The Inflammation-Free Diet Plan
December 20, 2010 
2 Comments
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author confuses inflammation with insulin resistance,
I was very disappointed with this book. The author confuses inflammation with insulin resistance, and ends up with a mish-mash of ratings that make the mistake of trying to combine the two. There are already two great eating plans for insulin resistance, The Zone and South Beach. However, an anti-inflammatory diet is very different: foods like tomatoes, for example, should not be part of an anti-inflammatory eating plan. So I would suggest that readers looking for a true anti-inflammatory diet book, skip this one and instead take a look at The Anti-Inflammation Diet and Recipe Book, by Jessica K. Black, ND. You will find there lots of great recipes and a much more helpful (and accurate) table of “Foods to Eat” and “Foods to Avoid”.
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|More conflicting and confusing than helpful,
You’re probably investigating this book because like me, you’re already interested in the concept of “inflammatory foods” but you’ve spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to ascertain exactly which foods are inflammatory and which are not. You’re found a lot of conflicting advice from the usual Oprah Gurus: Weil says avoid chicken, Perricone says chicken is great. Both say avoid pasta and sugar, and eat whole grains, but their fruit, veggie and legume lists vary. What to do?
Reinagel has attempted to clear the air by creating the “Inflammation Rating” (I.R.) system which weighs many factors such as glycemic load and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals. Unfortunately, you’re going to come away even more confused. Not only does she contradict nearly everything the other Oprah Gurus say (for example, with an I.R. of -135, a serving of highly touted whole grain millet is twice as inflammatory as a serving of pasta) but she contradicts HERSELF repeatedly.
For example, she writes “Certain foods…such as pineapple…have potent – almost druglike – anti-inflammatory actions…They can be used to great advantage in an inflammation-reducing diet.” So then why does a cup of fresh pineapple appear in the Rating Chart at -37, a cup of canned -108? That’s worse than a frozen waffle (-85)!
To her credit, she also repeatedly says you’re supposed to use the rating chart to balance inflammatory foods with anti-inflammatory ones…you’re NOT intended to avoid foods with negative ratings. For example, add onions or tumeric to those beans. And she warns against the monotonous consumption of so-called “super foods” and urges us instead to eat a varied, wholesome and colorful diet. Which includes most of those beans, grains, fruits and nuts on the negative end of the scale, so what’s the point of even having a scale?
She does suggest that you have your doctor do a blood test for C-reactive protein (CRP) which will tell you whether you have inflammation or not. I’d say first find out whether you even have a problem before you expend too much energy trying to fix it.
I kept flashing back to Frances Moore Lappe’s DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET which taught us to tediously combine various foods with the goal of “protein complementarity.” That concept has long since been debunked…I’m guessing that eventually, the I.R. diet plan will end up in the same dust heap of failed promises.
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