Natural Anti Inflammatory Food List – Why You Should Care

There is a very good saying that goes like this, prevention is better than the cure. In today’s society we see many diseases such as autoimmune diseases, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, high blood pressure, inflammatory bowl disease, and the list goes on. All this points to a serious need for long term lifestyle changes, and eating the right foods is the first step to feeling healthier and may save you a lot in hospital bills down the line. Natural anti inflammatory foods are the best place to start as they are easily available at your grocery store or supermarket.

What is Inflammation Anyway?

Before we start on which foods offer anti inflammatory properties, it would be good to know what inflammation is and why it’s important in a way. Inflammation is actually a necessary and important part our every day life, as it’s our natural defense system against viruses, bacteria, damaged cells and more. The function then of inflammation is to remove these external invaders in order for the body to heal itself, therefore it’s quite essential in moderation. When you injure yourself your bodies immune system will jump into action, bringing an army of white blood cells to the area of your injury by increasing the blood flow in that particular area. You will also notice that there might be pain, discomfort and swelling. This is known as acute inflammation, and the inflammatory response symptoms happen very quickly, and it will be a more severe reaction, it should though go away quickly as well. Your body will within a few days or so be healed, and the inflammation having done it’s job will stop. In a healthy body it is a good and normal function that the body uses to heal itself. If inflammation wasn’t present in some kind of form then we wouldn’t be able to heal from our injuries, and that would not be good.

When is Inflammation then Bad for You?

The problem that arises when the immune system goes from helping to heal the body to harming it, by attacking the healthy tissue. This is when the inflammation starts to do more harm than good. This is known as chronic inflammation, and it is usually a less severe form of inflammation. The difference here as opposed to the acute inflammation is that chronic inflammation can last longer than 6 weeks. It can occur even when there is no injury, and can persist even if your injury has healed a long time ago. Chronic inflammation in the long run has been linked to a lot of autoimmune diseased and a general terrible stressed our feeling, that’s why it’s such an important topic to tackle.

There’s Hope, the Power to Heal yourself is in Your Hands

Believe it or not, however bad you think your inflammatory condition is you have the power to turn your health around by eating right. What you put in is what you get our, and the first step to feeling better is replacing your meals with food that will help heal your gut and reduce the bad inflammation that is damaging your body. If you start introducing the foods that are healthy and start reducing the amount of processed foods that are contributing to the inflammation, you will be amazed at how good you will feel. Below are the top foods that I use myself to reduce my inflammation.

The Top Anti Inflammatory Foods

Now before we go into the list I would recommend that you slowly introduce these items into your diet and slowly cut our the processed foods that you would usually eat, so that it doesn’t feel like such a massive change to your current eating habits. If you approach it this way it will be less of a shock to your system, and you won’t feel like you are giving up all your favorite things. You could also find interesting ways to prepare these ingredients to make them tasty and exciting to eat.

#1 Leafy Green Vegetables

What’s great about leafy green vegetables is that, they are rich in antioxidants that will help restore cellular health. They also contain polyphenols, these compounds to have anti inflammatory properties by fighting oxadative stress due to free radicals. These vegetables include:

Kale, Swiss chard, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach. I really like Swiss Chard, as it is very high in antioxidants and vitamins A and C. It also has vitamin K, which can protect your brain against oxadative stress caused by free radical damage.

#2 Celery

This is another great vegetable as it contains both antioxidant properties and also anti inflammatory properties. These properties do a great job of helping balance your blood pressure and improve your cholesterol levels, as well as prevent heart disease.

It has a high source of potassium as well which the body needs to function, as it’s an important electrolyte. Potassium interacts with sodium to perform important bodily functions every single day, like balancing fluids and mineral levels within the body.

Celery also helps detoxify the body, and is a good source of Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Potassium, Vitamin B6 and Folate. It’s a great source of fiber and low in calories, and it has also been known to reduce bloating and support digestion.

#3 Bok Choy

Another name for this is Chinese Cabbage, and it’s a great source of antioxidants and minerals. It also contains phenolic substances, which can also be beneficial for you.

#4 Broccoli

Now broccoli is not my favorite vegetable, but it has great antioxidant properties and helps fight inflammation. It has good amounts of magnesium and potassium, combined with a lot important vitamins. The calcium and the vitamin K in broccoli can also help make your bones stronger.

#5 Beets

Beets or Beetroot are great in that they have so many of the vitamins that the body needs, and they are low in calories as well. Betalain is what gives beetroot it’s bright red colour, and packs anti inflammatory properties. Beets is great for lowering blood pressure, this may be due to the high concentration of nitrates found in beets. This works by taking dietary nitrates and converting them into nitric oxide, a molecule that dilates blood vessels causing your blood pressure to drop. Take note though that you have to eat beets often to keep this positive effect working as the effect wears of after a few hours after eating it.

My favorite thing about this vegetable is that the nitrates in it should improve cognitive function by promoting the dilation of blood vessels, and because of this it increases blood flow to the brain.

#6 Blueberries

These little berries are nice and sweet, and are great for making smoothies. They come from a bush, not a tree. The berries look green, and as they grow and ripen they turn into the blue purple colour that we know. The pigment that creates this rich blue colour is called anthocyanin, but is also seen in nature as purple and red. This is a flavanoid that have powerful antioxidant capabilities that fight the effects of aging and oxadative stress. Another powerful antioxidant that is found in blueberries is quercetin

#7 Salmon

I really like fish and salmon is one of my favorite types of fish, as I really enjoy the taste of it. Salmon contains a high amount of Omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to reduce inflammation and lower the risk of chronic diseases. This fatty acid can in general promote the health of your brain.

There are also studies that indicate that Omega-3’s can help with anxiety and depression, specifically the EPA Omega-3 fatty acid seems to be the best one for helping anyone with depression. It may even help with your eyesight as DHA, which is another type of Omega-3 fatty acid is used by the body to keep the retina in your eyes healthy. They can also improve the risk of heart disease by reducing blood pressure, raising good cholesterol levels, reducing blood clots, and help plaque from hardening your arteries and restricting blood flow.

#8 Pineapple

Pineapples are a delicious tropical fruit that can has some great benefits because of the bromelain that it carries within it. Bromelain is an enzyme, and specifically a protease enzyme, meaning one that breaks the long chain like molecules of proteins that they can be digested. So it works to break down proteins in order to form peptides and amino acids in the body. Pineapples are also great for inflammation and bloating. This is really good news if you suffer from any kind of indigestion. A lot of the bromelain is in unfortunately found in the inedible stem, so a taking a supplement will be the best way to get more of this enzyme in your diet. It will assist in reducing inflammation and help with heart health by reducing blood clotting.

#9 Turmeric

Turmeric is one of the greatest finds when it comes to reducing inflammation. It is a root and is bright yellow in colour, in fact it’s a member of the ginger family, and originates in India.

Curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric, this is what makes it such a powerful anti inflammatory. Most experts recommend at least 1 gram of curcumin per day. Unfortunately even though turmeric has the most curcumin in nature, it still makes around only just over 3 per cent of the weight of the turmeric. You would therefore have to have quite a bit of turmeric to make up your daily dose of curcumin.

This is where supplements will give you a great advantage without have to eat lots and lots of turmeric throughout the day.

Top tip: Our bodies struggle to absorb curcumin because of the rapid metabolism in our liver and intestinal wall. A great way to overcome this obstacle is to have some black pepper with it. Black pepper contains peperine, this natural substance in pepper will enhance the absorption of curcumin by a massive 2000 per cent in scientific studies in both rats and humans, with no known side effects.

Turmeric also helps a lot with free radical damage because of it’s excellent antioxidant properties.

Brain health is also a benefit, as the curcumin in turmeric helps increase the brain’s growth hormone BDFN (brain derived neurotrophic factor). This hormone increases the growth of new neurons and may also help in delaying, or even reversing brain degeneration as we age.

There have been studies that report that curcumin can treat arthritis even better than the usual anti inflammatory drug.

Curcumin can even be used as an antidepressant, because curcumin boosts your BDFN levels, and it also helps the brain’s neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.

#10 Ginger

Ginger is a close relative to turmeric, and also has many health benefits. You will find ginger in most of your supermarkets.

Ginger is great for nausea, and especially pregnancy related nausea like morning sickness.

Ginger may help you to loose weight, as studies done on rats and mice who consumed ginger consistently saw decreases in their body weight. This may be due to fighting inflammation and helping the body burn off calories.

It may help with Osteoarthritis. This is when an autoimmune disease attacks the joints of the body creating inflammation. There have been a few studies that show positive effect where patients saw significant reductions in pain and swelling in their joints, especially the knees.

Chronic indigestion is problem that a lot of us deal with in this stressful time, it’s characterized by recurring pain and discomfort in the upper part of the stomach. If your stomach takes very long to digest food this is when we feel indigestion. Ginger seems to speed up the rate at which the stomach empties itself.

It’s also great at fighting infections such as oral bacteria linked to gingivitis and periodontitis, which are both inflammatory gum disease’s.

Conclusion

It’s amazing looking at all the benefits than can come out of the food that we eat. We all have the ability to live long healthy lives by making these superfoods a part of our daily routine.