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To supplement anti-inflammatory nutrients while continuing to ingest pro-inflammatory substances
is counter-productive. These dietary guidelines help reduce inflammation for most people.
Decrease or eliminate
red meat and dairy products. Some arthritis patients also seem to react to poultry. Decrease or eliminate refined sugar. Eliminate caffeine (including coffee, black tea,
cola drinks, and chocolate).
Eliminate any likely food allergens during the initial three or four weeks such as gluten grains, citrus fruit, and
night shade vegetables (tomatoes, white potatoes, red and green peppers, eggplant, paprika, and tobacco). These foods
can be added back into the diet one at a time (one new food every third day) while carefully observing the effect. Forms
are available to make it easier to monitor the effect of these foods. Drink plenty of pure water. Chlorine is an antibiotic and can diminish our
friendly gut flora. Studies have associated chlorine in drinking water with increased risk of some types of cancer.
It is probably best to drink at least a half hour before the meal and no sooner than a half hour afterward so the digestive
juices won’t be diluted. Increase
your consumption of fresh, raw, or lightly steamed fruits and vegetables. Good fruit choices include apples,
bananas, grapes, mangoes, papayas, peaches, pears, prunes, kiwis, and other sub-acid fruits. Use discretion if the patient
has blood sugar problems, although fruit often does not cause a problem if the diet is low fat and high fiber. Good
vegetables include asparagus, spinach, zucchini, parsley, artichoke (without the butter), kelp and other sea-veggies, okra,
snow peas and many more. Cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower as well as onions, chives, and
peppers are very nutritious but may create digestive difficulties for some people. The solution is often simply chewing
the food better and possibly adding supplemental digestive enzymes such as DGX. Spices such as garlic, tumeric, etc
are also very healthy and should be used regularly if well tolerated. For snacks, consider raw vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds. The fruits and
veggies contain lots of enzymes, bioflavonoids, and other phytochemicals, with the raw nuts and seeds are rich in essential
fatty acids, especially flax seed, pumpkin and sunflower seed, walnuts and almonds (almonds can be allergenic to some people).
Raw seeds like sesame and flax need to be ground for proper digestion. An electric coffee grinder works well.
These healthy snacks can be combined e.g. raw vegetable sticks dipped in tahini (ground sesame seeds) or almond butter. These suggestions are very helpful for most people
with inflammatory conditions such as sprains, strains, bursitis, tendonitis, arthritis, etc and can be used in conjunction
with supplementation. Most people find that eating this way also often lowers blood lipids, smoothes out blood sugar
variations, helps with weight management, reduces digestive problems, increases energy, and more. It is important to
note that fats digest more slowly so when fat is reduced in the diet, we may become hungry sooner and be tempted to eat M&M’s,
corn chips, snack crackers, cookies, etc. This hunger is not a problem if we have prepared plenty of healthy snacks
as mentioned above.
Recommended Supplementation:
3000-5000 mg/day fish oil Pharmaceutical grade digestive enzyme with acidophilus
1-2 capsules/meal
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