Healing Inflammation with Food

Welcome! There’s a good chance you’ve found your way here from my, What is Inflammation and Why Are We Fighting It? post. If that’s not the case, I highly recommend giving it a read when you’re done with this one, as it’s going to give you an even better understanding of why the information I’m going to share with you today is so valuable.

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Before we begin, I’d like to take a minute to introduce myself in case you’re new here. My name is Nicole. I’m a Certified Holistic Nutritionist who specializes in helping people adopt an anti-inflammatory, immunity boosting, low-toxin lifestyle. If that resonates with you, then you’re in the right place. 

So, today we’re going to talk about fighting chronic inflammation with food. If you recall, in my What is Inflammation and Why Are We Fighting It? post, we talked about how chronic inflammation is caused by subtle, ongoing lifestyle habits that cause the body to think it’s under attack and thus, go into defense mode, resulting in an immune system response. In order to understand how to fight inflammation with food, we first have to understand what it is about the food that most people are eating that’s causing the inflammation in the first place.

There are three main reasons why food is causing inflammation in people. The first is that so much of the food in the Standard American Diet is highly processed, made with ingredients like refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, seed oils, food dyes, preservatives and other chemicals that are not found in nature. The second reason is that even the “real food” that most of us are eating (think wheat, dairy, eggs) are resulting in us experiencing sensitivities to the food and those sensitivities cause our body to work overtime. These sensitivities can be attributed to food’s production rather than the food itself. And third, food is causing inflammation because it's so heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. I’m going to dive into each of the reasons a bit deeper and then share some practical and affordable solutions to each.

First off, let’s discuss highly processed foods with dangerous ingredients. These are the products with long shelf lives that are sitting in boxes in the middle of the grocery store and don’t require refrigeration. These are also foods that just don’t exist in nature. Think of it this way: there’s no such thing as a pop tart farm and no one’s harvesting fruit snacks or granola bars. The problem with these foods and their ingredients is that they are so far removed from nature and what the body can recognize as food and so when we eat them, the body goes into defense mode to protect itself from the food. If you were to eat something like this once in a while, maybe it’s not so bad. But I want you to imagine what’s going on inside of your body if you eat something like this daily. It’s keeping the body in defense mode and, as a result, the inflammatory response that should be acute is now activated over and over and over again every single day, turning it chronic.

How can we address this? The best piece of advice I can give you is to remove these foods altogether. The highly processed, refined grains and sugars, the vegetable and seed oils, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, food dyes, chemicals, and overall, any foods that are void of nutrients that they have to be fortified with nutrients – just remove them. Instead, opt for real food. This means fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, whole grains, legumes, and potatoes. A great piece of advice I’d received years ago was to shop the outer aisles of the grocery store.

Food sensitivities can be another driver of inflammation being caused by food. First, let’s get clear on what I mean by “sensitivity”. I am referring to general discomfort caused by eating a certain food, such as cramps, bloating, gas, headache, brain fog, diarrhea, constipation, mild skin issues, etc. I am not referring to allergic reactions or any sort of life-threatening reaction. If you experience allergies, especially life-threatening allergic reactions, to any food, this information is not for you. 

Common foods that trigger sensitivities are gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, nuts, and even fruit – the same foods that are most likely to cause allergic reactions. The issue that comes into play here is because the symptoms of the sensitivities tend to be less severe and more of an inconvenience than a true health concern, people often continue to eat these foods, accepting the discomfort that comes with them. What happens, though, is that when we repeatedly eat foods that we’re sensitive to, the reactions that occur begin to impact the integrity of our gut health, which is directly linked to immunity and inflammation.  

So, what’s the solution here? Well, it is becoming more widely believed that the rise in food sensitivities isn’t so much linked to the foods themselves, but rather the ways in which we are producing our food. For example, it’s believed that gluten sensitivity may be due to the high use of pesticides on wheat and the expedited process used to make a loaf of bread compared to slow process, which included fermentation, which used to take place. Or that dairy sensitivity is caused by the pasteurization of the milk, which destroys the enzymes that help us to digest it. Click here to learn more about gluten and dairy sensitivities, specifically. As a general rule, though, looking for certain key words when you shop for these items could help to ensure that you are getting the item in its purest, liveliest, and highest quality form, which could potentially help to ease or eliminate the sensitivity symptoms and their impact on your health. These key words include: organic, raw, pasture raised, grass fed, non-GMO. 

The third issue, which I’ve already briefly touched on, is the issue of pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides and herbicides are chemicals that are sprayed on produce and grains with the purpose of protecting the crops from insects or unwanted weeds that can grow. The problem is that the chemicals linger on the food and then we eat that food, chemicals and all. These chemicals are toxic and in an effort to protect us, the immune system responds. As you now know, it’s that immune system response that causes inflammation in the body. As we repeatedly eat foods containing pesticide and herbicide residue, the immune system keeps fighting, leading to chronic inflammation.

How, then, do we avoid eating pesticides and herbicides with our food? The answer is to shop organic. Now, as we all know, groceries are not cheap right now, and shopping organic may seem completely out of the question, but I do have some tips that can make it more affordable than you might have thought:

·      Meat and grains should always be organic. In regular grocery stores this can get expensive, but there are now online grocers such as Butcher Box and Thrive Market that offer clean, organic options at lower prices and will deliver them straight to your door. They’re subscription services, but you control the frequency, so you may pay more upfront for a higher volume, but the food can last you several months (grains naturally have a long shelf life and the meats are frozen)

·      When shopping for produce, utilize the EWG’s Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen List. This list is updated annually and specifies which produce (dirty dozen) have the highest amount of pesticide residue and should always be organic and which produce you can shop conventional. This balance between organic and conventional can save some money.

·      Shop frozen produce. A huge problem with buying fresh, organic produce is that it can go bad quickly, so you’re not only paying more money, but you’re throwing a good portion away every week. Frozen, organic produce is going to have the same nutrient benefits (or possible more because it’s flash frozen at its peak), it’s going to cost less over all for the volume you’ll get, and you don’t have to worry about it spoiling in the fridge after three days.

So, let’s recap: in order to fight inflammation with food, we’re going to swap processed food for real food, we’re going to avoid foods that cause sensitivities or only eat them in their whole, organic, live forms, and we’re going to swap conventional food for organic food (at least based on EWG’s guidelines).

I hope you found some value in this, and I hope you’re walking away feeling empowered to make better food choices for your health. Again, if you haven’t read my What is Inflammation and Why Are We Fighting It post, I highly recommend taking a look. If you’ve come from that post and you’re interested in learning how else you can fight inflammation, click here to learn how to heal inflammation with clean personal care or click here to learn how to heal inflammation with a clean environment

Until next time… 

-       Nicole