Anti-inflammatory Foods: Natural Healing
Inflammation is part of the body’s natural healing process, even though sometimes it may be painful. Consider this: When you cut yourself, the area around the cut gets red, warm, and swollen. This is your body’s natural response, enabling immune cells and other blood cells to travel to the area and repair the damage.
I’m not saying that we should rejoice over being inflamed, but simply that inflammation is not the enemy- but the indicator that something is wrong in the body.
When infection, toxins, parasites or viruses enter into our bodies, our bodies try to fight them off and thus become inflamed. Even if the body gets rid of the invader, it keeps a higher level of inflammation as a general rule ‘just in case’.
In addition to this perpetual collecting of inflammation, the standard American diet is full of things like coffee, chocolate, dairy, sugar, potatoes, corn, peanuts, and wheat, all of which are difficult for the body to digest and create even more inflammation!
So, here’s a short list of foods and helpful hints to help stave off some of that extra inflammation hanging around… Really, the more your diet is based on these foods, the better off you’ll be!
- Drink water! Lots of it. Be consistently hydrated. This is foremost in all of the reports and books on reducing inflammation.
- Increase your Omega 3 rich foods: walnuts, flax seeds, and pumpkin seeds as well as vegetables in general.
- One of the reasons inflammation occurs is from a rapid rise in blood sugar, which causes biochemical changes in the cell. Good (complex) carbohydrates, which are low on the glycemic index and therefore don’t spike your blood sugar include: apples, apsaragus, beans, broccoli, blackberries, blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupe, citrus fruits, green beans, honeydew melon, kiwi, leafy greens, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, spinach, strawberries.
- Eat lots of foods high in anti-oxidants such as most forms of berries, raw cacao (chocolate) and leafy green vegetables. Many herbs and foods such as turmeric, oregano, garlic, green tea, blueberries, and ginger contain bioflavonoids and polyphenols that limit free radical production.
Tags: anti-inflammatory, apples, asparagus, balance, bioflavonoids, blackberries, blueberries, broccoli, cabbage, cantaloupe, challenges, chocolate, citrus fruit, energy, flax, food as medicine, foods that reduce inflammation, free radicals, freshblessings, Friends, garlic, ginger, green bean, green tea, health, health coaching, honeydew, hydration, Immunity, inflammation, journey, kale, kiwi, leafy greens, living foods diet, low glycemic, melon, natural healing, oregano, organic, polyphenols, power, pumpkin seeds, raw cacao, raw food, rawvelous, salad, smoothie, spinach, standard american diet, strawberries, toxins, transitions, turmeric, twitter, vegetables, walnuts, water, weight loss
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:31 am
Awwww, did ya gather this info & publish this just for me???
Perfect timing, thanks so much! SOmeone tried to tell me apples were high glycemic, but I KNEW they weren’t! can’t wait to go shopping again…& will gather all this that I do have right now, & start consuming it LOTS! Then I’ll be ready to start walking & swimming again!
Have a wonderful day!
~Anastazia~
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 am
You were one of the people that I was thinking of for sure!
I thought bunches of folks could really use it though! I love research…
Blessings,
JOanna
August 6th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Good listing yet I have one ‘unpopular’ point of disagreement … raw cacao.
While cacao is an anti-oxidant, it is also a stimulant … having too much cacao in one go can overstimulate your central nervous system, as well as your heart and your brain. This can cause you to feel quite hyper and then drowsy (the side-effects of having too much). Be aware that cacao nibs are quite potent and having 4-5 is probably enough, having a handful is overdoing it. Now who – I ask – eats just 4-5 nibs at one time?
Here are the ORAC scores for the Top 10 Antioxidants Foods (per 100 grams)
1) Raw cocoa powder 95,500
2) Raw cacao nibs 62,100
3) Roasted cocoa powder 26,000
4) Organic Goji Berries 25,300
5) Acai Berries 18,500
Cacao rates at the top, but remember this is based on 100 grams – and it’s not a good idea to eat 100 grams of cacao. It is recommended not to exceed 40 grams (4-6 tsp) of cacao in a day or the stimulant qualities supersede the benefits.
Cacao is rich in calcium, yet it contains oxalic acid which interferes with the body’s absorption of calcium. Not only does oxalic acid prevent cacao products from being good sources of calcium but oxalic acid also interferes with calcium absorption. Double whammy.
Also, one must be very sure that the cacao they are consuming is certified as Organic Raw Cacao – if it is not then you are consuming a whole lot of chemicals from irradiation and spraying of chemicals which are standard practice in growing cacao beans.
So there’s my 2 cents on cacao. I know that David Wolfe would seemingly have us nurse our babies on cacao and eat it by handfuls, but I lean toward the other end of the spectrum … with perhaps having some cacao on the very rare occasion … maybe once a month or so … but give me a handful of blueberries any day!
August 7th, 2009 at 2:56 am
I agree that cacao should be used in moderation. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I haven’t had any effects at all myself.
~Joanna
August 7th, 2009 at 3:14 am
I have done quite a bit of research on cacao and believe that it has some great benefits for people. I also agree it can be over consumed…just as water could be. Everything in moderation! Keep up the great posts!!!
Susan
http://www.rawmazing.com
Susan´s last blog ..Raw Food Classes