Most of us have had some form of “itis” in our bodies. A few common ones are: arthritis, dermatitis, bronchitis, gastritis, you get the idea.  The “itis” means inflammation - and that diagnosis means inflammation in that certain area of the body.

Sometimes a diagnosis like this feels like a doomed sentence, but, there are things you can do to reduce or even remove that inflammatory process.  Foods play a key part.

Some foods increase inflammation, while other foods reduce it.  In the simplest of terms, processed and junk foods tend to push the body into inflammation.  This is not just because processed foods have negative non-food content like toxins, refined sugars and bad fats (trans/hydrogenated), but even more so because they are missing the positive food content like fibre, antioxidants, phytonutrients and key healthy omega 3 fats.

How do we include more anti-inflammatory foods in our diet?  It can be as simple as adding a few of these helpful foods to meals you already make:

• Turmeric and ginger and garlic - either in dried spice form or even better - buy the root and grate it by hand
• Chia, hemp seeds, flax, walnut - fibre AND amazing omega 3 fats which are anti-inflammatory fat heroes
• Green leafy veggies - fibre and phytonutrients
• Berries - fibre and anti-oxidants
• Fermented foods - improving our gut bacteria is extremely helpful for our whole body health to lower inflammation

So the key helpers in our anti-inflammatory foods are FIBRE, OMEGA 3 FATS, and specific NUTRIENTS from turmeric and ginger.

Here is a nice tea you can enjoy hot or cold which combines some pretty major anti-inflammatory power houses - ginger, turmeric and lemon.

Ginger Turmeric Tea

Enjoy and maybe you will notice less “itis” in your day!