5 "healthy" foods that lead to inflammation

Battling a weight problem? Skin issues? Tired all of the time? No energy? Constipated? Belly aches?Instead of covering up your symptoms with meds and creams, you should tackle the underlying issue.

Chronic inflammation.

This occurs when your immune system is pretty much stuck in “go” mode. As if you ate over top of your laptop too many times and the “Q” key is stuck in the down position.  (Don’t you hate that?!)

Chronic inflammation wages war on your body. So you pack on pounds, lose your energy, and generally… feel like shit.So, how do you fix it? Well, I believe it’s through diet. Ann Wigmore once said that food can either be the best form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison.

^^Read that again. That. Is. So. Powerful.

Anti-inflammatory foods like bone broth, greens, veggies, healthy fats, fruits, and high-quality proteins nourish your body. You want lots of these!

Get rid of the inflammatory foods – sugar, white flour, and the foods below that you might think are healthy.

Diet soda

Trying to lose weight and think diet soda will be better for you than the full-sugar variety? Think again. Really, you are just swapping one inflammatory food (sugar) for another (chemical sweeteners).

Instead – train your brain and body to enjoy a substitute bevvy. Need the fizz? Try kombucha or kevita – a probiotic-rich drink. Or, just sparkling water. Or even better - water infused with berries, lemon and mint.

Veggie burgers

I once had a client send me a picture of her everyday-go-to lunch veggie burger. It’s healthy right? Not usually. This particular burger had about 30 ingredients. 30! Many, many varieties are made with industrial seed oils that promote inflammation. Look at the back of the packaged foods you are eating – soybean, canola, and corn oils are all heavily processed, frequently rancid, and with an unhealthy ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. (Ideally, you want to have a good balance of the two.)

Look for burgers that have just a few ingredients, all of which you can pronounce and visualize ("oh – quinoa, I know what that is and what it looks like"). Hilary’s brand makes a good veggie burger with coconut oil and minimal ingredients. Something made with avocado oil is another good option.

Non-fat or low-fat yogurt

Check out my post on yogurt and weight loss here. There are many issues with this not-so-healthy snack food. For one, most people (including many of my clients) do not tolerate dairy very well. That means that dairy, and in this case yogurt, is seen as an intruder, leading to inflammation. Think you don’t have an issue with dairy? Try eliminating it for a few weeks and add it back in. That’s when you will notice it!

If something is low-or-non-fat, it likely is injected with additives and thickeners to make it creamy and smooth. Things that your body does not recognize, because they aren’t real food. If your body does not recognize something – you guessed it – immune attack, inflammation!

Lastly, this stuff generally has terrible fake sugars added to it because they want to tout the “hey, this is only 100 calories!” claim. Side note, who cares about calories? =) The fake sugar is just a bunch of chemicals (see diet soda above ^) and the “fresh strawberry” claim? Probs very small, if any, real fruit.

Love yogurt? Switch to a plain coconut milk yogurt and add your own fruit. Bonus: it’s full of probiotics! Just looking for a creamy snack? How about hummus or guacamole with veggie sticks? Or granola with almond milk.

Granola

Speaking of granola – be careful here. Many mainstream granolas are packed with lots inflammation-causing sugar because food manufacturers want you to LOVE their products, and they equate that with a super-sweet-sugar-taste.

Instead, look for a product made with a better sweetener that comes with some nutrients like dates, coconut sugar, or maple syrup. I especially like Purely Elizabeth, or making my own!

Whole wheat bread

“I got a sandwich, but it was on whole wheat bread.” I hear this a lot, too. Whole wheat bread only sounds healthy because the lovely world of advertising tricks you into thinking it is! Most of the time, the “whole wheat” they claim is a small percentage of the overall ingredients. That, and, it contains gluten. Even if you don’t suffer from celiac disease, gluten is typically seen as an intruder in the body. Try avoiding gluten for a few weeks and see how you feel. That is the true test!

As a replacement sandwich option – I always love using leaves. Lettuce, chard, collard greens all make great and hearty wraps. You can also use a brown rice wrap, corn tortilla, or Paleo brand wrap – which is just made with coconut meat! (so. cool.)

My mission to you – rethink “healthy”. Always flip your foods over and read the ingredients, NOT the claims on the front. Most of the foods on the shelves are truly frankenfoods, and are soooooo far from something real and whole. Instead of worrying about low-fat, sugar-free, low-calorie…give your body real-deal foods, which will reduce the constant attack on your body, and you’ll start to see changes in your weight, health, skin and energy!