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Yet Another Diet Book? Well, maybe just ONE more by Monica Reinagel |
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by Monica Reinagel
Yet Another Diet Book?
Well, maybe just ONE more . . .
 When I contacted
totalhealth to ask if
they were interested
in reviewing my new
book, The Inflammation
Free Diet Plan, the magazine’s publisher,
Lyle Hurd, asked me whether anyone
really needed to read another diet book.
Hundreds of books on diet and nutrition
line the shelves of every bookstore.
Chances are you’ve read one or two
yourself. Is one more really going to make
a difference? It’s a fair question.
It’s true that many diet books offer
more hype than help. Diets with trendy
names or clever gimmicks briefly
capture the media’s attention. Some are
questionable in terms of their scientific
and nutritional underpinnings. Others are
simply not realistic for the long-term. They
fade away after a season or two and are
quickly replaced by the next dieting fad.
But every once in a while, there really
is something new to say about diet—a
scientific insight or discovery that can
make a substantial difference in your
health. The recent revelations about
inflammation and its relationship to
weight gain, disease, and aging are clearly
in this category.
Inflammation has been on the front
burner at medical conferences across
disciplines, from the American Association
of Cancer Researchers to the Association
for Anti-Aging Medicine. The evidence
suggests that virtually everyone can benefit
from an anti-inflammatory diet. Reducing
inflammation is absolutely crucial if you
need to lose weight. Moreover, it will help
ease pain, prevent disease, and slow the
aging process—inside and out.
The Inflammation Free Diet Plan is
not the first book to endorse the antiinflammatory
diet. This year, we’ve seen
several excellent books on the subject
of inflammation, diet and health. Dr.
Leo Galland’s book The Fat Resistance
Diet, which was recently featured in this
magazine, is one of them. Thought leaders
like Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Barry Sears, and
Dr. Nicholas Perricone are also focusing
attention on the dangers of chronic,
systemic inflammation.
What does The Inflammation Free Diet
Plan add to the work of these eminent
authorities? Primarily, it offers a practical
tool called the IF Rating™ system, which
rates foods according to their effects on
inflammation in the body. With ratings for
1,600 foods, the IF Rating system gives
you variety and flexibility. Now, you can
build a healing, anti-inflammatory diet
that includes a wide range of foods.
How is an anti-inflammatory different
from a plain old healthy diet?
What is an anti-inflammatory diet, exactly?
you might assume that all “healthy foods”
are anti-inflammatory and all “unhealthy
foods” are inflammatory. If this were the
case, the anti-inflammatory diet would
resemble any other healthy eating plan—and it would hardly be news.
But it’s not quite that simple. Some
wholesome foods, such as certain fresh
fruits, grains, and lean protein sources,
can have mildly inflammatory effects in
the body. That’s not to say that you should
eliminate these foods from your diet. But
to avoid excessive inflammation, you want
to balance your intake of inflammatory
and anti-inflammatory foods. To do that,
you need to know which are which.
What makes foods inflammatory?
There are at least two dozen factors that
affect a food’s inflammatory potential,
including the amounts and proportion
of various fatty acids, the amount of
antioxidants and other nutrients, and
the food’s glycemic impact, or effect on
blood sugar levels. Many foods have a
combination of inflammation-producing
and inflammation-reducing factors.
Calculating the net effect of all of these
factors becomes a very complicated
proposition.
An orange, for example, contains
antioxidants that quell inflammation. But
it also contains natural sugars that can
have a mild inflammatory effect. Likewise,
a piece of lean beef contains both
inflammatory saturated fats as well as a
surprising amount of anti-inflammatory
monounsaturated fats. When you add up
all the factors, it turns out that lean beef is
slightly anti-inflammatory, while the orange
is slightly inflammatory. That’s not to say
that oranges aren’t good for you. But it
illustrates how difficult it can be to predict
a food’s inflammatory potential based on
the standard nutritional assumptions.
Perhaps the most surprising news of all
concerns salmon. We constantly hear that
salmon is a great source of heart-healthy
omega-3 fatty acids. But few people realize
that farm-raised salmon is also extremely
high in an inflammatory fatty acid called
arachidonic acid. In fact, the inflammatory
effects of the arachidonic acid in farmraised
salmon more than cancels out the
anti-inflammatory benefits of the omega-3
it contains!
The IF Rating system was developed
to take the guess work and confusion
out of following an anti-inflammatory
diet. Every food has an IF number, which
is based on over 20 different factors,
including fatty acids, antioxidants,
minerals, phytonutrients, and glycemic
index. Inflammatory foods have negative
IF Ratings, while anti-inflammatory foods
have positive ratings.
With the IF Ratings, you can see at a
glance whether a food is inflammatory
or anti-inflammatory. To figure the
inflammatory potential of entire meals or
recipes, you simply total up the IF Ratings
of the individual foods. In the box below,
you’ll find some common foods and their
IF Ratings. As you can see, the IF Rating of farm-raised salmon:-181. A serving of wildcaught
Alaskan sockeye, on the other hand,
tops the charts at +518.
| FOOD | IF
RATING |
3 oz. Alaskan sockeye salmon
(wild caught) | +518 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger | +250 |
| 1 clove garlic | +111 |
| 1/2 cup broccoli | +73 |
| 1 oz. almonds | +57 |
| 1/3 cup bran cereal | +50 |
| 3 oz. lean flank steak | +23 |
| 10 medium strawberries | +22 |
| 3 oz. pork tenderloin | +5 |
| 1 cup low-fat yogurt | -17 |
| 3 oz. lamb chop | -19 |
| 1 large orange | -19 |
| 1 oz. sunflower seeds | -41 |
| 1 medium apple | -62 |
| 3/4 cup oatmeal | -64 |
| 1/2 cup chocolate ice cream | -127 |
| 1/2 baked potato | -129 |
3 oz. Atlantic salmon
(farm-raised) | -181 |
| 1 medium order French fries | -336 |
A problem of balance
When people first get to know the IF Rating
system, they are often confused by the fact that
foods like oatmeal or apples have negative
ratings. How could healthy foods like fruits
and whole grains be inflammatory?
Because we are seeing so many
health problems associated with chronic
inflammation, its easy to think of
inflammation as a disease. But of course
inflammation is not always a bad thing. It’s a
vital part of a healthy immune response. your
body depends on inflammatory responses to
defend you from bacterial and viral invaders
and even cancer cells. Inflammation also
helps the body heal from injuries.
The problem is one of balance. As a
result of diet and lifestyle, our bodies tend
to over-produce inflammatory chemicals. At
the same time, we don’t get enough of the
nutrients that naturally reduce inflammation.
Consequently, we suffer from the effects of
chronic, excessive inflammation.
The object of The Inflammation Free Diet
Plan is not to eliminate foods with negative
IF Ratings. Fruits and grains are wonderful,
wholesome foods. But a diet consisting of
nothing but apples and oatmeal would not
be a balanced or healthful diet.
Just as you need quality protein and fat
to balance carbohydrate sources like fruits
and grains, you also need to balance the
inflammatory and anti-inflammatory effects
of foods you eat. The IF Rating system is
a simple way to keep all of these factors in
balance. When you add up the IF Ratings for
all the foods you eat in a day, even though
many individual foods may have negative
IF Ratings, the total should ideally be in the
positive (anti-inflammatory) range.
To control excess inflammation, you want
to avoid or limit your intake of foods with
IF Ratings of -200 or lower. But if you do
occasionally indulge in a highly inflammatory
food, you can minimize the damage by
including extra anti-inflammatory foods in
your diet that day.
Inflammation may be making you fat
(and vice versa)
Virtually all of us are at risk for chronic
inflammation (see box), but if you are
carrying around a few extra pounds, your
risk of inflammation-related illness is greatly
magnified. Fat cells produce inflammatory chemicals at a rate far greater than other
cells. When you gain weight (or fail to lose
it), you put your body under an additional
inflammatory burden that increases your
risk of disease and accelerates the aging
process. The threat is double-edged,
because excessive inflammation also
makes it difficult for you to lose weight!
To help you break the cycle of fat and
inflammation, The Inflammation Free Diet
Plan offers an accelerated weight loss
protocol that helps trim the fat and reduce
inflammation fast. The IF Rating system
makes it easy to choose anti-inflammatory
foods, while also managing your total
intake of fat and carbohydrates. When you
reduce inflammation in your body, you’ll
find that weight loss becomes far easier.
The Inflammation Free Diet Plan
(McGraw-Hill) provides IF Ratings for
over 1,600 foods, along with fat and
carbohydrate counts and guidelines
for achieving your goals. The book also
includes anti-inflammatory meal plans
and dozens of easy gourmet recipes. For
more information, please also visit www.inflammationfreediet.com
is the anti-inflammatory diet just
another trend?
Learning to choose foods in terms of
their effects on inflammation is a new
development but it is not a fad. It may take
us a while to get used to viewing foods
in this new light—but it is critical that
we do. The evidence continues to show
that reducing inflammation decreases
your risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s
disease, cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes,
and even depression. And the key to
reducing excessive inflammation is an
anti-inflammatory diet. I hope that the IF
Rating system makes this a bit easier.
And there is one last piece of good
news. Although what many people
think of as a “healthy” diet may not be
an anti-inflammatory diet, the opposite
is true: An anti-inflammatory diet is in
every other way a very healthful way to
eat. Maybe this really is the last diet book
you’ll need to read.
 A noted nutrition researcher, author, and a professionally-trained chef,
Monica reinagel is the creator of the IF Rating system and author
of The Inflammation Free Diet Plan: The Scientific Way to Lose Weight,
Banish Pain, Prevent Disease, and Slow Aging. Contact her at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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