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ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIET

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By eating whole foods as nature created them you will decrease inflammation in the body, promote a healthy metabolism, and decrease your risk for heart disease and cancer. Symptoms like pain, poor digestion, skin issues, mood imblances, and sleep disturbances are often reduced if not eliminated by following this way of eating. 

  • Eat certified organic food: they have 2-5 times more nutrients and this decreases your exposure to pesticides

  • Plan meals ahead of time, shop accordingly, and find “to-go” foods you enjoy

  • No canned foods

  • READ LABELS!

Steamed vegetables

  • Steaming or lightly sautéing vegetables improves digestibility and allows for repair of the gut lining. High-water content, softer veggies like baby greens, lettuce, cucumbers are often tolerated raw. Include at least 3 green vegetables daily.

  • Avoid white potato and corn

  • Focus on non-starchy vegetables: asparagus, bean sprouts, beet greens, bok choi, broccoli, cabbage (red, green, napa), cauliflower, celery, chard, cucumber, endive, lettuce, mustard greens, parsley, radish, spinach, watercress, arugula

  • Also consider green beans, beets, Brussel sprouts, collards, kale, leeks, onion, zucchini

  • Starchy options include: carrots, parsnip, all kinds of squash, pumpkin, turnip, green peas

  • Sweet potatoes: try classic orange yams, purple Okinawan, and white-fleshed Japanese

  • Mushrooms are generally anti-inflammatory: try known medicinal mushrooms like shiitake, maitake

Grains (if grains are part of your diet --Some damaged guts need a grain-free diet to heal)

  • Avoid all wheat products: read labels

  • No flour or flour products: there are concentrated carbs, high-glycemic, and are from grains not prepared (soaked) properly

  • Eat only cooked whole grains that are soaked for at least 24 hours (or sprouted) before cooking. This removes the natural toxins and anti-nutrients contained in the storage/seed form of the grain.

  • Allowed grains include: amaranth, buckwheat, barley, millet, quinoa, brown or white rice, rye, and teff. Try a grain breakfast porridge with coconut milk and natural sweetener

Legumes: (if you experience gas or discomfort when eating legumes, avoid them)

  • Start with dry beans and make your own – soak 48-72 hours, rinse, and cook slowly with a piece of kombu seaweed.

  • If you need canned beans, Eden Foods makes properly cooked beans in BPA-free cans

Fish: eat 3-4 times per week. 

  • Ideally steam or poach to preserve delicate omega-3 fats.

  • WILD, not farmed: higher nutrient content and healthy fats, and many farms poison the ocean

  • No shellfish

  • Salmon, sardines (Wild Planet brand is best and packed in BPA-free cans), trout, cod, sole

Meat

  • Animals MUST have eaten their natural diet – also called “pastured” animals:

  • Grass-fed beef, elk, buffalo, lamb, venison

  • NO PORK: almost all pork is raised in filthy conditions, treated with chemicals, and fed a poor diet

Poultry 

  • Pastured poultry is hard to find, try the farmer’s market. Free-range is not allowed: poultry must have access to actual pasture to eat their natural diet of bugs and greens, which changes the nutrient and fat content of their meat

  • Eggs are potentially allergenic are must be avoided in the initial stages of using the anti-inflammatory diet as a medical treatment

Fruit

  • Eat primarily low-glycemic fruits: berries, pomegranate

  • Avoid citrus fruits (fresh lemon squeezed in water for flavor is acceptable)

  • Apples are wonderful; can be cooked to aid in digestion if necessary

  • Grocery-store grapes are high in sugar and low in nutrients

Sweeteners

  • Small amounts of maple syrup, raw honey, or coconut sugar are ok ONLY with meals

  • Stevia is probably ok

  • Sugar alcohols: xylitol and erythritol are ok in small amounts, avoid sorbitol and mannitol

  • NO high fructose corn syrup, fructose, sucralose, aspartame, cane sugar

Salt/Seasoning

  • Use as many frsh herbs Best salts to use are “Real Salt” brand salt, Himalayan pink salt, or Celtic sea salt

  • Try Coconut Aminos for a (soy-free) soy-sauce-like flavor

Fermented foods 

  • Essential to the anti-inflammatory diet, fermented foods build your immune system by nourishing healthy bacteria inside and out

  • Sauerkraut and Kimchi must be raw (cooking/pasteurization kills the beneficial bacteria)

  • Coconut water kefir

  • Chickpea (not soy) Miso – e.g. Miso Master’s brand

  • Coconut yogurt

  • Kombucha – although most store-bought kombucha is fermented for only a short time, leaving lots of sugar which is more pleasing to the palate but not healthful

Seeds and Nuts

  • Raw only

  • Grind your own flax seeds: they oxidize quickly after grinding; pre-ground should be avoided

  • Chia, flax, and hemp seeds are high in omega-3

  • Pumpkin seeds and Brazil nuts are nutritional powerhouses

  • Raw organic nut butters are ok

  • Avoid peanuts: these contain toxins and molds

Butter/Oils

  • Eat plenty of healing oils

  • Ok to cook with: butter or ghee from grass-fed cows (Organic Valley and Kerrygold), cold-pressed coconut oil

  • Olive oil: do not heat. Eat at least 2 Tbs daily. Ideal form is organic from California. 70% of Italian olive oils were found to contain cheap vegetable oil. Should be cold-pressed and unfiltered.

  • Cold-pressed sesame and grapeseed are ok for low-heat cooking

  • Avoid toxic and chemically processed oils including canola oil, vegetable oils, peanut, soybean – READ LABELS

Spices

  • Harness the anti-inflammatory power of fresh green herbs (marjoram, rosemary, oregano, sage, etc.)

  • Anti-inflammatory spices include cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, and cumin.

Drinks

  • Drink ½ your weight in ounces of water or herbal tea daily

  • Water must be clean: ideally spring water, or tap water through a multi-stage carbon water filter. Avoid plastic bottled water, distilled water, and reverse-osmosis water.

  • You may drink unsweetened sparkling mineral water in a glass bottle with a splash of fruit juice NOT from concentrate

  • Small amounts of unsweetened nut milks are ok (coconut, hemp, almond, cashew)

  • Or make your own delicious raw nut milks at home: blend fresh nuts or seeds with water in a high-speed blender like Vitamix and strain through a linen “nut milk bag” or other fine strainer. Sweeten to taste with stevia or dates, add a dash of salt, vanilla, cinnamon, etc.

AVOID THE FOLLOWING FOODS:

Canned foods

Dairy products (butter from grass-fed cows is ok)

Eggs

Wheat and wheat products

Flour (even gluten-free flour)

Fruit juice

Corn

Citrus fruits (a squeeze of fresh lemon in water is ok)

Soy

Sugar

Chocolate

Alcohol