Beginning a 3 month body cleanse. No inflammatory foods.

I was told in a journey that I needed to do a 30 day detox/cleanse of my body to clean away toxins and help energy flow more smoothly. I normally am very against any radical change in ones diet, because it tends to set your body into "starvation mode" and the long term effects are horrid. Now I find myself facing this test, and I hope to share information later along this journey that will help people decide whether it is something they wish to pursue or not. It turns out that there is a lot to be said for reducing foods that are inflammatory. Sad thing is that most everything I enjoy has something inflammatory in it. I pretty much cannot eat out anywhere because almost everything has wheat or gluten in it! What I suspect in the end is that I will say "don't do it... run away". But we will see!

Initially, my research led to the following facts about what common foods are inflammatory:

- all dairy (damn no cheese)
- all wheat and wheat products (including gluten) (damn no fresh bread) 
- all meat (damn no chicken)
- some fishes (damn no salmon)
- all nightshades (like potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant)... no potatoes!?! WTF, what did they ever do?

But now I am formally getting a list together while I happily eat an apple (I bought a few honey crisps as a treat to start things out right). I found some nifty websites indicating a whole range of foods... what is and isn't inflammatory, and began a plan on what to include and exclude. I found a very good site about inflammation factors (IF) and IF data, which promised a list of everything I could eat. It looks legit, so here is the link...

http://www.nutritiondata.com/help/inflammation#example

I read some bits about how Omega-3 foods are really good, and fatty and processed foods bad. Cool! About two minutes later I noticed apples on the inflammatory list! I spit out the rest of the apple, cursed in a guttural language that would make a Klingon proud, and began to read more carefully... No sugar! Ack, that means no alcohol... yep! I can eat salmon, but only if it is wild (apparently farm raised salmon is just about the worst thing you can do with mercury anyways). Raw jalapeno peppers... um, yum? Almonds and peanuts are good, but Oatmeal is right out (which I bought a whole bunch of on sale lately).

Okay, this is starting to suck real quick! However, I know 2 people who don't eat any of these things because they suffer serious joint pain and also debilitating effects if they even touch a nightshade, so I know there is some truth behind this terribly stupid idea.

Without further ado, here is a sample of IF data for a whole number of foods. For the record, negative is bad, and positive is good.

 

Sample IF Ratings

Food	Serving Size	Rating
Almond, dry roasted	1 ounce	56
Apple	1 medium	-62
Bagel, plain	1 bagel	-186
Bread, mixed grain	1 slice	-33
Broccoli, boiled	1/2 cup	73
Butter	1 tbsp	-45
Cantaloupe	1 cup	21
Carrot, raw	1 large	71
Cheddar cheese	1 oz	-26
Chicken breast, roasted (no skin)	3 oz	-14
Corn flakes	1 cup	-182
Cottage cheese, 1% fat	1/2 cup	9
Egg, whole	1 large	-43
French fries, fast food	1 medium	-336
Green beans, boiled	1/2 cup	15
Ground turkey, cooked	3 oz	-60
Ice cream, chocolate	1/2 cup	-127
Jalapeno pepper, raw	1 pepper	55
Milk, low-fat (1%)	1 cup	-33
Oatmeal cookie	1 small	-76
Olive oil	1 tbsp	73
Pasta shells, cooked	1/2 cup	-55
Peanuts, dry roasted	1/4 cup	14
Pork tenderloin, broiled or grilled	3 oz	13
Salmon, Atlantic (farm-raised)	3 oz	-180
Salmon, Atlantic (wild)	3 oz	493
Spinach, raw	1 cup (loosely packed)	80
Strawberries	1 cup, sliced	28
Tortilla chips, plain	1 oz	-91