CHANGE COURSE
Dietary suggestions for anti-inflammatory eating.
It might not be in your daily vocabulary, but inflammation is becoming one of the most common causative factors in the illnesses from which Americans suffer. The heavy-hitters –Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, arthritis and heart disease—are all linked to this condition. So, what’s the best defense? Here are seven simple ways to incorporate anti-inflammatory agents into your daily diet.
Doctor’s Orders:
- Aim for nine servings of vegetables and fruits per day. Try a range of colors and varieties and remember one serving is about equal to one handful. A salad with mixed greens, peppers, carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers can be up to five servings.
- Eat whole grains. Go for sprouted grain breads (often found in the frozen section of the grocery store). Make steel-cut oats for breakfast, adding dried fruit or organic peanut butter for flavor.
- Minimize omega-6 intake. Avoid these pro-inflammatory fats by reading labels and limiting products made with soybean, sunflower, safflower and partially hydrogenated oils. Assume that restaurants use these fats and instead, opt for foods made with organic expeller pressed canola or extra-virgin olive oil.
- Increase omega-3 intake. Work walnuts into healthy dishes to up your consumption of these anti-inflammatory fats. Sprinkle a teaspoon of ground flaxseed onto salads, breads, smoothies and cereals. Dine on fatty fish (salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel) a couple times a week.
- Start a daily fish oil supplement.
- Pile on the ginger. Find a ginger dressing to use on salads, sip ginger tea made from fresh ginger root or use fresh ginger in stir-fry.
- Take on turmeric. It gives yellow mustard its color and is often used in curry, but most importantly, it’s an anti-inflammatory spice. Turmeric tea, cold or hot, is a good place to start.
Other Trusted Sources:
Dr Weil
