Healing with Food Article

Chronic Pain

Accompanying recipe: Sauted Collards and Burdock

There are foods with specific medicinal properties that support healing from chronic pain. There are also foods that exacerbate pain. Let's first examine our food allies.

Foods to Favor
Chlorophyll reduces inflammation and so enjoy a generous serving of leafy green vegetables with each meal. You may wish to supplement with the superior chlorophyll sources spirulina, dunaliella, chlorella and blue green algae. Sprouts and wheat-grass and barley grass juice are also excellent chlorophyll sources.

(However immature alfalfa sprouts (those that have not yet set forth their first two leaves) are to be avoided as they contain an amino acid, canavanine, which exacerbates arthritic conditions.)

Both cherries and pineapple reduce inflammation. Pineapple contains the anti-inflammatory enzyme, bromelain. This impressive protein-digesting enzyme literally consumes foreign microbes and diseased cells in your system.

The spice, turmeric, increases ligament flexibility and so is especially useful in the case of stiffness. Additional foods and culinary herbs that reduce inflammation and support healing of muscles, ligaments and tendons include the onion family, flax, burdock, ginger, yam, winter squash, sweet rice, millet and chamomile.

In terms of your overall diet, favor easy to digest, whole foods that are freshly prepared. They have the necessary nutrients to cleanse, build and maintain your whole body. Then your body functions optimally plus has extra energy to repair the inflamed and damaged muscles and ligaments.

Foods to Avoid
A first step is to determine if you've any food sensitivities and, if so, then avoid those foods. A common group of foods that intensify pain, even in people who are otherwise allergy-free, are the nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and egg plant).

Avoid refined foods as they rob you of energy. These nutritionally impoverished foods are not fully metabolized and so create metabolic debris or toxins in your system. This compromises bodily functions and creates additional burdens that exacerbate existing problems and eventually may manifest as new health problems.

Refined foods include all the foods that contain “white” flour, salt or sugar. Avoid all refined carbohydrates including cold breakfast cereals and puffed rice cakes. Also avoid stimulants and chemicals in your food and water supply and in your environment.

Use only unrefined oils. Because saturated and hydrogenated fats are transformed into a hormone-like compound, prostaglandin, which promotes inflammation and pain you may need to reduce your meat consumption. But first and foremost, eliminate margarine, shortening and any food containing hydrogenated fat.

Rather than fleeing from our pain, let's address it with awareness and diet. True, a slice of pineapple, a cup of chamomile tea or a pinch of turmeric in your curried vegetables doesn't cure deep-seated damage. But it's lovely to prepare and then sit down to a tasty meal that fills our bellies, deeply satisfies and subtly supports our healing.

Light a candle, offer thanks and tuck in.

Our featured recipe, sautéed collards, tastes great and helps reduce inflammation.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood