6 Most Inflammatory Foods to AVOID At All Costs

Are you tired of doctors dismissing your symptoms or worse, even making you feel crazy? Even if your blood work comes back normal, it doesn't mean your health is where it should be. Think of your blood like a delivery truck carrying nutrients and hormones, but the real payoff happens when your cells open the package and use what's inside.

If your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, triggered by stress, toxins, or infections, they go into protective mode. In this state, cells close off and don't properly take in or utilize the hormones or nutrients they need from the bloodstream.

Now, this makes the blood work often appear normal, so doctors often miss the deeper issue, leaving you feeling tired, gaining weight, experiencing mood swings, and dealing with other symptoms while other cells remain in a state of limbo. Visit beyondbloodwork.com to learn how you can start changing this in as little as 30 days. Hey everyone, welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show.

I'm your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this podcast, we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be talking about inflammation. Listen, it's your body's natural response to injury and infection, and it should be helping us heal.

However, if inflammation turns chronic, it can trigger responses over time causing leaky gut syndrome, hormone imbalance, major pain, and a number of other health issues, including autoimmune disease and cancer. Cancer. And today I'll be walking through the 6 most inflammatory food groups we're consuming on a regular basis. And I guarantee a couple of them will likely surprise you.

Some of these are even found in health food stores and are labeled organic and natural. And so today I'll be going through the 6 inflammatory food groups you've got to get out of your diet as soon as possible in order to decrease inflammation and help your body heal and reverse disease and promote longevity. Make sure to subscribe to my podcast.

And sign up for my weekly newsletter at the link in the show notes. Now, here's the food group that's most inflammatory, and it's fried foods in seed oils, specifically foods like French fries. Now, why is this inflammatory? Well, here's the reason. Deep-fried foods in refined oils, they tend to be high in trans fats and loaded with a high amount of iodized salt.

And high cooking temperatures create something called advanced glycation end products, known as AGEs, and appropriate because these cause your cells and body to age more quickly, and these compounds promote inflammation. Let me ask you, have you ever seen anybody who was likely in their 40s but they looked like they were in their 60s? Now, this happens with 2 groups of people I see primarily.

It's smokers and it's people that eat a lot of fast food, a lot of McDonald's, a lot of Burger King, a lot of these fried foods in seed oils or vegetable oils.

These are the people I see age the fastest because it actually activates a process in the body called, again, AGEs, advanced glycation end products, and literally cause your cells to age more quickly, which then will cause your heart to age more quickly and your lungs and your— in your entire body.

And so fried foods at fast food restaurants, like french fries specifically, are the most inflammatory food. And it's not just The oils. It's also the added salt. It also tends to be the carbohydrates. You know, another example of this would be donuts from a place like Dunkin' Donuts, right? They actually fry white flour and they add a bunch of sugar as well.

And so I would say that those are even worse for you than French fries because it not only has the seed oils, it also has sugar and it also has refined carbohydrates. But number one food you got to get out of your diet, generally speaking, are going to be these fried donuts. It's going to be French fries. It's going to be the fast food that's the most inflammatory. Number 2 group is sugary foods.

It's added sugar, especially sodas and sugary beverages. Now, why are these inflammatory? Because they contain high fructose corn syrup and added sugar. This leads to spikes in your blood sugar, which then impacts insulin levels, which are linked to inflammation. Remember this, when insulin gets thrown off, it then impacts cortisol. It affects ghrelin in your gut. It impacts your thyroid hormones.

Testosterone starts to drop in men, and progesterone and estrogen get thrown off in women. So when you're doing sugar and sugary beverages, it throws off so many things in your body, especially insulin. And in addition, it really disrupts the gut microbiome. What happens is pathogenic bacteria and viruses and parasites those start to grow and feed off of this form of sugar.

And so you tend to get issues like Candida overgrowth, as we talked about in Western medicine, or phlegm and mucus accumulation, or dampness, as they talk about in Eastern medicine. But again, the big thing here is insulin issues and destroying the gut microbiome, causing inflammation across the gut lining, Candida buildup, which will also eventually lead to issues like leaky gut.

Now, there's a study published on this in consuming sugary drinks like soda, and it's risk regarding type 2 diabetes. And a meta-analysis— by the way, that's not one study, that's many studies pulled together— was published in the Journal of Diabetes Care.

And they found that individuals consuming just 1 to 2 servings a day of sugar-sweetened beverages had a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who consume less than 1 serving per month. So think about it, it's really just one serving a day.

If you drink one sugary beverage per day, that's going to be soda, but it could also be processed fruit juice like orange juice in the morning.

Now, if it's cold-pressed and it's organic and natural, it's not gonna have quite the same effect, but any processed sugar or soda or sugary beverage is going to increase your risk of type 2 diabetes if you do it regularly by 26% or greater and have other major side effects. So stay away from added sugar. And basically what you're looking for on the label is added sugar.

So high fructose corn syrup and added sugar, you want to stay away from those completely. The number 3 most inflammatory food group you want to stay away from is white bread and other refined carbohydrates. Now, why are these inflammatory?

Well, basically it's this: they're high glycemic, which means they are going to turn into sugar into your body very quickly, which will spike your blood sugar imbalance insulin levels, and that's going to cause inflammation over time. Now, there's another issue as well.

So you've got the carbs breaking down into sugar, and most of these products like wheat bread and white flour products as well, you also have gluten. You have the refined carbs and the gluten together causing major inflammation throughout the body. Now, I remember growing up, we would buy whole wheat bread.

Now, I remember years ago going, going into the grocery store, looking on the back of that package. You know what it said? It was basically white bleached flour flour with caramel color added to it. So it wasn't even whole wheat flour. But really, whole wheat flour, if it's not fermented into a sourdough or sprouted, it, it also has major issues there.

I also want to mention, most of these breads, if they're not organic, these grains are highly sprayed with glyphosate and other pesticides.

So if you're eating white bread, and even if they dress it up in some sort of French bread like a baguette, and you might think, well, this is, this is healthier, it's, you know, the type of bread they in France, it still tends to be, again, the sort of carbs that break down into sugar immediately, high in gluten, and high in glyphosate and other chemicals.

So the number 3 most inflammatory food you might be eating regularly is white bread and wheat bread products, or those white flour that's bleached and wheat flour products are very damaging to your health.

Now here's the reality: you can go and buy real sourdough bread that's organic And they almost look identical, and the sourdough actually tastes better, but actually has benefits to your body for reducing inflammation and supporting gut bacteria growth and even detoxifying your body with some of the bacteria in there.

So sometimes the shifts you need to make are so minor of going from white bread to a true organic sourdough bread made with a whole grain flour, or I can— or corn, wheat, or some sort of ancient or natural grain almost tastes the same. And the health benefits are radically different in terms of one being highly inflammatory and the other having a slight anti-inflammatory effect on the body.

Now, the number 4 food group you've got to get out of your diet are processed meats such as bacon, hot conventional hot dogs, conventional sausages, and then charred meat as well. Now, why are these inflammatory? Well, the reason is they contain high levels of preservatives, nitrates, saturated fats, omega-6 fatty acids, and a lot of chemical residue from pesticides and growth hormones.

So organic processed meat is terrible for your body. And there was a study published on this in regards to its increasing the risk of colorectal cancer. The International Agency of Research on Cancer classified processed meats as carcinogenic to humans, so cancer-causing.

An analysis of multiple studies estimated that consuming a 50-gram portion of processed meat daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by approximately 18%. And it's not just the processed conventional meats, it's also processed conventional dairy products.

And there's actually something called the law of bioaccumulation, and it's this: we tend to think That our greatest toxins might come from plants sprayed with glyphosate or grains. But here's the reality. Think about this. Cows and pigs eat tons and tons and tons of sprayed grains with glyphosate and with chemicals.

And oftentimes they're given different types of hormones as well to make them grow more quickly. Well, when you're eating specifically cows and pigs, which are the worst offenders, you are then getting— Glyphosate. All of those chemicals. And so did you know that 80% of antibiotics today are given to livestock?

And so when they have those antibiotics in their tissues and then you eat their tissues, well, you're now getting all of those chemicals. Plus they were grain-fed, so now they have more omega-6 fat, so that's inflammatory. And then we're adding preservatives and nitrates.

And then pork is actually worse than cow's meat because the way that a pig's digestive system works is they tend to store toxins, especially parasites. So you're also oftentimes getting parasitic or actual parasites when you're consuming foods like shrimp and pig meat on a regular basis.

And so again, the number 4 inflammatory food group you want to get out of your diet is conventional, non-organic processed meats, cows being the worst offender, and then also shrimp. And then along with that, cows and chickens after that in terms of highly inflammatory food groups. The number 5 inflammatory food group you want to stay away from is margarine and other processed spreads.

Now, I remember growing up, my mom once brought home margarine, and my dad is an old military guy. He was like meat and potatoes every single meal and butter on everything, real butter we'd pick up from Amish farmers sometimes in Ohio. And my dad, just, I mean, credit to him, you know, would not change. And so he refused to eat it.

So growing up, we had it in our house maybe a couple times, and then my dad's like, we're not eating that crap. And we got it out. And so we ate real butter. And thank God again for my dad sticking to his guns there and his stubbornness. But, you know, margarine— and I'd love to hear how many of you growing up had that switch, right?

All of a sudden the commercials started coming out about how bad saturated fat was and how bad butter was and coconut oil and those sort of things. And then everybody starts switching to vegetable oils and margarine. And I'd love to hear how that went over in your household, how long you stuck with margarine, when you made the switch back to butter, which is so much better.

But the reality is this: margarine and other processed spreads, many of which have seed oils, are inflammatory because they have artificial trans fats, which significantly elevate inflammation and have actually been linked to, in medical studies, heart attacks and strokes.

Now, there's also a risk of other issues there, but again, heart attack, stroke, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease are the biggest issues with margarine and other processed spreads. And then number 6, The most damaging inflammatory food group, along with these others we talked about, is candy and sweets. Okay, why are these inflammatory?

What we talked about earlier, very similar to soda, is it's loaded with refined sugar, causing rapid blood sugar fluctuations, which can then lead to an inflammatory response in the body. And here's the reality: we're living in a world today where there are so many natural swaps you can do instead of the things we've talked about. French fries.

You know what you can do is you can actually make sweet potato fries or French fries using white potatoes at home and fry them up in an air fryer, covering them in coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil. So you can still eat French fries. We do. We make them at home in our home using something like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil.

And some people also love using beef tallow or duck fat as another good option. We talked about soda and sugary beverages. Listen, you can do things like tart cherry juice and some pomegranate juice or sweeten your green tea with organic local honey. You can still have some natural sweeteners or use monk fruit or allulose or a little bit of stevia.

Again, honey is probably my favorite, but you can use those in small amounts and not increase your risk of type 2 diabetes. Listen, you don't have to keep eating white bread and refined carbs. Instead, do real sourdough bread, which tastes even better. You know, my wife now for 3 years has been making sourdough bread. She did sourdough focaccia this week.

We did sourdough cinnamon rolls, sourdough cookies, sourdough pancakes, sourdough everything. My wife got turned onto this by Carrie Underwood. You guys probably know Carrie. She's a, a well-known musician, uh, who's got a great homestead here in the Nashville area. And so Chelsea started making it. It's been such a gift to our family.

We love doing sourdough, and there are so many studies showing the benefits. But listen, it's a simple swap. It's a simple change. You could buy sourdough at some great health food stores or make it at home. We talked about the processed meats. Do organic grass-fed meat instead. We talked about the margarine. Go back to real butter. Do butter and coconut oil and ghee and beef tallow.

Those are better options. And then rather than the candy or sweets, there are are all-natural forms of candy and sweets that might have a little bit of added cane sugar or honey or things along those lines. But if you're just doing it on occasion, it's not an issue. You know, I still get to eat all my favorite foods.

Chelsea this week made pumpkin pie and she replaced in the recipe that was more of a traditional recipe, she added in honey and a little monk fruit instead. And then she did coconut oil in the crust and used pecans and some other— and oat flour. And We use pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, and it actually is healing to our body because of the ingredients.

So we still have sweets, we still have candy, we still drink, you know, even things that are sweet on occasion. We just use all-natural sweeteners instead, and you can do the very same thing. Now, here's the reality. Almost every health problem today has an inflammatory component. Okay?

Heart disease, that's inflammation building up in your arteries and cell walls in your heart, increasing risk of a heart attack. Diabetes, that's inflammation of the pancreas and the, in the cells that interrupt insulin signaling, leading to prediabetes, insulin resistance, or type 2 diabetes.

Cancer, that's caused by chronic inflammation that's damaging your cellular DNA, your liver, and your immune system. That's what causes cancer. And arthritis, by the way, did you know anything that says -itis at the end, -itis, in Latin that means inflammation. So arthritis is inflammation of your joints. Ulcerative colitis, that's inflammation of your colon, right?

Almost every health problem today is inflammatory in nature. So if you can reduce inflammation with your diet— by the way, the ideal diet to reduce inflammation is a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids and other healthy fats from things like wild-caught salmon, flaxseeds, walnuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds. Also other healthy fats like coconut, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, and olives.

Getting more protein in your diet, especially via bone broth. Getting wild-caught fish and grass-fed beef and organic chicken and turkey and pastured eggs. And getting more fruit that's anti-inflammatory like pineapple and kiwi and figs and pomegranates and berries. All highly anti-inflammatory fruits as well, and vegetables as well are highly anti-inflammatory.

So if you can follow an anti-inflammatory diet, you can heal your cells, you can heal your organs, you can reverse disease and increase your lifespan. Now, I want to give you some warning signs that your body is in a state of inflammation. I also want to tell you inflammation is not just caused from eating a poor diet. It's also caused from emotional stress and not getting enough sleep.

And working out in an unhealthy way. For instance, if you're doing a lot of marathon training or CrossFit or things where you're tearing up your joints going to failure, you're actually aging your body, causing too much inflammation, especially things like long-distance triathlons, marathon running, and things like doing CrossFit for hours a day. You're actually aging yourself.

Not getting enough sleep, that causes inflammation because your body can't now recover And reduce inflammation enough. And again, emotional stress— what happens when cortisol goes up? Insulin now is thrown off. So then that's going to cause inflammation in your blood, in your cells, causing you to also age more quickly. But here are the biggest warning signs your body might be inflamed.

Number 1 is pain. Any sort of joint pain, stiffness, discomfort, any pain whatsoever, that's inflammation. Number 2, digestive issues. Could be gas, bloating, constipation, any sort of issue regarding your digestive system. That's caused by inflammation. If, if you've got a lot of fatigue and you're constantly tired, your body probably can't recover enough. That's inflammation.

Skin problems, rashes and acne, that's actually topical inflammation coming from either your liver, your lungs, or your gut in most cases. And so that's also tied to inflammation. And these symptoms can often be subtle. But you don't want to overlook them. Now, in closing, I want to cover the top herbs, supplements, foods, and lifestyle practices to reduce inflammation fast.

Number 1, as we talked about, eat an anti-inflammatory diet. That includes a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, a lot of healthy fats, lots of good protein, fruits, vegetables. That's the ideal for reducing inflammation. Next is you want to stay hydrated. Drink lots of water. And maybe a little bit of electrolytes, especially things high in potassium. That helps flush out toxins out of your cell.

The other thing would be regular exercise. Walking is tremendous for inflammation. The more you can walk and move, the more your body can cycle through these inflammatory compounds, getting them out of your system. So good movement, especially swimming and cycling, are very, very good for inflammation because they're also easy in your joints.

But I'd say swimming, cycling, walking, uh, mini rebounders, those sort of things, very good for reducing inflammation. And getting proper sleep, as we talked about. And in terms of supplements that reduce inflammation, number 1 is going to be an omega-3 fatty acid supplement or a fish oil.

Number 2, turmeric and other anti-inflammatory herbs along with turmeric that are relatives of it, like galangal and ginger. So those herbs as well. Rosemary, cat's claw, skullcap— lesser known, but in Eastern medicine those are used— also very anti-inflammatory. And then in addition to those, getting more collagen and bone broth in your diet. Those contain especially chicken collagen.

Our chicken bone broth is going to have glucosamine, chondroitin, hyaluronic acid. That's also going to reduce inflammation. But generally, if you want to reduce inflammation, your top 2 are going to be an omega-3 fatty acid supplement along with turmeric are going to have the biggest bang for your buck benefits on reducing inflammation. So here's what you need to be conscious of.

Become more aware of the inflammatory foods and their effects on your body and the body of your family. By opting for anti-inflammatory foods and adopting healthy habits, you can reduce inflammation, reverse disease, and actually get physiologically younger. Younger in your biological age.

And this is something I can tell you that I've been very conscious of as I went through a health scare a few years ago. And I said, I want to be as young as possible. I did an age test not too long ago and I was 10 years younger than my, than my chronological age, my biological age. And a big part of that was being very focused on reducing inflammation in my body.

And you can do the same thing following these practical tips. And remember, it doesn't need to be overwhelming. Simply follow good swaps. Rather than the white bread, do the sourdough bread. Rather than the processed sugar, do the honey and stevia and monk fruit. Rather than doing processed seed oils, do coconut oil, butter, and extra virgin olive oil.

Making those simple swaps is going to radically improve your health and decrease inflammation. Hey, I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we explore how to grow and improve your health physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your life and health to a whole nother level. Make sure to subscribe, like, and share.

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