and grains like white flour, white rice and table sugar.


• Junk food and fast food. They often contain bad fats (trans fats) that make inflammation worse.


• Foods that cause sensitivities like wheat, dairy, eggs can increase inflammation.


• Saturated fats. Switching to low fat dairy products and lean meat may help.


• Processed meats such as lunch meats, hot dogs and sausages.  They contain nitrites and sulphites that can promote inflammation.


• Too much Omega 6 fats – safflower, corn and sunflower oils.

To lower inflammation in your body, do the following:

• Drink a minimum of 6 to 8 glasses of water every day.


• Balance the Omega 6 in your diet with Omega 3.  Use butter and extra virgin olive oil.


• Eat a variety of brightly coloured vegetables and fruit each day.


• Eat chicken, deep water fish, legumes and beans more often than red meat.


• Eat seeds, nuts and their butters.  Ground flax, pumpkin seeds, as well as sesame and sunflower seeds, are great choices.


• Avoid fried food most of the time.


• Eat a variety of grains other than wheat – quinoa, buckwheat, oatmeal, brown rice, millet.


• Avoid sugar – especially table sugar. Very small amounts of maple syrup, barley syrup, honey or Stevia can be used when needed.

Always use the 90/10 rule when choosing foods to fight inflammation: 90% of the time, stick to the above guidelines; the other 10% of the time, cut yourself some slack. And, listen to your body. If your body has pain or any of the other symptoms listed above, take note of what you have eaten and reduce that food in your diet to see if it makes a difference.

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COMING UP

Next week’s blog will dive deeper into the importance of Healthy Eating through reducing inflammation by balancing the pH levels in your body to lead you to an independent and active life.