Healthy Eating to Avoid Chronic Inflammation

Healthy eating avoids foods that lead to chronic inflamation.

Inflammation implicated in all chronic degenerative diseases.
Modern medicine is now starting to admit, due to recently uncovered scientific data, the fact that chronic inflammation is the root cause of all degenerative disease. Indeed, the main contributing factor of everything from hay fever to heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, and diabetes can all be traced back to chronic inflammation.

What is Chronic inflammation?
Chronic inflammation is a process whereby the immune system becomes off balance and persists unnecessarily in its efforts to repair the body and repel pathogens. A poor diet is the main contributor of excess pathogens in the body and the prolonged process of trying to deal with them results in damage to healthy tissue. Stress, lack of exercise, genetic predisposition and other lifestyle factors can all promote inflammation, but eating a healthier diet is the ideal place to begin addressing chronic inflammation in the body.


What foods promote inflammation?
The foods that promote inflammation are the usual suspects, chiefly, high glycemic processed foods that cause a jump in blood sugar levels and unhealthy fats. Here is what you need to avoid:

• Saturated fat: Found in red meat, fried foods and high fat dairy products like cheese or ice cream. To reduce saturated fat eat low-fat or no fat dairy, eat less meat, choose lean meats like skinless poultry, and trim red meats thoroughly.
• Other unhealthy Oils: One of the culprits implicated in chronic inflammation is omega-6 fatty acids, or to be precise, too much omega-6 fatty acid. A balance between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is what you need, but many oils have a more than 2:1 (or much higher) ratio of omega-6 outweighing omega-3, making them pro-inflammatory. These oils have an unhealthy balance of omega-6 fatty acids: corn, sunflower, safflower, soy, and cottonseed oil. Try to avoid them in favor of olive oil
• Trans fat: Avoid foods with hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list, such as frozen meals, tortillas/wraps, and commercial pastries, crackers and cookies. Make it a habit to read the label on every packaged food you eat (which ideally, shouldn’t be too many!) and don’t buy anything with partially hydrogenated oil. You can virtually eliminate all trans fat from your diet with this simple strategy.
• Sugar: Spikes in blood glucose stimulate the inflammation response which in turn taxes the immune system. Cut out all foods with added sugars, avoid soda, sweetened drinks and candy to help combat blood glucose spikes, which promote inflammation. Aspartame/NutraSweet isn’t any better; it too has been linked to triggering inflammation
• Processed and high glycemic carbohydrates: In modern society, we eat a lot of processed and/or high glycemic carbohydrate. Most breakfast cereals, virtually all baked goods, granola bars, potatoes, bread, and pasta fall in this category. Switch your white bread for healthier, slightly-less-glycemic 100%whole wheat. Favor intact grains (like wheat kernels, barley, millet, quinoa, etc)which aren’t ground up into tiny particles and are digested and absorbed much more slowly than flours, thus keeping blood sugar from spiking.
• Nitrates and nitrites: These additives can increase inflammation, and also are associated with certain cancers, so there’s two good reasons to eat less of them! Nitrate and nitrite are found mostly in processed, cured meats like hot dogs, ham and bacon. You can, however, find uncured meats at Whole Foods and similar stores, or choose turkey for your sandwich instead on ham.  

What foods fight inflammation?

A good rule of thumb for eating more anti-inflammatory foods is to eat all natural, un-processed, low sugar, low fat foods however, there are several classes of foods you should eat more of to fight inflammation.

• Omega 3 fatty acids: While arachidonic acid (omega-6) is metabolized into inflammatory mediators, omega-3 fatty acids like DHA, EPA and ALA reduce inflammation. The richest food sources of EPA and DHA are seafood, and ALA can be found in flaxseed and walnuts. Keep in mind though, that ALA is less active in the body than EPA and DHA, and only some ALA gets converted to EPA/DHA, so eating fish (2 times a week) or taking a daily fish oil supplement is the most potent inflammation fighter.
• Phytochemicals like quercitin, anthocyanins, and polyphenols: These compounds are found in fruit, vegetables and some herbs and spices like ginger and turmeric. Berries, cruciferous vegetables, red grapes, and orange vegetables are just some of the all-stars in the phytochemical category. A good rule of thumb to follow is, the darker the color of fruits and vegetables is, the more healthy phytochemicals it contains, so fill your plate up!
• Low glycemic index foods: As mentioned above, carbohydrates that send your blood sugar high and fast (high glycemic content) promote inflammation. Carbohydrates from non-starchy vegetables, legumes, and intact, whole grains are much less glycemic, making them better selections for an anti-inflammatory diet. Some of the all-stars are: barley, quinoa, wheat berries, whole wheat bulgur, millet and corn.
• Antioxidant vitamins: carotenoids, vitamin C and vitamin E: These antioxidant vitamins come from fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. You can find carotenoids in bright orange carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash, tomatoes, and even watermelon. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, kiwi, bell peppers and strawberries. You can get vitamin E from wheat germ, almonds, sunflower seeds, peanuts and hazelnuts.

What Can I do Now?As you can see, by simply avoiding or eating less of several classes of foods and incorporating more of other, healthier foods into your diet you can avoid chronic inflammation and the many diseases that are associated with it. Beyond what you eat, you should be careful about how you live: diet and lifestyle are not two separate things. When the body is overloaded in toxins, it can respond only in one way: chronic inflammation. Smoke, pesticides, cleaning chemicals, allergens, dust, contaminants, herbicides all contribute to toxic overload almost as much as nutritional deficiencies. The best way to combat toxic overload besides eating healthy is to drink lots of water and get some exercise every day. Exercise leads to perspiration which is the body’s natural way to rid itself of excess toxins.