Inflammation Free Diet Plan

"The Inflammation Free Diet Plan" is a book authored by Monica Reinagel that explains how diet affects inflammation, increasing the risk of obesity and a wide range of chronic diseases. Inflammation also speeds the aging process itself. The plan is based on the IF Rating System, which addresses how to lose weight and improve health risks by identifying which foods trigger inflammation and which reduce it. The IF Rating System formula measures and calculates 20 factors that determine a particular food's inflammatory potential including amount and type of fat, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and glycemic index.

Inflammation Is a Silent Enemy

The first section of the book details how inflammation increases our risk for chronic diseases. If you have ever gotten a scrape or a sprain, you have experienced inflammation's accompanying redness, swelling, and pain. This is a natural physical response to any type of injury, internal or external, and is the first step of the repair and healing process. When inflammation occurs inside your body, it is referred to as systemic inflammation. Systemic inflammation is not always obvious until the damage has been done. Some signs are allergies, joint pain, and premature aging.

The Foods You Eat and Inflammation

The foods you consume affect inflammation. Your body creates both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory chemicals from the nutrients in these foods. If you consume too many of the wrong foods, your body creates excessive amounts of the inflammatory chemicals and your body triggers more of an inflammatory response to illness or injury. Other foods allow your body to produce anti-inflammatory chemicals, allowing your body to use them to reduce inflammation. These foods are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. The Inflammatory Rating System identifies many foods with these properties. Some of them include broccoli, cantaloupe, raw carrots, green beans, olive oil, spinach, strawberries, and wild salmon.

Reducing Inflammation in Your Body with the IF Rating System

In the IF Rating System, each food is assigned a pro- or anti-inflammatory rating based on 20 different nutrients. The objective of the diet is to maintain a healthy balance of high IF to negative IF numbers. By balancing these ratings, inflammation is reduced. A particular food's IF rating is based on three components: how much of the given factor is present in the food, how much the factor itself has a positive or negative effect on inflammation, and how strong of an effect on inflammation there is.