Dr Can­di­da Khan

Some­times we can de­vel­op anx­i­ety be­cause a build-up of in­flam­ma­tion in the body can lead to detri­men­tal health out­comes. It makes us won­der when we eat a meal or snack, “Is this caus­ing in­flam­ma­tion in my body?”

There are so many so­cial me­dia trend­ing videos telling you to stop eat­ing bread, rice or your favourite foods lo­cal­ly. Maybe some­one even rec­om­mend­ed ex­pen­sive sup­ple­ments to “flush out in­flam­ma­tion.”

Let’s clar­i­fy this mis­in­for­ma­tion to help you take con­trol of your health. The truth is that your body is not your en­e­my and in­flam­ma­tion at safe lev­els is part of your body’s nat­ur­al de­fence sys­tem. In its acute form, it can sup­port heal­ing. The con­cern is chron­ic in­flam­ma­tion, which can con­tribute to health prob­lems over time, such as type 2 di­a­betes and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

Over­all eat­ing pat­terns, sleep, stress, and oth­er lifestyle fac­tors should be the fo­cus to re­duce in­flam­ma­tion. We have so many de­li­cious lo­cal foods avail­able, but when these dom­i­nate your di­et, they can in­crease the risk for high in­flam­ma­tion lev­els:

1 ) Sug­ary drinks: ex­ces­sive added sug­ar com­mon­ly found in soft drinks, juices, and sweet­ened bev­er­ages can con­tribute to in­flam­ma­tion. These drinks, when con­sumed reg­u­lar­ly, make it dif­fi­cult for your body to man­age blood glu­cose, main­tain a healthy weight and sup­port good health.

2 ) Processed meats such as ba­con, ham, hot dogs and oth­er con­ve­nient meats can add health risks when reg­u­lar­ly eat­en.

3 ) Deep-fried foods such as fried chick­en, chips, and pies can con­tribute to a high amount of sat­u­rat­ed fat when over-con­sumed.

In­stead, we should fo­cus on the fol­low­ing:

1) Choos­ing wa­ter and unsweet­ened herbal tea or fruit-in­fused wa­ter, which I reg­u­lar­ly pro­mote on my so­cial me­dia. I re­al­ly en­joy herbal teas.

2 ) Fo­cus on dif­fer­ent types of meat or lean­er sources, for ex­am­ple, fish, chan­na, lentils.

3) Try dif­fer­ent cook­ing meth­ods in­stead of deep-fry­ing, such as grilled fish, stewed chick­en, baked pro­vi­sions, and air-fried op­tions.

There are foods that sup­port a health­i­er in­flam­ma­to­ry re­sponse that you can pick up in your lo­cal mar­kets. These in­clude veg­eta­bles such as okra, bo­di, pump­kin, cu­cum­ber, pak choi, and christophene. The ben­e­fits of fat­ty fish such as sar­dine, salmon, and mack­er­el are that they pro­vide more omega-3 fat­ty acids, which bal­ance the in­flam­ma­tion in the body nat­u­ral­ly. Lo­cal fruits are al­so a great ad­di­tion to your di­et to re­duce in­flam­ma­tion, such as paw­paw, pineap­ple, and wa­ter­mel­on, which con­tribute fi­bre, vi­t­a­mins and an­tiox­i­dants. There are al­so herbs such as turmer­ic and gin­ger that have been stud­ied to have an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry ef­fects.

The big les­son is that no sin­gle food can can­cel out an un­bal­anced di­et. It is the over­all pat­tern that mat­ters most. You don’t need to elim­i­nate your favourite foods or buy ex­pen­sive sup­ple­ments or fol­low trends on­line; you need to un­der­stand what nour­ish­ing your body means and prac­tice habits that sup­port your health over time.

One change I would rec­om­mend that you make to­day, as your doc­tor in Nu­tri­tion and Di­et Ther­a­py, is to add veg­eta­bles to your lunch and re­place a sug­ary drink with wa­ter. You de­serve nu­tri­tion ad­vice that em­pow­ers and in­spires you. My fo­cus is on shar­ing knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal steps to help you feel con­fi­dent, make in­formed choic­es and build a health­i­er fu­ture.

Dr Can­di­da Khan (Dr Di­di), PhD Nu­tri­tion & Di­et Ther­a­py is a Reg­is­tered Di­etit­ian Nu­tri­tion­ist.

She is al­so the CEO of Di­di’s Nu­tri­tion Con­sul­tan­cy: didis­nu­tri­tion­con­sul­tan­cy.com