Part One - Inflammatory
Foods
I tend to follow the
blood type diet by Dr. D'Adamo. I don't
always follow it exactly, but I do use it as a good guideline. You must also listen to what your body is
telling you. If you eat something and
you feel bloated and uncomfortable after you eat it I would try eliminating it
from your diet in the future. You don't
want to feed your body things it has a hard time digesting. Be kind to yourself! The following five foods tend to cause
inflammation in most people and should be avoided. Everyone has a unique physical make up but
when speaking to my herbal consultant these foods are red flags for
inflammation for everyone.
1. GLUTEN
This was the
first thing I eliminated from my diet once I started my healthy make over. Gluten is found in all wheat products. The hull of the wheat plant contains over 20
nutrients that are healthy and beneficial to humans. What tends to happen is that manufacturers
process the hull, squeeze out the gluten (which has no health benefits), make
white, processed flour from the gluten, and discard the rest of the hull that
contains most of the fiber and nutrients.1
Gluten is a very sticky-stretchy molecule that acts like glue in your
gut. You might think back to
kindergarten when you made glue out of flour and water. If you eat white bread or pasta and drink
water to wash it down you are left with the equivalent of kindergarten paste in
your intestinal tract. Talk about hard
to digest! This sticky substances causes
inflammation in your GI system.
You might be
thinking you can't give up bread, pasta, pancakes, biscuits, and bagels. What kind of monster am I to ask of such a
thing! LOL. Truth is, there are a lot of
healthy alternatives out there. For
example, I eat Ezekiel bread.2 This is a
company that uses all organic ingredients (no GMOs, yeah!) and sprouts their
grain first to ensure easier digestion.
Breads and pastas made from sprouted wheat and grains are safe to eat as they contain many
beneficial nutrients and a lot of fiber.
There is a lot less gluten in these types of food because it isn't the
only molecule from that wheat hull being used.
Also, when you soak grains in water for a short time period and
"sprout" them, the grain turns into a vegetable which makes it much
easier to digest. You can find sprouted
grain bread, tortillas, pizza crusts, pastas, etc. in health food stores or the
organic aisle in your grocery store.
2. SUGAR
Sugar, for me, was the not-so-fun
"food" to cut out of my diet.
I was not as bad as a lot of people who wake up drinking Mountain Dew
for breakfast and chomping on candy all day, but I did drink one or two sodas a
day and liked sugary juices as well as chocolate cake and brownies. Unfortunately, sugar is a highly inflammatory
food and causes huge spikes in insulin levels, "bad" bacteria growth,
and overall inflammation in our bodies.
The American heart association states that men should have 35 or less
grams of sugar a day and women should have 20 grams or less a day.3 This is actually still a pretty lenient
amount to be honest. Think about it,
there are about four grams of sugar in a teaspoon. Ladies, we are still allowed to eat 5-6
teaspoons of sugar a day! I actually
think that's not so bad. There is bad
news for soda drinkers...one can of coke has 42 grams of sugar. So soda is out! It took me a week and a half to kick my soda
habit. I literally had to wean myself
off of it slowly because otherwise I would get these horrible
headaches...caffeine headaches, perhaps?
I'm not sure. There is nothing
healthy in soda, though, so please switch to water as soon as you can. Your body (and pocket book) will thank
you! (I
will post more on soda and some other healthy beverages later).
I hope this information was helpful...please stay posted for
the other three foods that cause inflammation...=)
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