Even more important than eating foods to reduce inflammation, is avoiding foods which cause inflammation!
Unfortunately I have bad news, these are some of the tastiest most popular foods of all.
French fries! They cause inflammation - probably because they are fried in oil which becomes a transfat.
Foods containing nitrates such as lunch meats, hot dogs, and sausages. Especially bad are the pre-packaged lunch meats. If you are reluctant to avoid these foods, then at least spend a little extra and buy the lunch meats which say NO NITRATES, hormones, or etc...
Junk foods, high fat meats, sugar, processed and fast foods all cause inflammation. The biggest inducer of inflammation is trans fats. Too much dairy becomes a source of too much arachidonic acid which also causes inflammation. If you do not want to give up dairy, choose low fat cheese, milk, and leaner cuts of meat.
Another surprise to some people are tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant which are in a group of vegetables referred to as nightshade. These also are a source of inflammation and are linked to symptoms of arthritis and generic joint pain. This is due to a chemical alkaloid called solanine.
I recently ran into an old acquaintance who had very similar symptoms that I had; joint pain, stiffness, and it even came to a point of being unable to walk. She said she discovered much of it was caused by eating nightshades. After removing all these nightshades from her diet she was much better. She also has to eat as much organic as possible to minimize the inflammation.
Gluten is another trigger of inflammation. I had symptoms of arthritis and would wake up every morning walking kind of crippled. I removed all wheat products from my diet and the symptom disappeared.
Even more surprising is that a loss of hormones at menopause also results in more inflammation .http://www.womentowomen.com/inflammation/causes.aspx In this article they also point out the importance of being at your ideal weight since too much fat around the waist is another trigger of inflammation.
Some of the other foods to avoid are butter, alcohol, coffee, carbonated beverages, msg, aspartame, and especially parmesan cheese http://purehealthsystems.com/inflammation-reduction.html
Be sure to look back over my article on Managing your Inflammation and the think Anti-Inflammation foods list. Remember, to change your diet, you must first replace the food you wish to take away in order to be successful.
Eat Well To Feel Great!
