Eating to Reduce Inflammation

Healing
"Researchers are linking inflammation to an ever-wider array of chronic illnesses," reports Newsweek's Anne Underwood. "Suddenly medical puzzles seem to be fitting together, such as why hypertension puts patients at increased risk of Alzheimer's, or why rheumatoid-arthritis sufferers have higher rates of sudden cardiac death. They're all connected on some fundamental level."

Your body creates inflammatory and anti-inflammatory chemicals from nutrients in food. With that in mind we want to eat foods that reduce inflammation. Here's a great website that gives you not only the inflammation factor (IF) for a huge selections of food but also every other possible measure of a food's nutritional value. http://www.nutritiondata.com/. It's a great resource.

Monica Reinegal has written "Inflammation Free Diet Plan" Here's one of her recipes that helps reduce inflammation in your body.

Roasted eggplant dip

Raw garlic has an IF of 4683. The higher the better and this garlic is one of the highest. However, if you find the raw garlic too sharp in flavor, try roasting the unpeeled garlic cloves in a foil packet along with the eggplant. With a sharp knife, cut the tips off of the roasted cloves and squeeze to extract the roasted garlic paste.

2 small eggplants
2 (or more) cloves garlic, roasted if desired
2 T olive oil
6 black olives
1/2 cup (packed) fresh parsley leaves, chopped
3 pieces sun-dried tomato
2 cups cannellini (white kidney) beans, cooked and drained
2 anchovy fillets (or 2 teaspoons anchovy paste)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1. Roast the eggplant (and garlic, if desired) in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until tender. Allow to cool briefly.

2. Peel eggplant and garlic and place in bowl of food processor. Add olive oil, pitted black olives, parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, beans, anchovy fillets lemon juice and salt. Pulse mixture until smooth. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve warm or cold.