The Two Most Important Things You Can do to Fight Autoimmunity Through Diet

Prefer to listen? Check out this episode of The Autoimmune Edible Rx Podcast here!

Today, I want to share with you the two most important things you can do as a foodie with autoimmunity if you want to use food as medicine to lessen inflammation, decrease the symptoms of your condition, and improve the quality of your life!

1.) Decrease your intake of inflammation-promoting foods

Like ultra-processed foods, fast food, soda and sugar drinks, packaged desserts, fried foods, empty carbs and refined foods like refined sugar, refined oils like vegetable and canola oil, refined flour, flour tortillas, breads, buns, muffins and donuts, and of course, gluten, and dairy.

And the second Most Important Things You Can do to Fight Autoimmunity Through Diet is to:

2.) Increase your intake of anti-inflammatory foods

Single, whole food ingredients. Things you can identify and pronounce. Things that are minimally processed.

Like:

1.) Colorful in-season vegetables.

Organic if they're on the Dirty Dozen List. The Dirty Dozen List is a list of produce that is profusely sprayed with pesticides. It's from the Environmental Working Group and a new updated list comes out every spring.

2.) Organic grass-fed beef and lamb and organic pastured chicken, turkey and eggs.

3.) Wild caught seafood.

4.) Gluten free whole grains like quinoa, millet, amaranth, teff, brown rice, black rice, etc.

5.) Raw nuts and seeds.

6.) Organic beans and legumes

(Reach for varieties packed in glass, paper boxes, or BPA-free cans)

7.) Blood sugar stable sugar alternatives like monk fruit, allulose, or stevia.

You can also use local or organic raw honey and dark maple syrup in moderation if you don't have blood sugar issues. But 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, so...stick to stevia, monk fruit, or allulose powder if you can find it and afford it.

8.) Cooking oils full of vitamins, polyphenols, antioxidants and Omega 3s like extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, organic grass-fed ghee, and virgin or unrefined coconut oil.

9.) And lastly, if you're going to reach for gluten and dairy substitutes, do your best to find whole grain gluten free flour like brown rice flour and good quality unsweetened soy-free vegan dairy.

There are tons of products on the market these days from coconut, almond milk and cashew milk yogurts to hemp milk and beyond. Just make sure when you flip the package around, you can pronounce and identify all the ingredients listed on the back, right? We're sticking to whole food ingredients here - single food ingredients. Foods we know and can identify in nature.

Why is this important for autoimmunity? Well, there are three main triggers of autoimmunity according to Dr. Alessio Fassano and the National Institutes of Health:

1.) Genetics

2.) Poor Gut Health (things like gut dysbiosis and leaky gut)

3.) Environmental triggers (so things like toxins in our air/water/food/body products/cleaning products, stress, underlying viruses and co-infections, and so much more)

And ultra-processed, refined foods like the ones I mentioned earlier - all the packaged, processed, "Franken-Foods" as Dr. Mark Hyman likes to call them...

All the foods we grew up eating (the Lucky Charms for breakfast, the Lunchables and Capri Sun for lunch and the Hamburger Helper and soda for dinner...not to mention all the chips, candy, cookies, brownies, chocolate milk) and everything else in between...

All of this stuff when eaten often and in abundance can contribute to poor gut health, it can weaken your immune system, it overloads your body with foreign toxins, and it can cause chronic systemic inflammation which is one of the hallmarks of autoimmunity.

It's kind of a Catch 22 because chronic systemic inflammation can contribute to the onset of autoimmunity, and once you have it, every time your immune system mistakingly attacks itself for a foreign invader, more inflammation happens.

That's why your doctor does a CRP blood test on you. Because C-reactive proteins are inflammation markers. And if you have a high CRP and a positive ANA, you have autoimmunity.

But if you work hard to eat a whole foods, plant rich diet full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, polyphenols, omega 3s, protein, fiber, healthy fats, etc., you can strengthen your immune system, heal your gut, and lessen your total body inflammation.

So that's why the two most important things you can do to fight autoimmunity are:

-Decrease your intake of inflammatory foods

-Increase your intake of anti-inflammatory foods

Now, diet is not the end all, be-all. Right? Chronic unmanaged stress, trauma, underlying co-infections and viruses, and so much more can all contribute to the onset and therefore the management of autoimmunity.

But any good doctor you go and see...

As soon as they see that high CRP number come back...

And that positive ANA...

They're going to tell you that you need to eat anti-inflammatory. Even the Arthritis Foundation will tell you if you search "diet" on their website, eating a whole food, plant-rich, low saturated fat diet, like the Flare Free Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, etc. is "not only great for overall health, but it can manage disease activity"..."fight inflammation and improve joint pain and other symptoms."

So this information is not hidden. But many, many doctors tell you just to take an anti-inflammatory prescription for the rest of your life. That there's nothing else you do do about it. That you're going to be on this prescription forever and it doesn't matter what you eat or how you live. Autoimmunity is forever. You just have to manage your symptoms with an immune suppressant or an anti-inflammatory prescription, right?

So sometimes, we have to seek out this information. But if you're here, chances are, you have a much better doctor than the one I had when I was first diagnosed in 2015. Chances are you are seeing a functional practitioner, or a holistic or naturopathic doctor and they told you that in order for you to get your inflammation down, so you can lessen some of the symptoms of your Lupus, your Hashimoto's, your MS, your Alopecia, your psoriasis, etc., you've got to eat better.

You've got to eat gluten/dairy/sugar/corn/soy/peanut-free and anti-inflammatory. So focus on healthy cooking fats, good quality dairy and gluten replacements, eat organic when you can find it and afford it, focus on good quality lean meat, fish and eggs, etc.

Because with autoimmunity, as with many other chronic conditions, the cause is also the cure.

So if our Western food supply is contributing to our leaky gut, weakened immune systems, and chronic inflammation that landed us with autoimmunity...

We have to eat the opposite of that to get well. Right?

What we eat matters. What we shop for matters. What we cook matters. Everything you eat can either harm you or heal you.

In fact, more than 50% of all deaths world wide are directly linked to chronic inflammation related conditions like autoimmunity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.

And nearly 60% of all calories eaten in America come from ultra-processed and refined foods like the ones I mentioned above.

Only 12% of those calories come from vegetables (and half of those come from French fries alone)!

So this is important.

And this is not just an American problem. Thanks to the adaptation of the Western Diet and fast food, countries all around the world are now seeing higher rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmunity, cancer, and more.

So please, I hope you take this to heart when I say. the best two things you can do for yourself if you are a foodie with autoimmunity trying to use food as medicine to get off the rollercoaster ride of flare-ups, improve your lab work, and get your life back are:

Eat fewer inflammatory foods and eat more anti-inflammatory foods.

If you want a copy of my Anti-Inflammatory Food Guide complete with pictures so that you can print it out and stick it on the fridge for inspiration for your next shopping trip, DM me the word "GUIDE" on Instagram and I'll send the PDF your way!

xo,

Laura