Inflammation is one of the main causes behind most modern diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, arthritis, cardiovascular disease etc.
You hear daily about various anti-inflammatory and antioxidant foods and supplements recommended to take to reduce inflammation (blueberries, fish oil, etc.). These foods can be very effective but at the same time very expensive.
What’s even more important is to avoid food that causes inflammation. Choosing carefully what you put in your mouth may be enough to cure many diseases without spending a fortune on specific foods and supplements.
That’s why today, I’m going to present to you the top five inflammation-causing foods you should avoid as much as you can. I’ll also explain where this food is hidden and alternative sources.
I’ll definitely miss some important foods so make sure you revisit this article frequently and read the comment section from our readers. And, of course, make your comment as well.
Top five Foods To Avoid:
1) Refined Sugars and High Fructose Corn Syrup
When we consume sugars (in any form), our blood sugar level shoots up, our minerals get depleted (dealing with the sugars) and enzyme and hormone function changes. All these factors trigger inflammation.
High fructose corn syrup is even worse. Not just because of its chemical structure but also because it’s so cheap that it’s snuck into almost everything. If you look at a graph for increase in high fructose corn syrup consumption and new type 2 diabetes cases since 1980, you’ll see two almost parallel lines. However, just because HFCS is getting really bad press, don’t forget that sugar is sugar; and sugar is one of the main cause of inflammation no matter what form it’s in (white, brown, raw, organic, fruit sugars etc.).
If you want something sweet, go for whole fruits. Even dry fruits that are high in calories are much better for you because of the amount of fiber that slows down digestion. Organic honey in moderation is also very healthy.
2) Dairy Products
Contrary to what we’ve been told since toddlers, milk is NOT healthy for most people. Studies have shown that up to 60% of people cannot digest cow milk properly. A milk allergy is one of the most common but least recognized allergies. Eating food that you can’t digest triggers inflammation.
Many studies, including one from China by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, have revealed dairy as one of the biggest contributors to almost all modern health issues, including cancer. They’ve also shown there are no calcium benefits to drinking milk. To the contrary; milk can rob your bones of calcium. Many of these studies have, however, been buried over using billions of dollars of funds from the dairy industry.
Due to increased awareness of milk allergies and popularity of vegan diets, there are now several great alternatives to milk available in supermarkets. These include organic soy milk, almond milk, rice milk and more. Different people like different things, so try them all out and see what you like.
3) Common Cooking Oils
One of the biggest triggers of inflammation is imbalance between Omega 3 and Omega 6 fat in your diet. Consuming fish, flax seed and other oil high in Omega 3 is not only recommended because Omega 3 is more healthy than Omega 6; it’s more because Omega 6 is more available and we tend to consume more Omega 6.
So you can either eat a whole lot of Omega 3 fats or try to avoid some of the Omega 6. And one of the biggest sources of Omega 6 fats comes from common cooking oils such as grape seed, cottonseed, safflower, corn and sunflower oils. These oils are used in high doses in almost all take out and prepared foods. If it’s oily (and even if it’s not) assume it was cooked in oil that is high in Omega 6, low Omega 3 fatty acids.
To balance our Omega 6/Omega 3 consumption, we want to avoid most cheap vegetable oils mentioned before and use instead macadamia oil, extra virgin olive oil, or other oils with more favorable omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids ratio.
You should also be aware of both Saturated and Trans-fats in high doses. Here again, the name of the fat is not as important as where it comes from. Organic grass-fed beef can be high in both trans- and saturated fat. However, I’ve not seen a single study indicating that fat from this source is in any way bad for you. Consume, however, fats with the same name from fast food sources and processed, prepared food… and be ready to call the ambulance.
4) Refined Grains
Highly refined grains such as white flour and white rice are little better than refined sugars. They spike your blood sugar level and play with your hormones and enzymes. Because of how quickly these refined grains are processed into the body, they’re also a highway to obesity.
Your body transfers refined grains into blood sugar 15 times faster than whole grain. That means that a 300 calorie bowl of white pasta will be in your blood stream in 10 minutes spiking your blood sugar level, transferring into fat and causing inflammation all over the body. The same calorie bowl of whole grain pasta takes more than two hours to settle into our blood stream, gently energizing every cell in your body.
So instead of white flower and rice I suggest you try various, delicious types of whole grains and whole rice. Not only are they healthier, they also taste much better. Be wary when you buy bread, cereal and other premade food. The package and ads may say “whole grain bread” or “made with whole grain,” but when you read the label, often the first ingredient is white flower or sugar.
5) Flavorings and Other Chemicals
I hesitated on whether or not I should actually include this last section. After all, we’re not really talking about foods. However, all kinds of chemicals are so widely used as ingredients and food processing that I couldn’t leave it out.
Your immune system is skeptical of anything it doesn’t recognize or can’t digest. Most flavorings, preservatives and other chemicals used in food can’t be digested. Therefore, when those chemicals reach the bloodstream, they trigger inflammation responses in the immune system. This inflammation response transfers all over the body, causing chronic inflammation.
The best line of defense is to avoid processed foods as much as you can. Almost any type of food that has five or more ingredients includes some kind of chemicals. Don’t be fooled by products including “natural flavorings;” these can be just as bad as artificial flavors.
Unfortunately, lots of whole foods today are treated in one way or another with chemicals. Almost all apples and many other fruits sold in supermarkets are, for example, treated with chemicals that inhibit the natural hormone that ripens the fruits. Animals are loaded with drugs and chemicals before slaughtering.
The only way you can (almost) know for sure you’re getting a chemical-free product is if it’s 100% Organic.
Since the five types of food I discussed in this article are so common, it’s almost impossible to avoid them all completely. Being aware and doing your best to reduce the use of those inflammation-triggering foods will go a long way in healing diseases like arthritis and type 2 diabetes.
If you want to take it a step further, you may want to check out simple steps that reverse the inflammatory response and completely heal you. Many of the health guides on the right hand side of this page take on inflammation head-on. The two that are most focused on this issue are:
Three-step approach to completely reverse type 2 diabetes…
The 21-day plan to cure even the worst cases of arthritis…
But before doing anything else, please let us know what you think in the comment section below.
Thanks for your newsletter, I am trying to keep Foot Gout(arthritis) down to a bearable point, I am aware of how all kinds of sugar makes the inflamation more painful. I have learned that its the first bit of sugar that starts the sugar craving and once started I find it impossible to control so i have given up Cereal that is contaminated with sugar , ”Well its a start” Thanks again , Regards to all Patrick.
In Scotland the latest healthy cooking oil is cold-pressed rapeseed which is reckoned to be one of the very best. It is not cheap at £5 ($8approx) and I’ve just bought a bottle, but I’ll try it out and await results
What type of sugar can be healthy, I thought brown sugar is healthy than white sugar
Quercetin with bromelain capsules have knocked down gout for me, but a diet high in purines, especially turkey, seems to bring it on. If you must use oil to cook with try coconut oil. It doesn’t require refrigeration and won’t go rancid, solidifying at room temp’. It’s reputed to have a lot of benefits as well. “Grape seed” must be a typo. Rape seed oil is what canola is made from, processed at high temperature to remove its bad taste.
Just an observation, in the article you refer to ‘flower’ but that is the plant, what we eat is spelt ‘flour’.
Great article. Very true. Thanks
I like all the article except dairy. Dairy should probably be divided into processed and unprocessed products.
Skim milk, for example, is useless. You might as well drink permeates which are used to dilute milk for skim milk etc.
Drink full fat milk,eat full fat cheeses, cream, butter, all are healthy saturated fats that we as humans have had for thousands of years. No way are they unhealthy, except by overeating.
In point 5 you are talking about excitotoxins. The biggest offender here is monosodium glutamate, but there are others. It is thought they kill off brain cells.
Also, as mentioned elsewhere, do not consume soy products – a big breast cancer trigger. Fermented naturally is OK.
“Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognise” is sound advice.
Thank you for the good article, I read everything I get from Blue Heron, I’ve pretty much know alot of these things and I try to help others change out some of these inflammatories by suggesting a different cooking fat like cocnut oil,grapeseed etc. and stevia to replace sugar I trust that’s still ok, my son his a diabetic. He has changed his sugar out.Also my husband started doing the 15 min. exercise Christian recommended with the short spurts and breathing, getting the heart rate up there etc. I am glad to be getting your news letters and I respect and Trust what Blue Heron does. Keep the info coming.
To John Doyle
My mother died of cancer and me and my sister were in our teens when she passed away. The doctors educated me and my sister several things not to do since cancer runs in our family. One of the things they recommended was not to use soy milk and other products. Now I have reading that soy is good in some articles. I am scare. You are the first person that say what the doctors recommended us not to use. I agree with you.
Very true. I was shocked to learn about cow’s milk! How about fat free milk? Does it cause inflammation? Most of the tome, I used honey( 100 / pure) is this o’k ? Thanks for the valuable information.
Great article.and which type of food is heathy for us
Greetings Christian:I am a 2nd W/W veteran & 88 yrs young,I have been on drugs for my blood pressure & vertigo nothing is permanent.You have renewed my faith in mankind. I am tapering off my medication to use your advice & exercises plus the blood pressure formula supplement.please accept my humble appreciation for your concern,will keep in contact.regards Michael Goodrich JP.
Thank you for the information. I have back trouble which has turned into nerve problems, last inflamation level in my blood test results was 4600, yes 4600.I have had multiple surgeries, both neck and back which has led to a tremendous amount of scar tissue. Mornings I wake, if I lay still I am fine, if I stand and walk anywhere the pain begins, starts as a tingling, to a burning, to a pain radiating from my groin area to my toes, then will turn into a severe ache, cramp type. Occasionally it will radiate out my neck to my hands and armpits. I write this at a pain scale of 9/10 and right now is body wide. I take oxycontin for pain which has over time become less and less effective. My pain fluxuates with activity and what I do today will not bother me until tomorrow, then it is most severe. My diet is slim, I am divorced and live alone so I eat rasin bran for breakfast with sugar and milk, then usually dinner at 7 to 8 pm,, then lay awake until I fall asleep, if I do, sleep 2 hrs and then awake. I have been to every doc there is to be had, and all they do is promise and forget me. I do eat white refined sugar and drink lots of milk, whole milk. I take vit d3 with omega 3 fatty acids, 4800 mgs of fish oil and 1500 mg omega3 twice a day. I will stop the sugar and limit the milk, could you reccomend a diet that would help me. I am not on any anti-inflamatory meds (DAH!!!!!), just the pain meds and BP meds. I am seeing a neurophyisologist and my primary care doc and am going the wrong way, getting worse rather than better, not a diebetic, no cardiac problems, just the worlds worst back and neck. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions, as this is killing me. Would any type of detox help me. I have a friend who is suggesting, rather demanding I use a combination of greens and a white earth material(DE), seems to be doing more harm than good, makes the aching worse….Anything to help would be greatly appreciated….I am 58 yrs old and been fighting this 12 yrs, 3 yrs alone, so Help,please..Thank you in advance for the help, some day I will be able to walk again, hunt, fish, and get my family back….Thank you…
For spinal-nerve problems they have decompression machines at some newer chiropractic clinics that help some by taking the pressure off nerves. And then there is the new minimally invasive surgery which uses a less than half inch opening and can be done with local anesthetic. They can remove the offending part that is pressing on spinal nerves which can be seen by an MRI.
You can search google for these locations in your area.
I am 81 and have whole milk, lots of it, every day. I do have a sensitivity to wheat gluten [there goes everything sticky and good-even pasta] which causes inflamation and bowel cramps and lowers nutrient absorbtion as the intestinal walls become inflamed. A few weeks off gluten [read labels carefully-no food starch ingredients] and a big improvement noticed. No more belly ache!
To Phil: My suggestion is to try the macrobiotic way of eating, which is a specific type of vegan diet, and very healing if followed strictly for a time. I suggest searching on line for “macrobiotic” in your area, to see if you could hook up with a local group. I have seen some amazing things happen for people who eat this way. I became acquainted with this way of eating in the mid-1980′s, and still follow a lot of what I learned then. I am 74 years old, weigh 122, and still in good health. When something you are trying makes you feel worse, give it a chance…..it may be that you are in a detoxifying state that will pass in several days. Wishing you best of luck!
Hi Christian, Good piece as usual, and you opened a few points that I have been researching for some time. First, milk is deadly and no one should be drinking it. The versions produced by Guernsey and Jersey cows, contain A2 Beta Casein, which doesn’t seem to cause as many problems, but all contain lactose which can cause a litany of problems after the body no longer produces the lactase to digest it. Milk from Holstein, Freisen and Aryshire cows contains A1 Beta Casein which has been linked to type 1 Diabetes when given to babies and stomach and digestion problems in susceptible individuals. Cows milk consumption is related to Osteoporosis, Parkinsons, ALS, Alzheimers and countless other health problems. By the way, Calcium consumption without Magnesium results in brittle bones.
Whole grains contain many needed trace elements and nutrients that are beneficial, while white refined grains have the beneficial components removed after which they become primarily, starch, which is immediately turned to sugar during digestion…which begins in the mouth by the way, so chew well and get as much saliva into your food as you can…The starch that has been turned into sugar is finally turned to fat with obvious results. Fat, at least the saturated type, is required for nerve tissue and so should not be entirely avoided…the brain appreciates it.
A further problem with some grains is the Gluten content which disables the intestinal villi. Wheat, Rye and Barley have been selected over the years to make better bread which has resulted in nearly a hundred fold increase in their gluten content. This increased gluten affects susceptible individuals by restricting their intestines ability to adsorb nutrients, resulting in numerous idiopathic problems as well as Celiac disease. A further result of gluten digestion is its’ effect on the brain, resulting in motor and psychological problems. A Finnish study has related gluten to Hippocampus sclerosis(that’s a deterioration of a part of the brain), a condition which may or not be related to the villi problem. And then there are those that have found to be allergic to gluten, which results in another series of problems. There are many grains that do not contain gluten, a couple being rice and oats.
As far as sugars go, less is better, but Xylitol and Stevia don’t seem to cause problems and honey, although it contains fructose is not so bad since it releases it into the digestive system slowly, but it is still sugar.
Goat’s milk/cheese anyone?
Also I blitzed my last gout attack with diluted concentrated cherry juice every
4 to 6 hours, which I now take regularly as it is highly anti-oxident!
thanks for the article . . i like it and i willsave this
It is unbelievable how the simplest things that we use everyday harm us and we are not aware of it. I am so grateful for these information. I am surprise of some of the things they say are good for you yet harming you. I am shocked to learn that corn oil is bad for you where as in all the years it has been the best oil for us as they say. I am on the path to rid my body from type 2 diabetics and I know with these added information I will be cured. Chevanne. Ps. Can y run a program on no calorie sweetner like stevia.
This a great article,very educative too. I don,t take milk as such because it linked with cancer of the breas.Thank you. Junnie
I have had peripheral neuropathy in my feet for more than ten years and after being told by Doctor’s that they did not know what caused it or how to get rid of it, (their attitude was like “Ill be glad to cut your feet off when gangrene sets in”). At that time I lost a lot of respect for doctors and started searching for a cure myself and after almost ten years of looking I believe I have found one and I will reveal it to you after I take the medication a little longer.
In reading all of the comments above, I notice what I believe to be serious mistakes by some of you, and I urge you to check your information again and try to find some reliable source to prove your point or to disprove my opinions.
Angela Blacklock-Brown: Check out rapeseed oil and I believe that is where canola oil comes from, and it should never be eaten in my opinion.
John Doyle: Raw unpasteurized milk is excellent food only if the cow is grass-fed,(not corn or grain), and is not fed or injected with any pesticides, herbicides or any other “—cides” or growth hormones.
Note that the milk should not be pasteurized as the heat kills vitamin C and other beneficial enzymes.
Idalia: Soy milk should not be eaten. See Dr. David Brownstein, Nov. 2011, e-mail askdrdavid@newsmax.com.
Koki: Honey is still sugar but it should never be pasteurized. Germs cannot live in pure unpasteurized honey. See also pasteurization in note to John Doyle above.
Phil; Don’t put sugar or milk on your bran. Use Almond Silk instead.
Clinton Brashore; Flax is one grain that does not have glutin in it, and there may be some others. The flax should be ground because the whole flax seed can pass right through your body without you gaining any benefit from it.
Very very helpfull information that every person needs to know. I have made changes, but I need to make more and this information is vital for me to help me make the right changes.
Thank You very much
Ian
An interesting article,I will take of all the foods,tanks
I have had a lot of inflammatory problems. Probably all mentioned here and more. I have many of Christian Goodman’s programs and have used much advice from this site. Thanks to all that have contributed. One item I have never seen here is pinebark. I started using about 2 years ago and have eliminated much arthritis pain, neuropathy and skin disorders such as itching etc. Blood sugar is much improved too. So along with the great advice here, look into pinebark. Much cheaper than pycnogenol at higher potency.
PHIL- Has RSD been considered? If it is you will need to be under an RSD pain management specialist.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the articles. The coconut oil has a smell i need to over come, any advice? from trinidad wi
Thanks for the information.They will go a long way for me to keep and advise others and myself to keep healthy.
I have had Cancer of the thyroid ,twice.I cook straight from the garden which knows neithernchemical,nor pesticide I eat all the healthy foods berries,fruit,I ecercise,I gave up dairy & sugar,but still suffer horribly from IBS.It is enflamed,I tyried evertthing.It started when a doctor gave Me the Z-pak of antibiotics for a sinus infection I didn’t have,I have allergies.The Z-pak ruined My colon.I have been miserable since the Z-pak .What can I do to overcome this problem? Thank You
Very informative.I intend to make some serious dietary changes for the new year.
Daelon…I had the same problem.I now take a high potency probiotic, and have done a candida cleans… because being on antibiotics as long as I was on them can cause an overgrowth of yeast/ fungus/ candida in the body. Take probiotics every day and cut back on sugar because sugar feeds theese overgrowth of fungus.
To Daelon and IBS,
I was not diagnosed with IBS but had the symptoms. To avoid dumping chemicles into my body or having parts cut out, I started taking food grade Chia seeds. The recommended amount is 2 tablespoons daily. only 1 or 2 teaspoons is enough to calm, cool, and regulate my symptons. I got the tip from Heathers IBS News website. Just be sure you get the food grade and not the grow a pet type. You can google Chia seeds and they are all over the net. Uses, receipes, lots of info on them out there. And for what they do for me I would gladly pay twice the price.
I disagree entirely with your adverse comments about Milk. The 60% figure you quoted as those having digestive problems with it needs to be qualified by reference to studies that have found that up to 75% of those in the West with digest/allergic issues with the God-made-Juice are of ASIAN descent. In other words there antecedents “milk” of choice was most likely soy or rice-based.
p.s Sugar is also cool. But not High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Every thing in moderation and you will be fine.
Great information everyone – remember everyone is different and MODERATION is the key to everything. I also believe that soy is not good for us and that it has been known to cause tumors. Daelon you could try Fossilised Shell Flour, you take it daily about a tablespoon in water – it tastes a bit like clay, but it is not unpleasant. It will detox your system, I recommend that you take it for awhile, then rest your body, then start again. Never take these things for too long. As for the Chia seeds, I have been eating a chia bread for some time and decided to have a break, it didn’t take long for me to realise that I needed to go back on it as my system did not function properly without it. I’m back on it and all is well. I have also discovered lately that milk is the cause of my sinus problems, so I don’t use it anymore and I can breathe more easily. Sugar in all forms, except Stevia, is a BIG no no in my book.