“Anti-inflammatory” is a buzzword in the health space, whether we’re talking foods to fight inflammation, supplements, or expensive gadgets promising to reduce pro-inflammatory environmental exposures. By and large, I think reducing inflammation is a worthwhile goal. Inflammation goes hand-in-hand with chronic disease, pain, joint issues, and overall poor health.1 But most people don’t need to go full biohacker mode to achieve meaningful results.
The foods you eat make a significant positive or negative contribution here—driving up inflammatory processes or delivering anti-inflammatory agents like polyphenols, omega-3s, and monounsaturated fats. In fact, food is arguably the easiest lever to pull, aside from taking an anti-inflammatory drug. Every time you eat, you have the opportunity to forego refined grains and french fries cooked in rancid oil and instead choose high-antioxidant produce, seafood, or eggs. That’s a lot easier than cutting all the stress out of your life or fixing a busted circadian rhythm.
Today I’m offering up a list of six of my favorite foods to include when you’ve got inflammation in your sights.
As I’ve discussed in previous installments, there are times when inflammation is a good thing and times when it’s a bad thing. Acute, short-term inflammation is often (but not always) neutral or positive. Chronic, long-term inflammation usually signals trouble.
Sometimes, anti-inflammatory actions, drugs, or foods are negatives, even though “anti-inflammatory” has a positive connotation. If you blunt the post-exercise inflammatory response with an anti-inflammatory drug, for example, you run the risk of blunting the positive effects of that workout.
Eating a big meal tends to raise inflammatory markers in the short term. If you’re overeating every single meal, this is problematic. If you’re eating big after a massive workout session, or because you’re celebrating at an amazing restaurant with your dearest friends, or because you’re coming off a twenty-four hour fast, it’s fine. Context.
Eating high-glycemic foods tends to raise inflammatory markers in the short term. Again, if you’re pounding bags of chips or loaves of white bread on a regular basis, they will induce systemic inflammation—or at least continuous acute spikes that mimic systemic inflammation. If you’re eating a white potato after your glycogen-depleting sprint workout, the subsequent inflammatory spike will be either nonexistent or nothing to worry about. Context.
Even foods typically found on “Top 20 Foods to Fight Inflammation” lists aren’t fair game for everyone. Take tomatoes. The lycopene in tomatoes has well-documented anti-inflammatory effects. Tomatoes are also nightshades, which aggravate autoimmune disorders for some people. That’s why the autoimmune protocol diet strictly prohibits nightshades (along with many other foods) during the elimination phase. Dairy is another example. A 2017 review concluded that the evidence for dairy is “strongly indicative of an anti-inflammatory activity in subjects with metabolic disorders and of a pro-inflammatory activity in subjects allergic to bovine milk.”2 Go figure.
So as I begin to rattle off my list of anti-inflammatory foods, remember to keep context in mind. These are foods that I feel good eating, and science backs up my experience. If any of these foods disagrees with you, there are plenty of other good options.
Alright, enough context. Let’s get to the foods.
Omega-3s are required for a healthy inflammatory response. When my arthritis starts to sneak up on me, I can tell I’ve gone too long without fish fat. I usually feel better after I make some fatty salmon for dinner or dump a can of sardines over leafy greens for a quick lunch. That’s just my subjective experience, but a host of studies confirms:
I strongly prefer to get my omega-3s through deep-red wild sockeye, oysters, and other pastured animal products, but supplements and cod liver oil work, too. Plant-based folks can use chia seeds, flax seeds, and walnut oil to boost their intake.
After treating red palm oil as more of an intellectual curiosity than a culinary tool for years, it has really grown on me. I like to toss cubed, steamed butternut squash with red palm oil, sea salt, black pepper, cayenne, and turmeric. This fish soup is pretty tasty, too, or add a spoonful on top of those white Japanese sweet potatoes (the starchier, not-so-sweet ones).
Enough about taste, though. Red palm oil is incredibly dense with antioxidants: full spectrum vitamin E, CoQ10, vitamin A, vitamin K, beta carotene—all incredibly important in maintaining antioxidant status.
Now, red palm oil is controversial, so it’s important to shop sustainably. If you’d prefer not to go this route, there are other less controversial, but still anti-inflammatory, cooking oils available…
Like olive oil. Being a big fan (and purveyor) of extra virgin olive oil, I’ve extolled its virtues elsewhere on the blog, but they bear repeating. Olive oil is a rich source of monounsaturated fats (notably oleic acid) and polyphenols that are to your body’s defense system what spinach was to Popeye. One standout is a phenolic compound called oleocanthal, which exerts similar anti-inflammatory effects to ibuprofen.11 12 I’ll drizzle olive oil over salads, fish, steak, cottage cheese, even fresh fruit in the summer. The more peppery the better, both from a pure enjoyment perspective and also because more pungent olive oils generally have a higher polyphenol concentration.
Pretty much every list of anti-inflammatory foods contains broccoli or cauliflower or kale or cabbage, but I thought I’d one-up those writers and include them all. Although I eat fewer vegetables than I used to overall, when I do, cruciferous veggies still get pride of place—mostly because they taste good, but also because they contain helpful compounds like sulforaphane, which activates important anti-inflammatory pathways.16
Although blueberries top most anti-inflammatory food lists, and for good reason, I think the other berries get left out. I don’t put a lot of faith in the superfruit phenomenon (though I’m sure goji berries are perfectly healthy), but when it comes to inflammation, there isn’t really a bad berry out there. They’re delicious. They’re low in sugar. They’re high in surface area, which means lots of skin and all the antioxidants and phenolics that come with it (but go organic for that same reason). They’re colorful, which means lots of bioactive pigments.
If you haven’t developed a taste for turmeric, I suggest you get on it. It is a potent anti-inflammatory spice, which protects against oxidation of dietary fats during cooking and against oxidative stress in the body after being eaten. You could simply take curcumin, the most active component of turmeric, but I’d suggest using the whole spice itself. That’s how it’s been used for thousands of years, and you’d miss out on the incredible flavor and color it provides otherwise. Somehow I doubt crumbling up curcumin pills would have the same culinary effect. I recommend these eggs, fish, soup, or golden milk recipes.
You don’t have to eat all the foods on this list to consume a generally anti-inflammatory diet. Scores of other foods are perfectly healthy, but the preceding foods are the ones that I find downright therapeutic. By the same token, regular consumption of these six foods does not guarantee total prevention of autoimmune conditions, cardiovascular disease, IBD, or other inflammatory conditions. It takes more than food to do that. But if you’re already eating Primally, you’re probably off to a great start.
What about you? In the comment section, let me hear about your favorite anti-inflammatory foods.
References
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