In today’s high-paced society, it’s easy to grab a bag of chips or a candy bar when you need a snack. At the end of a long day, far too many of us fail to cook ourselves a proper meal. Have you ever heard people refer to food as medicine? As leaders in the health supplement industry, we take a holistic approach to health. After all, you could take a variety of our online health supplements but still feel crummy if you spend hours watching tv, don’t sleep enough, and don’t engage in any physical activity whatsoever. Exercise, diet, sleep, and supplements are all pieces of your puzzle of overall health. Therefore, we would like to explore the ways in which your diet affects your health, because “you are what you eat.”

There Is No “One Size Fits All” Diet

Over the years, diet and exercise trends come and go. A diet that works for one person may not work for another person becuase we all contain our own unique genetic makeup. That said, certain foods are proven by research to be inflammatory to the body, and reducing them or eliminating them from your diet could benefit you.

Food As A Source of Inflammation

External symptoms of inflammation are easy to spot: an inflamed body part may appear red or swollen and feel painful or even hot. What does inflammation feel like inside of your body? When the food you eat causes inflammation, you could experience drowsiness, digestive issues, and skin problems. Digestive problems could include heartburn, bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, and more.

Inflammatory Foods

Sugar

Yes, sugar is sweet, but it wreaks havoc when ingested. When you eat excessive amounts of sugar (like that donut you had for breakfast), your body cannot process the excess glucose fast enough. This results in an increase of cytokines in your body, which refers to your pro-inflammatory messengers. Excess sugar levels also weaken your body’s immune system by suppressing the germ-killing levels of your white blood cells. Therefore, eating too much sugar could make you more vulnerable to disease.

Store-Bought Bread

Many of the bread loaves featured on shelves include a short process when transitioning from flour and yeast to baked bread. When breads undergo a shorter fermentation process, it makes it harder for our bodies to digest the starch, gluten, and yeast in the bread. When gluten cannot be properly digested , your intestines become inflamed. Gluten in particular can be hard to digest, and some people may decide to eliminate gluten from their diets altogether due to sensitivities. If you think that you may be particularly sensitive to gluten, try eliminating it from your diet for two weeks to see how you feel.

Conventional Grain-Fed Meats

Meat in particular can take longer for the body to digest, and a significant amount of the meat you find in grocery stores come from cows, pigs, and chickens loaded with antibiotics. This in combination with the corn and soy fed to animals results in higher levels of inflammatory omega-6’s, which can create a firestorm of inflammation within our bodies. The good news is that you don’t have to give up meat altogether, but switching to organically raised animal products would benefit you. When shopping for beef, choose organic grass- fed beef. It may be pricier, but well worth it if it saves you a trip to the doctor’s office.

Processed Meats

If you want to take your inflammation to the next level, consume lots of processed meats such as hot dogs, canned meat, and cold-cuts. Really, do you know what’s actually in your hot dog? Processed meats often include a wide variety of artificial colorings, preservatives and artificial flavors that all lead to inflammation. Additionally, these meats are often high in sodium and saturated fats and they are loaded with advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs are inflammatory agents that result from the drying, pasteurization, smoking, and cooking at high temperatures of these meats. Our best advice about processed meats is to not eat them.

These are only a few inflammatory food, and we’ll explore more in our next blog. Eat a clean diet in addition to taking our online health supplements to feel a dramatic difference in your overall health. Our health supplement store features a wide variety of supplements perfect for you. Check out our inventory to see what supplement is right for you.