Guidelines For Reducing Dietary Inflammation
I am going to share with you three simple guidelines for reducing dietary-related inflammation in the body. These guidelines should be followed as part of a holistic lifestyle, one that focuses on whole foods, body-mind movement (more on this at the end), nature connection, and optimum nutrition. Keep in mind that when following dietary guidelines, optimum nutrition is a foundation of vibrant living, as our bodies and minds function best when we nourish our tissues with the necessary nutrients. Malnutrition alone is enough to decrease digestive power and can lead to inflammatory states, even when these “rules” are followed.
Inflammation gets a bad rap. It’s a necessary part of immune function, without which we wouldn’t be able to heal from wounds, infections, or allergies. Excess inflammation, like any out of balance metabolic reaction in the body, can cause problems. Excess inflammation can lead to nutrient malabsorption, high blood pressure, joint pain, fatigue, and mental distress. There are ingredients that cause inflammation, and there are practices that can lead to inflammation as well- these guidelines cover both. The goal is to not add unnecessary inflammation in the body, if we can help it. Here are three guidelines to help you along your journey:
1. Eat fresh food / reduce processed foods
2. Be mindful of portion size
3. Simple meals for easy digestion
Processed Food
Eliminating processed foods from the diet is likely advice you’ve heard before. Although it’s best to aim at “eliminating” highly processed, inflammatory foods - it’s easy to be sympathetic because they are indeed everywhere. It might help to clear up what I mean by “processed.” Processing food can technically mean cutting up a cantaloupe and adding it to fruit salad, because you’re processing a raw ingredient and using it in a recipe. I prefer to call that “food preparation” or simply cooking! Processed foods in the grocery store, on the other hand, are ready-to-eat foods in packages that include stabilizers to keep the food shelf-stable and preserved. It is the preservatives we’re looking to avoid, and they can be easy to spot (or miss) on any food ingredient label at the grocery store.
Additives/preservatives to avoid: Artificial colors (yellow #5 & 6, red #3 & 40, blue #1 & 2, etc.), high fructose corn syrup, potassium bromate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium nitrites & nitrates, propylparaben, sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfites, BHA & BHT, yeast extract (hidden form of MSG), rice extract, & trans fats.
There are plenty of other additives and stabilizers on the market that could cause inflammation; and even some of the additives in the list above might be okay for you in small doses! What is most important is the ratio of fresh to processed foods in your daily diet - fresh foods should always outweigh the amount of processed foods you eat (at least 70/30). Preserving foods is actually an important practice, and you can preserve foods at home in lots of ways! Drying, fermenting, pickling, dehydrating, or freezing are all types of preservation you can try at home to help your fresh food last longer. The important distinction to make is buying already preserved foods (that were made to last months or years) in place of everyday, fresh ingredients. For example, sautéing fresh green beans, steaming organic rice, and baking organic chicken with roasted peppers and onions would be a better choice than a frozen dinner containing the exact same ingredients, or even the same ingredients at most restaurants (as restaurant and retail food distribution contains extra preservatives to cover length of travel). Another example could be creating your own spice mix/gravy mix/dressing mix instead of buying those little seasoning packets- which are often packed with flavorings, additives, thickeners, and calories.
A special type of processed food is especially important to avoid, and that’s refined carbohydrates and sugars. White sugar, white bread, pasta, refined and enriched flours, boxed mixes for cakes, breads, muffins, cookies, or stuffing - all are likely to contain GMO wheat, soy, or corn. These processed ingredients are used in nearly every item in the center of grocery stores, or at least contain a manufactured byproduct of one of these ingredients. These are especially inflammation-forming, and even more so when in liquid forms. Convenience shakes, smoothies, powders, coffee drinks, and soda can contain extra sweeteners, thickeners, and gums - all of which can lead to extra inflammation, not to mention easy weight gain! The extra carbohydrate storage means extra water retention, which could throw off electrolyte balance in the body, and affect how well nutrients are absorbed. Avoiding refined carbs and byproducts of GMO corn, wheat, and soybeans will help keep inflammation low in the body.
Refined manufactured ingredients: Corn: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrins, maltodextrin, dextrose, fructose or crystalline fructose, sorbitol Soybeans: soy lecithin, non-organic vegetable oil Wheat: hydrolyzed vegetable protein, monosodium glutamate, enriched wheat flour (enriched flour has added synthetic minerals, which aren’t synthesized by the body as well as whole-food minerals, and can actually pull vitamins and minerals out of the body).
These ingredients are by no means inherently evil, they just aren’t the first choice for someone looking to reduce dietary inflammation. If optimum nutrition is a foundation of well-being, then refined fillers like those listed above are not a part of that foundation. These ingredients are manufactured to create foods that keep us full- not foods that nourish us.
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Eating Fresh Food
For the most nourishing diet, choose fresh foods. “Fresh” can even mean frozen if the ingredient is out of season! (I actually prefer frozen berries & bananas for smoothies!) Even if you can’t completely eliminate packaged/processed foods from the diet yet, it may help to begin by introducing more fresh food into your life first. By adding fresh foods, you make less room for processed foods in your diet; and don’t need to worry about eliminating anything until you’re ready. Fresh foods are going to be your best bet to avoiding inflammatory additives, preservatives, and extra stabilizers that your body simply doesn’t need. Fresh, whole foods like whole fruits and vegetables, raw or sprouted whole nuts, wild or grass-fed meat, cage-free eggs, organic cheese, fermented food and drinks, cultured yogurt, wild/foraged herbs and greens. These are everything in the produce section of a grocery store: where we should be buying most of our food for optimum nutrition. Any diet based on vegetables, dark leafy greens, or fruit is bound to provide the body with ample nutrition, but there are some foods that offer a little more help with reducing inflammation.
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Cooking with Fresh Foods
Fresh fruits and vegetables are often prepared raw, and sometimes require little to no cooking. Cooked vegetables, however, are an important foundational diet for most people, as raw vegetables are often harder to digest (not ideal for someone with a healing gut or GI issues). Slightly cooking vegetables offers some breakdown of nutrients, making the nutrients easier to assimilate in our digestive tracts. But too much cooking can break down too many nutrients, causing all the vitamins or minerals to be cooked away. A good general rule is out of all your daily vegetables, half should be cooked and half should be raw. This can really vary person to person, but offering some variety is nice since we’re likely eating the same vegetables and fruits every day! Our everyday produce will rotate depending on the season, which is really where cooking with fresh food gets fun! Going to the farmers market is a perfect way to get local (usually higher in nutrients) from your local farmers (supporting local economy) while getting the best nutrition you can for yourself!
It can be a challenge deciding what to make for dinner when it’s been awhile since you’ve been to the grocery store or farmers market, and all you have left in the fridge are a random assortment of vegetables. There is an oversimplified phrase we like to use when cooking with the seasons: “less is more.” A baked potato, a sliced tomato with salt and pepper, sauteed broccoli and peppers, cream of celery soup, or roasted brussels sprouts. These are all examples of meals based around 1-2 vegetables, and sometimes that’s all you need! (Because sometimes that’s all that’s in season!) Of course, depending on how many people you’re feeding, will decide how much to prepare, but still: less is more! Highlighting a single vegetable allows you to reap the full nutritive benefits, explore flavors, and experiment with recipes.
Tip: Keeping scraps of vegetables (you would otherwise toss during dinner prep) in a freezer bag is a way to make your own vegetable stock - for (almost) free!
Be Mindful of Portion Size
One of the easiest ways to avoid inflammation (and weight gain) is to be mindful of portion size. Everyone needs different serving sizes per day, depending on age, sex, and personal health conditions, but we all need a balanced diet. Imagine two people are eating the same American Heart Association’s suggested daily servings of food groups. Those two people could have very different experiences, maybe one thrives on the diet while the other stagnates. Perhaps it’s too much food for one person, and not enough for another. When looking at the health patterns in our society, the evidence is right before our eyes: people are eating more and being nourished less. The American dinner plate is about twice the size it used to be, and I’m sure you’ve seen the “regular” drink size increase slowly over the past decade. We live in a culture where “more is better,” and it has no doubt shaped the way we think about average meals. We’re fuller, therefore more satisfied, right? But that’s often not how it works.
There is a case to be made against deifying the “perfect, cleanest” diet. No matter what you eat (assuming you’re not allergic to it), you can likely get away with it. “The medicine is in the dose” they say, and that’s absolutely true when living a balanced lifestyle. Gluten and dairy are moistening to the system, and might actually be helpful for “dry” people. Excess, of course, can still throw them off balance! However gluten and dairy might totally “congest” someone else - but they can handle one bite. So how can these two people say the other is right or wrong? Unless you take one bite of something that immediately causes you pain or suffering, it’s unlikely one bite of a “naughty food” will cause inflammatory distress in the body- yet this idea is a reality for some. At the same time, others are only satiated when completely stuffed, belly tight and nauseated, only done eating when completely full. Eating patterns are incredibly complex and personal, and are often more psychological than purely functional. We eat for many reasons other than to nourish our bodies; which is why it’s best to focus on optimum nourishment as often as we can - because we can’t forget about it! At the end of the day, what is right for you is up to you.
Eating Until Satisfied / Drinking To Thirst
For a nutritionist, I have a pretty lax guideline about “how much food” someone should eat in a day. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the NHS, the USDA, the American Heart Association and plenty of other organizations and associations have standard daily recommendations (or ‘recommended daily allowance’ /RDA) of various nutrients. It’s also common knowledge by now that while 2,000 calories is a standard daily caloric intake, nutritional needs vary person to person, and should be customized around lifestyle factors like age, sex, activity level, and state of health. So if individuals truly need customized RDA of nutrients and personalized calorie intake limits (that could vary from day to day, or season to season), then how helpful is the “standard,” really? This is where the power of your hunger and thirst can drastically change your health: drink to thirst and eat until you’re satisfied. No more, and no less.
Within that scope, note the nutritional value of the calories you’re eating. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and fresh animal products (from the farmers market, for example) probably don’t come with a nutrition facts label (and even if they did, the health of the soil greatly changes the trace mineral content of the vegetables). So while the internet may say one cup of broccoli contains 288 milligrams of potassium, there’s actually no way of knowing that in the cup of broccoli on your dinner plate. We have pretty good estimates of the nutritional profile of fruit, vegetables, herbs, and animal products thanks to the age of science- but not everyone wants to live according to the “numbers” in their food. There’s a simpler way.
Tip: non-organic vegetables from the grocery store (especially if they’re out of season, cheap, and waxy) were likely grown in mineral depleted soil and were picked prematurely and ripened during transit or storage. While that’s fine to meet demand of large populations, there are better options to get mineral rich, optimum nutrition food in your life. This may be necessary for folks with distressed or weakened digestion, as digesting fibrous vegetables may cost more energy than it’s worth because the food provides so little nutritional value in return. Frozen organic vegetables are a good option here, as frozen produce is often picked at peak ripeness and frozen immediately, preserving peak nutrition and quality.
Now... a waxy non-organic vegetable is still a vegetable - and eating it would be better than not eating a vegetable at all. Washing produce is very important, and food grade wax can often be scrubbed off with hot water. If that’s what you have access to, then you can still eat your vegetables! Trust your body to get what it needs from the healthy food you prepare yourself, and thus reduce dietary inflammation by not overeating - or undereating. Eat portion sizes that you’re hungry for: that could be an entire head of lettuce, or two ounces of meat, or a handful of walnuts, or a spoonful of almond butter. Some people thrive on small meals throughout the day while others (like myself) see reduced inflammation with three hearty meals per day. Large meals 5-7 hours apart gives the body time to rest, digest, and get ‘properly hungry’ again, which may be helpful for some - and maybe not for others. If you’re looking for a new routine, experiment with the times and portions of your meals a week at a time to really get to know if it works for you. Another factor to consider is eating one food group at a time: eating only fruit, only vegetables, or only meat or dairy as a meal and seeing if that affects your digestion. Experiment for yourself to best feel the effects and understand what suits you best.
Whatever the portion size, mealtime, or circumstances, eating fresh foods with heavy vegetables (dark leafy greens are always a winner) and honoring your body when it’s full will greatly reduce dietary related inflammation in the body.
Mastication
Another aspect to mechanical digestion is how well we chew the food in our mouths. For this recipe, you might chop the pieces smaller than your average chopped vegetables. If the pieces start smaller, the more effective your chewing, allowing for simpler digestion in the lower GI. This aids in overall digestion, less likely to cause inflammatory reactions. For further digestive aids, oral bitters composed of bitter herbs or vinegar can stimulate digestive juices like saliva (mouth), hydrochloric acid (stomach), and bile production (liver)- further assisting in digestion and reducing inflammation. We take these extra precautions when working on healing the gut, especially when that region of the body has been inflamed, or unhealthy for prolonged periods of time. The entire idea behind eating texturally simple foods to reduce inflammation is to send soft food to the stomach for easy digestion. If we can do that by chewing our food (mastication) really, really well then we can ease the burden of lower GI organs like the stomach and intestines. So if you have bloating after eating popcorn, try chewing each bite of popcorn 30 times to see if that changes anything. If you don’t want to chew each bite that long, try softer foods. Either way, I hope it illustrates the mechanical role that chewing plays- because all dietary inflammation starts with what you put into your mouth.
MORE ABOUT YOUR HERBAL NUTRITIONIST
Sarah is also a Body-Mind Movement Practitioner.
What is “body-mind” movement?
If you’ve experienced any of the holistic services at The Laya Center, you know healing transformation might not come from the diet at all! Some of the simplest habits, like how we move our body (and how often) can largely determine how well our bodies utilize nutrients. How well our bodies absorb and assimilate vitamins and minerals, and excrete metabolic waste, will determine the type of diet that’s right for you now and in the future. Our bodies tend to have a cleaner system & quicker metabolism when we move them! It’s a good idea to intentionally move the body for at least 30 minutes each day, preferably doing something you enjoy! That’s right, exercise doesn’t have to be boring or “a chore.” Yoga, taking a walk, dance class, bicycling with some friends, gardening - anything that can be done with conscious awareness of how you are doing in your body, listening and responding to the kind of practice you need in the moment (i.e. not pushing through the pain). Breaking a sweat at least once a day is ideal, or a few times per week at least.
Lastly, remember that as we change and move through the healing process, diet and lifestyle will change as well. The “you” before, during, and after a serious health crisis may as well be three separate “yous.” Your body is different, your mind is different, and the protocols are different. Try your best to listen to your body, and notice how you respond to various foods, treatments, and movements. Notice your patterns around protocols you’re adhering to, if your desires and reactions change as times goes on. (Take notes if you have to, they will certainly help your practitioner.) Holistic medicine understands how you are feeling to be indicative of what’s going on below the surface, which is why sometimes it’s nice to have guidance through the transitions: with a nutritionist, coach, doctor, or therapist. I hope these guidelines have helped you understand the power of small choices on your journey toward a low-inflammation lifestyle. Feel free to reach out to me or the Laya Center for help along your journey!
May your days be long & healthy,
Sarah Liljegren Nutritionist & Herbalist
