Healing with Food Article

Autoimmune Disease

Accompanying recipe: Miso Gravy

If you suffer from an autoimmune disease, become a sleuth—daily track your flare-ups and remissions. That its intensity waxes and wanes is a key to help you take control of your health. In your daily log include your diet and any other variables that might relate to your condition.

Each entry on the log becomes a piece of a puzzle that, once assembled, can reveal what sets off or exaggerates symptoms. Its profoundly liberating to see what triggers your suffering--and to make a healthier choice.

Food sensitivities are typical culprits (see Identify Food Allergies and my eBook Detox and Cleanse). Other activators may include stress, seasonal changes, lack of sleep, exercise, bowel irregularities, hormone fluctuations and environmental toxins. You don't have to face a lifetime of restriction—as your digestion and overall health improves, your options typically expand (see Cure Food Sensitivities).

Keep tracking your progress on your log and fine tune your diet and lifestyle accordingly. When faced with an unavoidable activator such as seasonal change, be extraordinarily gentle and nurturing with yourself and schedule ample rest.

And yes, eating a whole foods diet is crucial. Favor a wide variety of whole, organic, freshly prepared foods. These foods afford maximum flavor, nutrition, energy and healing potential. The same foods, if processed, refined, leftover, stale, denatured or microwaved are harder to assimilate and therefore less energizing.

The foods most important to eliminate are refined vegetable oils, including margarine and hydrogenated oils (see Fat & Oil Guide). For culinary purposes, I recommend extra-virgin olive oil, sesame oil or hazelnut oil from a reputable producer and palm oil, butter or ghee. And it's critical to supplement your diet with omega-3 fatty acids from a reliable source such as quality fish oil.

Favor easy-to-digest foods and enjoy them in a relaxed setting. When convalescing, pamper your digestive system with soup, porridge and soft foods. This frees your limited energy for important repair work. Inhaling a burger in rush hour traffic as you race to your next appointment will not serve you.

I do not recommend a vegetarian diet for people with autoimmune disease. Especially when convalescing, it's critical to obtain ample protein, and people with compromised digestion may have trouble assimilating beans, nuts and seeds.

To make beans and seeds more digestible, sprout them prior to cooking and favor traditionally produced soy foods such as miso, tofu and tempeh over processed forms of soy. Of the quality soy foods, miso is without peer in a healing diet.

The featured recipe is for an easy and tasty miso gravy.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood