Things you can do at home to keep inflammation at its lowest.
Avoid Food Colorings
It sounds easy until you read food and drink labels.
Pickles and other jarred foods have colorings in them. Take the time to read the label. Good news here, I just recently saw a pickle company say on their label they took the yellow food coloring out. Yes, the consumer has a voice.
Preservatives
Sodium Benzoate. This is a common preservative in jarred foods, dressings, sodas, mostly liquids. This one is not good for you.
Sulfites. Metabisulfite. Dried fruits, wine, beer, buns, some pickled items where they are preserving color. Read labels carefully.
Bromates. Mostly used in flour products to extend the shelf life of bread. Europeans will not allow bromates into their market because research studies link them to cancer. Look for bread with ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C.
Clean water. If you drink city water, filter it. I consider spring water best because of the extra minerals that you will get.
Food Reactions. A lot of inflammation is from a delayed-onset food reaction. I eat something and have a runny nose the next day or that night, but not immediately after eating. We will see reactions continue 3 – 4 weeks after ingestion.
This is where you have to be a detective.
Food Journal for 3 weeks. What you are looking for is a pattern. Every morning I have a cough, a rash, a stuffy nose, or a headache. Look back 3-4 days of food eating. What is the routine or what is new to my diet. Most often, the troublemaker food is something that causes a reaction 12 – 48 hours after you ate it.
Fried foods and omega -3 oils. Unless you are supplementing, we are all low in omega-3 oils. This imbalance between the essential omega-3 oils and the high intake of omega-6 oils from processed foods and fried leading to inflammation.
Please, everyone check your omega-3 oil concentration with blood testing yearly. It really can keep you safe and out of pain.
Which gets to the harder inflammation troublemakers. Chemicals and toxic metals.
This is where the ongoing, stubborn inflammation takes root. If the omega-3 oils are low, the cells cannot release stored chemicals and toxic metals. It builds up and causes the cells to stop working properly, leading to all kinds of problems and many auto-immune conditions.
Read labels
Drink spring or filtered water
Get outside and enjoy the last leg of summer.
Call if you’re stuck.