I have been writing lately about how real food supports your body much better than artificial chemicals cooked up in a lab. Real food supports your liver and gives it the ingredients to make enzymes for digestion. Real food also supports your heart with the minerals to maintain its electrical system. Now, what are the foods that reduce inflammation throughout your body?
So much of what goes on in your body today has to do with too much inflammation. What is inflammation? What causes it, especially what foods cause inflammation? And what are the foods that reduce inflammation?
What is Inflammation?
There is a lot of talk about inflammation, and it appears that it is justified. Before we get what causes and the foods that reduce inflammation, I think we first need to understand, what inflammation is.
According to Google search, inflammation is a localized physical condition in which part of the body becomes reddened, swollen, hot, and often painful, especially as a reaction to injury or infection.
That’s a good definition for the inflammation that you can see on the surface of your body, like the swelling around a bug bite or a cut. My wife, daughter and I experienced a lot of inflammation lately thanks to some serious poison ivy. It was not fun around here for a while.
That’s not the kind of inflammation that I want to talk about today.
You Can Get Inflammation Internally Too
The inflammation that I am interested in is the internal inflammation that is caused by your lifestyle, especially your eating habits. I found some good information at BodyEcology.com that I am going to simplify a little bit.
Any tissue in your body can become inflamed – skin, blood vessels, nerves, and any of your organs. Depending on where the inflammation occurs, when it becomes chronic (lasts a long time) science will give it a fancy latin name. I’m not going to talk about that directly because that can get into medical claims and I’m not a doctor.
As I said, any tissue in your body can become inflamed, and it’s a normal response to stress. Any kind of stress. It could be a bug bite or a cut or scrape on your skin. Internally it can be caused by allergens (I can have a tough time with pollen in the Spring), bacteria, viruses, molds, fungi, emotional stress, and the food that you eat.
When an area of your body encounters these things, it will send additional blood and fluids to combat what is going on in that area, causing swelling. Your body can also raise your temperature in that area to help fight off infection as well. Once the situation is over, the extra fluids are removed, the swelling goes away, and the temperature returns to normal.
It’s kind of like road construction. The work is supposed to be temporary to fix an issue then it goes away. It’s an inconvenience while it’s going on but should be over soon. It isn’t usually a big deal. Sometimes the construction seems to go on forever. That’s chronic and you can give it a fancy latin name ending with “osis” or “itis” if you like.
Like on the highway, when the inflammation lasts a long time in your body it becomes a big issue. The key is to remove the things that cause the inflammation and add things that help to reduce it. Food is a great place to start.
What Foods Cause Inflammation?
AuthorityNutrition.com has an article about 6 foods that cause inflammation. Simplifying their list, it seems pretty safe to just say that processed foods cause inflammation. The foods they list are:
- Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. The processed sugars.
- Artificial trans-fats. The processed fats, like those in margarine.
- Vegetable and seed oils. The processed oils like canola oil and do NOT include olive oil and coconut oil.
- Refined carbohydrates. More processed foods.
- Excessive alcohol.
- Processed meats.
When your body receives food it looks for a complete package, everything that your body needs to unlock the nutrition that the food contains. When factories process foods, they either take something away, add something, or both. It isn’t usually good and your body has to work harder to make use of it, causing stress, which causes inflammation.
What Are Foods that Reduce Inflammation?
If processed foods cause inflammation then it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the foods that reduce inflammation are real foods.
Those foods include the fruits and vegetables that are naturally high in antioxidants and other inflammation-reducing nutrients.
The Harvard Medical School website lists several foods that fight inflammation.
- tomatoes
- olive oil
- green leafy vegetables
- nuts, like almonds and walnuts
- fatty fish, like salmon
- fruits, like oranges and berries
When you read about healthy foods, whether for inflammation, your heart, or just overall health, you always see the same foods – fruits, vegetables, nuts, fatty fish, and healthy oils like olive oil and coconut oil.
Maybe we should eat more of these foods and less of the inflammation-causing foods. Maybe.
CiagaV
It does appear that there is a connection between antioxidants and inflammation. More specifically, more antioxidant foods should help to reduce inflammation.
It is difficult from time to time to get all of the healthy food that you need, so you turn to supplements. When you do, at least make sure that you use supplements made from real food.
CiagaV is a supplement juice that I really like. It is very high in antioxidants from maqui berries, acai berries, elderberries, blackberries and raspberries. They are all organic of course, and did I mention very high in antioxidants?
Actually, the first “a” in “Ciaga” stands for antioxidant.
Disclaimer and Disclosure
I am not a doctor and I am not making any medical claims here. If you have medical issues with inflammation or anything else, please consult a qualified doctor. I am an independent Nikken distributor and may earn a commission if you order your CiagaV through the links on this page.
A Really Radical Idea
Inflammation is one of your body’s natural immune responses to invaders. Technically, the inflammation itself is a side effect of your body’s immune response. When you put things into your body that don’t belong there, that your body doesn’t recognize, your body will attempt to neutralize it and get rid of it, causing temporary inflammation.
When you put things into your body that it does recognize, the foods that reduce inflammation, it doesn’t think it’s being invaded, and you don’t get inflammation. Existing inflammation can go away too because the invasion is over.
Here’s the Radical Idea
Stop putting things in your body that it doesn’t recognize as food.
I know, that’s just crazy-talk, right?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below and, if you’re strong enough, share my radical idea with your followers on social media.
