5 Anti-Inflammatory Foods & Recipes To Boost Your Immune System
“Inflammation” is a term widely used, mostly because there are way more factors in our environment now that cause inflammation in our bodies than ever before, including highly processed foods, fast food, stress, and pollution. But also because inflammation can be the cause of the most common diseases in today’s society, including cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases and more.
However, even if you haven’t experienced any of those diseases, you may likely still have some acute or chronic inflammation in your body. If you ever get muscle pain or weakness, irregular digestion, consistent stomach issues or joint pain, amongst other symptoms, those may be caused by an inflammatory response within your system.1
So What Actually is Inflammation?
Inherently, inflammation actually is a good thing! It’s our bodies’ natural response mechanism to foreign items coming in. Our bodies instinctively send chemicals from our white blood cells to protect us from these foreign objects, which raises blood flow to that particular area of infection or injury. Sometimes these chemicals cause fluid to leak into our tissues, causing some discomfort.1 But when the inflammation doesn’t go away on its own, and we don’t provide our body with the nutrients and lifestyle remedies it needs to reduce inflammation, it can become chronic and last much longer than when the original injury or infection occurred.How Does Inflammation Affect the Immune System?
Well, inflammation is actually the immune system's natural response to invaders as described above. However, when we have inflammation in our body, but no disease or threat for our white blood cells to fight off, they might start attacking our healthy cells and organs leading to serious disease.2 This is why incorporating as many anti-inflammatory foods and practices into our daily routines is so important! We’re constantly bombarded with external, inflammatory objects, so the more we can avoid them and add in anti-inflammatory habits, the better for our bodies and minds.5 Foods To Fight Inflammation
These five foods are great for reducing inflammation in the body because of their high level of Omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and/or vitamins, which are known to have anti-inflammatory properties.-
Salmon
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Place salmon fillet on lined baking sheet. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and chile lime seasoning.
- Slice one lemon and place slices on salmon.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes, depending on how well done you like it.
- Squeeze juice of a lemon when ready to serve
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Avocado
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Chia seeds
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Blueberries
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Broccoli