The Big Four Inflammatory Foods
The way we engage with food has changed in profound ways in the last few hundred years. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people grew their own vegetables, kept livestock, hunted, and processed food by hand using small tools. If you wanted bread, you harvested the grain, ground it up, and used it to make homemade bread. If you wanted butter, you milked the cow, separated the cream from the milk, and churned the cream into butter. Now if you want food, you simply go to the drive-through or press a button, and it’s delivered to your doorstep.
While we are both absolutely thrilled we don’t have to churn our own butter, food that is cheap, fast, and easy typically isn’t high quality. Thanks to industrial processing, many ingredients unknown to our ancestors, such as refined grains and sugars, vegetable oils, trans fat, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and food additives, now dominate packaged and prepared foods. Unfortunately, most of these ingredients make food hyperpalatable (translation: unnaturally tasty) while being completely devoid of nutrients.
To distinguish nutrient-dense foods from ones that aren’t, Western culture tends to separate food into two categories: whole foods and processed foods. Whole foods are foods that can be found in nature, such as apples, eggs, and potatoes. They have been processed or refined as little as possible and are free from additives and other substances. As a result, they are more nutrient-dense and contain vitamins and minerals in the exact ratios nature intended.
While most of the food we consume goes through some sort of processing to get it from farm to store, when we talk about “processed foods,” we mean foods that are not in their original form. They are typically made from ingredients that are highly refined and devoid of nutrients, and have additives like artificial colors and flavors. In general, foods that are heavily processed look nothing like the food they came from. Examples include chicken nuggets, breakfast cereals, and baked goods.
So what happens when your diet is centered on foods that are processed and devoid of nutrients? Your body stops functioning optimally. You are much more likely to experience things like nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar dysregulation, gut flora disruption, digestive distress, and inflammation. For some people, this means sleep problems, hormonal imbalances, and weight gain. For others, it means fatigue, brain fog, and joint pain. For you it could be any mix of various symptoms. By eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods, you are treating the root cause of those symptoms. This is why many people find the health problems they experience on a day-to-day basis completely resolved when they make the shift to eating more whole foods.
THE BIG FOUR
We’re not going to sugarcoat it (pun intended): reducing the amount of processed food you consume can seem incredibly hard, unenjoyable, and restrictive. You may think you’re doomed to ordering salads at restaurants for the rest of your life, but we have no intention of letting that happen to you. Being healthy isn’t about eating perfectly or obsessing over the small things. In fact, strict rules and restrictions can often be detrimental to your overall health. So we want you to focus only on what we call the Big Four: grains, dairy, vegetable oils, and refined sugar.
By reducing or removing the Big Four, you’ll get the biggest return on your investment. This is because these foods tend to be the most problematic for people and can be significant contributors to chronic, low-grade inflammation. While inflammation is the immune system’s normal and healthy response to injury and infection, chronic inflammation is like a fire that never gets put out. Over time, this incessant immune response can lead to a long list of health problems, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune conditions, and diabetes (to name a few).
GRAINS
A grain is a small, dry, hard seed harvested from various types of plants. The grain is the reproductive force of the plant, so it has a lot of responsibility in the life cycle of the plant. Grain in its raw state is toxic to the human digestive tract, meaning it has to be processed in some way before we are able to consume it. The most common grains include millet, corn, sorghum, barley, rye, oats, rice, spelt, teff, triticale, wheat, buckwheat, amaranth, chia, and quinoa. These can be found in a vast and diverse number of food products, including dietary staples. Breads, breakfast cereals, bagels, desserts, and various pastas are all very high in grains, and many sauces contain flour.
Grains have typically been touted as some of the most valuable and healthful foods. But more and more science is beginning to reveal that grains are problematic. As it turns out, grains are at best pretty nutritionally empty, and at worst—for many people—a significant factor in the development and recurrence of serious health conditions.
Much of the current discussion on grains focuses on potential problems with the protein gluten, found in most grains. Unfortunately, nutritionists who focus on gluten to the exclusion of other problems with grain products miss the point. It’s not just gluten that is cause for concern, and not just for people who test positive for celiac disease; grains have a lot more potential for harm. It’s important, therefore, to investigate very seriously the claims that people make about grains. Do grains really live up to the hype?
CLAIM #1: GRAINS CONTAIN FIBER
Plenty of experts will tell you that grains are important because they are an excellent source of fiber in the diet. This is true, to an extent. Grains do contain significant amounts of fiber. However, vegetables and fruits contain fiber, too, and consuming a moderate amount of fruits and vegetables is more than enough to meet the body’s fiber needs.
Moreover, the kind of fiber in vegetables and fruits is gentler on the gut than the fiber in grains. Vegetables and fruits contain mostly soluble fiber, which feeds good gut bacteria and does not abrade the intestinal lining. Grains, on the other hand, contain a significant amount of insoluble fiber, which passes through the body undigested and can abrade the intestinal walls along the way. This can contribute to gut-related conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
CLAIM #2: WHOLE GRAINS ARE A RICH SOURCE OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS
Grains do contain some vitamins and minerals, but not all that much. Grains contain some B vitamins, magnesium, and trace amounts of minerals such as iron and selenium.
The overall amount of vitamins and minerals in grain products depends on the quality of the soil in which the grains are grown. Unfortunately, most grains today are grown on mineral-depleted stretches of overfarmed soil. Plus, almost all grain products, including breads, cereals, and pasta, are fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals. Recent evidence shows that synthetic forms of vitamins aren’t absorbed or assimilated well because nutrients need other nutrients present in very specific ratios to be properly digested and absorbed.1 These ratios are found in perfect balance in whole foods, which can’t be reproduced in a lab.
Grains also contain a high amount of compounds called antinutrients, such as gluten and lectin (fruits and vegetables contain antinutrients, too, but fewer than grains). Because plants don’t have arms or legs to run away from predators, antinutrients are their built-in defense mechanism. They act like barbed wire around the grain to protect it from overconsumption, contamination, and digestion. When we consume grains, antinutrients make it more difficult for the body to absorb the nutrients within the grain to which the antinutrients are bound.
Even more concerning, antinutrients can disrupt the villi, the small, fingerlike projections that line the intestines through which our bodies absorb nutrients. Studies also show that certain grains can cause the tight junctions that hold the gut together to become loose, allowing food to actually permeate the gut lining and filter into the body without being properly broken down and absorbed. This is most widely known as leaky gut syndrome.2
Although the causes of autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and multiple sclerosis, are complex and still being researched, leaky gut syndrome has been shown to activate autoimmunity, and all autoimmune diseases that have been tested show the presence of intestinal permeability.
CLAIM #3: GRAINS ARE “HEART HEALTHY”
The USDA loves to refer to whole grains as “heart healthy” because they contain fiber. Fiber, they say, is important for heart health because a diet rich in fiber has been correlated with lower cholesterol levels.
There are a lot of problems with this claim. First, people can get ample fiber from consuming fruits and vegetables. Second, there are many reasons that fiber is associated with lower cholesterol levels that have nothing to do with grains. Since most diets low in fiber are also very nutritionally poor (think: pizza, mac and cheese, and French fries), it is actually much more likely that people who eat a low-fiber diet have a greater incidence of heart disease because their diet is full of unhealthful foods.
It is also important to be aware that the biochemistry of cholesterol is not as simple as it may seem. While the claim “grains reduce cholesterol and incidence of heart disease” is enticingly simple and easy to craft a diet around, it is incredibly flawed. There are many different kinds of cholesterol, including high-density lipoprotein, or HDL and low-density lipoprotein, or LDL. Reducing the “good” cholesterol, HDL, isn’t necessarily a good thing, as cholesterol is used by the body to promote healing. Eating dietary cholesterol from whole foods isn’t “bad,” and foods that don’t contain cholesterol aren’t necessarily good.
And then there’s the pervasive myth that dietary cholesterol is bad for you. Most medical professionals used to believe that consuming dietary cholesterol (such as that found in eggs) was a big problem for health. However, recent research has demonstrated that the vast majority of the body’s cholesterol does not come from what you eat, but is rather produced by the body itself in times of stress. This is why cholesterol rises when you eat poorly; the body is experiencing stress and trying to heal itself.
Instead of claiming that grains are intrinsically heart healthy, it would be more accurate to state that whole grains contain some fiber (nutritionally no better or worse than the fiber found in fruits and vegetables) and that consuming fiber has been linked to improved health.
CLAIM #4: WHOLE GRAINS ARE AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF PROTEIN
It’s a common misconception that whole grains are an excellent source of protein. Compared to animal products, grains contain significantly less protein per gram. In one slice of whole-grain bread, there are 100 calories and 4 grams of protein. In a 100-calorie portion of lean meat, there are 25 grams of protein. In other words, you’d have to eat 600 calories’ worth of bread to get the same amount of protein available in 100 calories of meat. Additionally, a calorie-by-calorie comparison shows that high-quality animal products are far more nutrient-dense than grains. A single serving of high-quality meat will contain many more nutrients than a single serving of grains.
When it comes to quality, grains (except for quinoa) are an “incomplete” protein, meaning they don’t contain all nine essential amino acids (see here for more on protein and amino acids). Long-term, if you were to rely on grains for the majority of your protein, it could lead to nutrient deficiencies and health problems.
DAIRY
Dairy is anything that is derived from or contains milk. Dairy is the most complex of the Big Four because it can be incredibly problematic for some people and not at all for others. There are also many different kinds of dairy, and while some kinds of dairy (such as milk) may cause issues for you, other kinds (such as butter or ghee) may not.
Dairy can cause health problems for three reasons. First, industrialized dairy cattle often receive antibiotics and added growth hormones and produce milk throughout their pregnancy. This results in high levels of hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, in the milk they produce. Studies show that people who drink milk regularly have increased levels of hormones in their blood, which can suppress the body’s own hormonal regulation.3 Consuming milk can also can stimulate growth hormones, such as insulin-like growth factor (IGF). Unfortunately, these growth-oriented hormones can wreak havoc on the skin. If you suffer from acne, and especially if you are female and struggle with hormone balance, dairy may play a role.
Second, many people are unable to properly digest lactose, which is a naturally occurring sugar found in dairy products. If the body stops producing an enzyme called lactase, which it needs to digest lactose, consuming foods that contain lactose can cause digestive distress, bloating, and gas and lead to conditions such as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
While some people may experience an immediate, run-to-the-bathroom reaction to lactose, others may react inconsistently and develop symptoms over time, which can make it hard to know if lactose is a problem. In fact, it’s estimated that 65 percent of the human population (and up to 90 percent of people in certain cultures) have a reduced ability to digest lactose. People who are sensitive to lactose may tolerate butter and cultured dairy products such as yogurt just fine, as both have minimal lactose.
Third, many people react negatively to whey and casein, two proteins found in dairy. While both proteins can cause similar issues, casein is more often the cause of protein-related problems. For some people, these proteins can provoke an excessive inflammatory immune response, which can manifest as acne or other skin conditions, asthma, allergies, congestion, or sinus problems. It can also lead to gut disruption, both to the intestinal wall and to the gut microbiome, which can trigger symptoms for those struggling with digestive issues or autoimmune disease(s).
What Is Ghee?
Ghee (or clarified butter) is butter from which the milk solids have been removed. This means ghee doesn’t contain lactose or casein. When you’re eliminating dairy, ghee is perfectly okay to keep in your diet. (Please proceed with caution and discuss this with your doctor if you have a severe intolerance or allergy.) One special exception is people who struggle with hormonal imbalance and/or have sensitive skin (Stefani is one of those people). Because ghee contains hormones, you may want to eliminate it to see if it has any effect on you. You can make your own ghee by boiling butter, letting it cool, and scraping the solids off the top. If you prefer to buy ghee, look for brands that do additional testing to certify that their ghee is lactose- and casein-free, such as Pure Indian Foods and Tin Star Foods.
DON’T PASS ON GRASS
While dairy can be a healthful food for people who do not react negatively to it, most of the dairy products available in stores today are, unfortunately, highly processed and from poor-quality sources. Conventional dairy comes from cows that are grain-fed and confined to very tight living quarters to maximize their milk production with the least amount of human labor. Grain-fed cows produce milk that is much higher in omega-6 fatty acids and lower in omega-3 fatty acids, a combination that can trigger inflammation in the body. And while many health experts consider milk to be full of nutrients, many dairy products, such as reduced-fat and fat-free milk, must be fortified with synthetic vitamins such as vitamins A and D because removing the fat removes many of the nutrients it naturally contains.
Studies show dairy products from grass-fed cows are significantly richer in fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A and D, and two rare nutrients, conjugated linoleic acid and vitamin K2.4, 5 Conjugated linoleic acid may reduce tumor growth, improve immune function, and help with both diabetes and weight maintenance. Vitamin K2 is necessary for a wide array of cellular functions, including supporting healthy skin. Both of these nutrients are found in the fat of dairy products, which is why grass-fed butter and ghee can be beneficial foods to include in your diet long-term.
Cultured dairy products, which are foods that have been fermented with lactic acid bacteria, can also be beneficial. Examples of these products are yogurt and kefir. They are full of gut-building beneficial bacteria and are enriched with additional vitamins and enzymes relative to milk.
VEGETABLE OILS
Vegetable oils are oils that have been extracted from various plants and are in liquid form at room temperature. The most common vegetable oils include soybean, canola, corn, peanut, palm kernel, rapeseed, cottonseed, grapeseed, safflower, sesame, sunflower, and rice bran oil.
Since entering the American food supply in the early 1900s, vegetable oils have dominated as the primary fat source.6 They are found in nearly every product that comes in a package and are used to cook most meals in American restaurants because they are cheap and easy to use.
Vegetable oils can be problematic for people because they are very high in polyunsaturated fats (also known as PUFAs). Due to their structure, PUFAs are highly unstable and oxidize when exposed to heat, light, and air. Oxidized fats are incredibly destructive to the human body because they cause free-radical damage and inflammation and are linked to all sorts of major degenerative diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. In short, oxidation is not your friend.
To be extracted, vegetable oils must go through high-heat processing (usually with a chemical solvent known as a hexane) and be degummed, bleached, and chemically deodorized before being packaged for sale. Many vegetable oils are sold in clear plastic bottles and sit on store shelves for long periods of time; they are then used to cook, bake, or fry foods, which exposes them to heat. This means that when you consume and cook with vegetable oils, it is very likely you are consuming oxidized fats.
THE RISE OF OMEGA-6 FATS
The two most widely known polyunsaturated fats are omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids. Both omega-3 and omega-6 fats are essential fatty acids (EFAs), meaning our bodies can’t make them on their own.
Omega-3 fats are known for their incredible ability to fight systemic inflammation, support brain function, and even reduce symptoms associated with ADHD, depression, and autoimmune conditions. You can find them in high concentrations in wild fish (salmon, sardines, cod), grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, eggs, and some nuts and seeds. Omega-6 fats help brain function, support the immune system, and help with overall growth and development. They can be found in a wide variety of food sources, including grains, nuts and seeds, vegetables, and meats. While some vegetable oils contain minimal amounts of omega-3 fats, they are all very high in omega-6 fats.
In recent years, the amount of omega-6 fats Westerners consume has skyrocketed. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in the Western diet has gone from 8:1 in 1935 to 10:1 in 1985 to anywhere from 15:1 to 17:1 today.7, 8 In the 1960s, omega-6 fats comprised about 8 percent of fat tissue in the average American body; the most recent estimates put it at around 23 percent of fat tissue.9 Intake of omega-6 fats has more than doubled, and its levels in the human body have tripled.
Many experts now agree that keeping your ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in balance is crucial to overall health. Since omega-6 fats help to stimulate inflammation, without sufficient omega-3 fats, chronic inflammation occurs. Even worse, a wide swath of studies across different countries and research groups has shown that diets high in vegetable oils raise death rates by 50 to 350 percent. Even at the low end, 50 percent is an enormous increase in mortality.10
Studies show a ratio of 4:1 is associated with a 70 percent decrease in total mortality.11 The easiest way to improve your ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats is to reduce your overall consumption of omega-6 fats. This is best done by eliminating or reducing foods high in omega-6 fats, such as vegetable oils, refined grains, and factory-farmed meats, and to eat whole-food sources of omega-3 fats, including wild fish, grass-fed meats, and eggs, two or three times a week.
Just a Couple of Nuts
All nuts (except for macadamias) are composed in large part of omega-6 fats. This means it’s probably best to refrain from making nuts a staple in your diet. But it’s okay to eat them from time to time; nuts are a whole food, which means the fats do not oxidize as easily as they do when they are extracted from their source (as with oils). When purchasing nuts, look for nuts that are raw and unsalted. Feel free to snack on nuts—just don’t go nuts with them.
REFINED SUGAR
According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the average American consumes almost 3 pounds of sugar a week, which adds up to a whopping 150 pounds of sugar annually. While you may only think of Twinkies and cupcakes as being high in sugar, sugar can be found in a variety of foods, including bottled salad dressing, canned soup, French fries, frozen dinners, “unsweetened” cereal, ketchup, and prepared pasta sauce. Manufacturers add sugar to just about everything because it makes food taste really, really good, and the more you like something, the more you’ll buy it.
Refined sugar, which has been extracted from its natural source and stripped of nutrients, can be problematic for a number of reasons. First, when the body processes carbohydrates, it needs vitamins and minerals—specifically B vitamins, phosphorous, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and chromium—to metabolize it. Because refined sugar has no nutritional value, when you consume foods high in refined sugar, you are continually depleting your cells of these important nutrients. On the contrary, whole-food sources of carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, contain the exact nutrients they need to be processed in the body, plus some.
Foods high in refined sugar also spike blood sugar and insulin levels. The pancreas is responsible for secreting the hormone insulin to clear sugar (glucose) out of the blood and deposit it into cells, as too much sugar in the blood is toxic. When the body is continually responding to an overload of sugar in the blood, it can develop issues regulating blood sugar. This can lead to constant blood sugar crashes, which can cause brain fog, dizziness, irritability, and fatigue. Excess blood glucose also puts the body in a proinflammatory state and has been shown to cause significant oxidative stress—one of the most prominent causes of tissue damage and inflammation.12 Where there is excess inflammation and oxidative stress, there’s an increased risk of developing most major chronic and degenerative diseases.
Studies also show that sugar suppresses the ability of white blood cells to respond to pathogens that make us sick.13 This means that a diet high in refined sugar can result in a weakened immune system, which makes us more susceptible to infectious disease.
The final issue with refined sugar is that it makes food hyperpalatable. Eating food that tastes delicious is all well and good—we are 100 percent about having satisfying and enjoyable meals. The problem with hyperpalatability is that it confuses the body’s natural appetite signaling. Hyperpalatable foods are so good that they override the body’s ability to regulate appetite. Your body fails to feel full when it normally would, so you get hungry more easily.
While the chemical effects of sugar on the brain and body are not the same nor as potent as those of addictive substances such as cocaine, heroin, or alcohol, they can still be incredibly powerful. For example, research has shown that rodents will repeatedly push a buzzer that gives them pain to get access to sugar.14 Humans, of course, are not rodents, though Stefani would argue that she has gone to similar lengths to get a sugar hit at certain points in her past. In short, the biochemistry of sugar’s potency is very real, and should also be taken into consideration when evaluating how sugar impacts your overall health.
Sugar: Natural Options for Sweetness
These natural sweeteners are refined or processed as little as possible and contain all of their naturally occurring beneficial compounds, such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. While we do not recommend eating copious amounts of these sweeteners, they can be used judiciously to sweeten foods, as we demonstrate with our recipes and meal plans. They include:
Dates
Fruit juices
Molasses
Pure maple syrup (dark)
Raw honey
A Note About Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners are “zero calorie” sugar substitutes that are 200 to 600 times sweeter than sugar. They are made through chemical reactions where synthetic molecules are either combined or added to existing molecules. The body doesn’t recognize these new combinations, so artificial sweeteners pass through the body without being metabolized into energy. While this seems like a great idea, studies show that when we consume something super sweet yet provide the body with no calories, psychological changes can occur that dissociate sweet-tasting food with energy intake.15, 16 This can lead to an increase in appetite and a decrease in feelings of satiety.
Artificial sweeteners have also been found to negatively impact gut flora, and cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea, especially when consumed too much or too often (we speak from experience on this one).17 As a result, we recommend avoiding all artificial sweeteners, including acesulfame potassium (also called acesulfame K), aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, neotame, and advantame.
If you’re looking for a no-calorie sugar substitute, stevia leaf is a great option. Stevia is an herb that has a sweet taste but doesn’t raise blood sugar levels. When using stevia, make sure to use either whole dried stevia leaves or stevia powder or liquid extract, which only contains stevia extract and no other artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes.