I’ve been reading for years in various diet books, health magazines, etc. that inflammation is at the root of many ailments, causing everything to minor discomfort to autoimmune issues. So I was excited to come across an great nutrition site, sort of by accident while searching for information on mung beans. lol…
It has many fresh foods already listed with an option to add your own, but what’s great is, if it has the info, it tells you how inflammatory or anti-inflammatory your food choice is. I’m not 100% sure what the range is of their scale, but I’ve found a few foods that are superstars in the anti-inflammatory category. Most I already knew about, or knew they were “superfoods” already for their nutritional content. A score of ‘0′ means a food is neutral, and a negative score means it has inflammatory properties:
Garlic: 4863 [raw]
Cayenne Pepper: 1481
Atlantic Herring: 1340
Hazelnut Oil: 1357
Olive Oil: 1137
Salmon: 895
White Tuna, packed in water: 698
Almond Butter: 636
Macadamia Nuts, dry roasted: 636
Broccoli Raab: 608, cooked [vs. broccoli: 79 cooked]
Sweet Potato: 505, steamed, no skin
Onions: 466, cooked
Parsley: 301
Ginger: 129
I put ginger on there as references because we’ve all heard about ginger’s amazing anti-inflammatory properties, so it goes to show just how amazing those other foods are for the same benefit. Most greens like collards, swiss chard, kale, etc. actually are more anti-inflammatory after they’ve been cooked, between the 200 and 400 mark.
A few other trends I’ve noticed in looking up all the foods I eat regularly are:
- Fruits are pretty close to neutral for the most part, maybe slightly inflammatory, but their nutritional benefits make them a no-brainer for health.
- Most veggies are either neutral or mildly anti-inflammatory, with exceptions listed above which are high on the anti-inflammatory scale. The one exception I found was corn with a score of mild inflammatory at -58 – but corn is technically a grain…
- Most grains and legumes are moderately inflammatory, the highest being wheat, the lowest being lentils with a score of -11.
- Hot peppers score pretty high on the anti-inflammatory scale at 300-400.
- All seafood have anti-inflammatory properties, none are inflammatory [that I checked - everything from tilapia, to mussels to king crab]
- Eggs are anti-inflammatory raw, but get more and more inflammatory the more they’re cooked, but even cooked they’re only mildly inflammatory.
- Most meats are inflammatory, but only mildly. In the case of beef, the better the cut, the less inflammatory it is [assuming you don't eat any fat left on the steak after cooking]. Sirloin is actually mildly anti-inflammatory with a score of 58.
- Dairy, including plain yogurt seems to be mostly mildly inflammatory, with no real difference between a low-fat option vs. whole milk option [in cheese, yogurt, etc.]. It seems the creamier the product, the higher it is on the inflammatory scale. Sour cream scores close to -300.
Anyway… I just found this pretty interesting and thought I’d share. =)
