Inflammatory Foods and Nutrition
Do you know what Inflammatory Foods are and how they affect your Nutrition?
We all know that processed foods are bad for us. But do you know why?
Processed foods often contain things that are inflammatory to the body and especially the gut. Things such as damaged fats, excess sugar, and oxidised cholesterol.
How to make better nutitional choices.
Sometimes it is hard to make nutritious choices in our fast-paced modern world. Here are some examples of food swops you may want to consider:
Instant oat cereal VS Overnight porridge oats
Cheddar cheese VS Cheese-Strings
Bio-live natural yogurt VS Benecol
Sourdough wholemeal bread VS white sliced bread
Butter VS Margarine
Rice VS Rice cakes
Eating a greater proportion of seeds, nuts, wild organic meat, dark green vegetables, and oily fish also dampens down any inflammation. Fermented foods help to digest carbohydrates and keep your gut happy. Eating small amounts of these fermented foods daily is key. Changing them up to give variety to the gut is also important.
However, diet is not the whole story.
Exercise and fasting are equally important.
Exercise increases the insulin sensitivity of cells so less insulin is released and big spikes in blood sugar are not seen. It also increases gut motility and decreases stress hormones.
Fasting for 5-6hrs between meals encourages gut motility. Overnight fasting (e.g.12hrs) encourages the gut to ‘clean’ itself, leanness, a robust immunity and good mental health!
Long term low level inflammation is often a trigger for many chronic diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, bowel conditions like IBS and auto-immune disease and cancer.
5 ways to decrease/prevent inflammation in our bodies:
- Eat a diverse diet! Lots of different coloured fruit and vegetables, textures, flavours and cuisines.
- Leave longer between meals and overnight.
- Exercise regularly.
- Eat fermented foods little and often.
- Decrease or slowly cut down on processed foods.
Let me know if you have made any of the above swops or changes to your diet and how this has changed your health!
