After many moons and decades, anti-inflammatory eating has caught on like wildfire for the health-conscious. I remember when gyms cropped up like micro greens, and healthy living in the U.S. was focused on getting fit through cardio exercise.
…And was less focused on healthy eating to prevent inflammation and disease.
…While all along heart and cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers are still the leading causes of mortality in the U.S. (CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm)
So, then we shifted to a healthy diet as the core strategy for preventing diseases, providing energy and nutritional medicine, and the #1 answer to losing weight.
I watched daily the evolution of this through my management lens working in catering and as an event meal planner… kinda like subscribing to and watching a YouTube channel, except social media didn’t exist back then.
Today, the health-conscious are tuned into anti-inflammatory eating, with plant-based whole foods, quality protein, healthy dairy, and good heart oils. Just in time as cognitive decline and diabetes rates are on the fast rise.
A food’s nutritional composition, low glycemic index, and synergistic food impact on the mind-gut connection have never been so celebrated.
And, that makes me happy because I’m a foodie who loves good-tasting healthy food… and maybe you do too!? 🎂
Whole, plant-based foods are greatest when they’re at their seasonal best and the star in a flavorful-exciting meal.
Today we know our energy in old age (longevity) is heavily influenced by our lifestyle and healthy eating pattern choices. (Harvard Study: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/following-a-variety-of-healthy-eating-patterns-associated-with-lower-heart-disease-risk/)
Through lifestyle choices, we get to play a big role in our physical and mental health destiny, and in the mind-body connection. It’s realistic to aim for a goal of being active at 💯. 🎯
Anti-Inflammatory Eating Goals No Matter What Age or Body Type
Anti-inflammatory eating works for all ages and body types. It’s a healthy eating lifestyle that embraces food variety (biodiversity) and includes sustainable everyday foods where you’re rewarded with feeling good and a body you’re comfortable with… and that helps so you don’t have to switch into different clothing sizes in-between seasons.
You can have food sensitivities and substitute those food items or brands with another highly nutritional equivalent.
Anti-inflammatory isn’t a diet, but it can be a lifelong food plan and THE DIET you stick to, to maintain a consistent healthy body.
…And It’s probably the only anti-anything I live for these days as I believe in peace when at all possible. 😊
In anti-inflammatory eating, there’s generally not a need for elimination diets when the body is running smoothly; and if it’s not, specific anti-inflammatory foods can help restore you back.
Meal planning with daily anti-inflammatory foods (as top of mind), you support your efforts to prevent preventable health issues down the road and chronic inflammations that can mysteriously show up one day.
When you’re younger you may not think about these maturing signs, but older and wiser, we feel our internal body changes by the quality of our daily life activities.
No matter what AGE you are, anti-aging and anti-inflammatory can be your healthy targets, as you look and feel your best today and in your bright, promising future.
We know it’s never too early to start naturally reversing any damage.
There is no downfall to anti-inflammatory eating…
I suppose you can eat too many carrots, but you’d probably grow bunny ears too. 🐰
…Anything is possible, but not likely.
And if you’re on the Vata body side of the spectrum, you appreciate all the variety 🌈, and not eating the same thing every day.
And if you’re on the Kapha end, your healthy, lighter food moves can usually get heavily rewarded, spilling over into other complex body systems winning you bonus points.
Below are the different body types according to Ayurveda in case you’re not sure what your type is.
You can see which one (and sometimes a cross between two) of the Ayurvedic body types you most resemble. By going through each of the 10 statements, you choose the one that most accurately describes you and your body.
Then total up the count for each column seeing which one you have the most check marks in. That’s your dominant body type.
It’s your natural way and the body you’ve gotten used to. Usually, one type is more dominant, but you can have a close second or a tie.
Plus, the types fit more like in a circular pie (or percentage pie if you like math descriptions), where the 3 fit as 3 slices.
Everyone has traces of all 3 types even if one type is just a small sliver or a few crumbs (…can you tell I like food descriptions?).
And this is good to know …especially if you don’t like your body type diagnosis here. I’m sure you also fall into some of the descriptions in the other types or in different times of your life 😉
These come from the learnings I had back in 2008.
No matter which BODY TYPE you have, each one of us can benefit from daily anti-inflammatory eating.
Eating anti-inflammatory is like cardio exercise. …in that, we reap healthy benefits as we have a heart that runs better with our healthy moves.
So, then armed with this information, you can better plan your daily anti-inflammatory “eat from the rainbow” meals that can become your established eating-being way.
Enter The Healthiest Combination: Ayurveda Habits and Anti-Inflammatory Eating
In my relationship with food, I choose anti-inflammatory foods when grocery shopping, and then make easy home meals based on what balances my dominant Vata sweet tooth-to-salty craving body.
And I use food as natural “medicine” to help restore my Ayurvedic imbalances—Kapha, Vata, Pitta, or a combination of them that get out of whack for any of us at any time.
Gradually getting off-balance is part of natural order in our organized, but seemingly chaotic world at times.
Think of the 3 body types in us like colliding earth, wind, and fire (…and like the timeless rock band who still plays in harmony… and just this past weekend).
…Do you remember (the 21st night of September)?… 🎸🎺🎤🎶
…So anyway, with all the chaos brought into our bodies, layering anti-inflammatory foods and balancing them with Ayurvedic food choices is a good way (and I think the best way!) to smooth out undesired moods like anxiety, depression, anger, and any shades in between.
These mood types that linger as undercurrents or that are obvious to us (and others), can cause chronic stress leading to inflammation and debilitating diseases already mentioned.
But the good news is… subtle food changes can change our subtle moods (…nice tongue twister there 😊).
This is true for all ages, types, and sizes as we all can carry off-balance moods seasonally or from time-to-time.
Even though my size is usually consistent year-round, I have a big Vata sweet tooth and too much sugar irritates my skin. That’s a sign of a Pitta body imbalance.
With The 2 A’s (Anti-Inflammatory and Ayurvedic) approach I know I’m doing everything I can to support my prized health and honor the body that was given to me… and that can be your intention too.
So, I put together a list of 200 anti-inflammatory foods so you know easily what to grocery shop for (and shortcut to the checkout line).
The healthy and anti-inflammatory shopping lists help you decide what to grocery buy and fill your kitchen with when you’re lazy or feeling a ‘lil Kapha… and you want to make easy choices… and not have to search high and low in your fridge and cabinets trying to figure out your next meal when it can be made deliciously in minutes or in one bowl with ideas on-hand.
Plus you can overlay the Ayurveda food lists provided, so you have all the researched nutritional food knowledge and references, food lists, and meal ideas all in one place and at your fingertips…. and have the food knowledge I acquired from my decade of event meal planning working with chefs. You can use the list of ingredients and take the flavor ideas to make similar simple, tasty meals that impress you and those you’re feeding.
Another benefit to anti-inflammatory eating that I’ve learned is that your at-home healthy practice can change your sugar.
What do I mean by this?…
At home, you can control the ingredients you eat.
Since 2020, I took up baking regularly. I built a deeper relationship with ingredients and food. I learned to modify bakes without refined sugar (or any white sugar-type substitute) that irritates the skin. And in other body types, sugar can add to insulin resistance and wreak other body havoc.
I do make a few exceptions, but pretty much I’ve learned to enjoyably swap what I once loved (sugar!) with sweet anti-inflammatory ingredients that I now prefer the taste of… because taste is super important to me, as it is to you! 😋
These days, I’m choosier with flavors and I think that makes for better-tasting and healthier bakes.
I’m sure if I got a taste of something super boozy sweet now like in a restaurant dessert with an oozing middle, I would probably only be able to take a small bite without thinking it was too sweet.
So, what you eat regularly changes your body desires and tastes to match your diet.
You are what you eat (and you can become what you eat).
…So that’s another benefit of making the healthy switch!
Your healthy desires catch up to your habits and routines.
That’s good hope for sugar cravings or any other unhealthy weak-in-the-knees food cravings (like the FF word 🍟).
…And if you were to offer a diabetic person, a sugar-free yummy cookie, they probably wouldn’t want it, but if they did, they wouldn’t enjoy it the same way they would if they had the taste of sugar regularly.
So, our tastes also change to help us out.
That’s some good inspo if you want to cook or bake more today or into this year.
And, I’d add... if you have pantry ingredients close on hand, you’re more likely to pick up this handy life skill sooner if you want. You can decide to keep a good shelf-life food pantry, in addition to shopping regularly for fresh ingredients or meals.
You could also keep a secondary “food as medicine” kitchen cabinet that includes spices like I do.
If that’s far from what you do today and you’re not there yet, but wanna be… be encouraged that your desires change. Like in my home cooking journey…
I rarely turned on the oven or stove at home when I planned menus all day at work as a catering sales manager. I came home tired and had a couple boxes of pasta and tomato sauce in my cupboard… nothing for me to get excited about even after I re-charged my energy.
Grocery store shopping was my personal foodie food event. Cooking was the last thing I wanted to do being around food conversations all day.
And in your case, you may be dead dog tired by the end of the work week, overwhelmingly busy season, or just had a Pitta day, that all cause you to want to stay away from the stovetop oven… yes/right?
But you could change your mind and ways when you get used to sniffing and reading ingredients that you have on hand at home a few steps away from the couch that you can check out on your way back from the bathroom or reaching for a snack 😉… and that way you can see that you can actually make your own this-and-that just as easily as going out or to the store.
A factory doesn’t need to supply all the combined ingredients in a package for you to enjoy. Food was available before we had modern machinery.
So you can put ingredients together yourself in seconds or minutes and without all kinds of convenient gadgets and kitchenware.
And those mindful minutes can be very therapeutic.
That can lead you to want to learn more about different types of interesting ingredients available out there.
That’s when cooking or baking starts getting fun! 🎉
And can inspire you to experiment …plus then you’ll have all this extra energy from your enhanced healthy anti-inflammatory eating lifestyle you’ve adopted, that can take you to explore the local farmer’s markets for seasonal produce.
That can be as enjoyable as your other travel excursions without all the hassles. I LIKE TO DREAM HEALTHY BIG…and you can too!
Btw, Happy International Yoga Day today (as awareness mentioning)! As planners, we love when dates stay the same every year like this June anniversary. 😊