Changing your diet requires some extra thought. The foods you add to your daily meals could better support your health if you buy groceries with a goal in mind. Your sustainable lifestyle could be the next best way to reframe your dietary choices.
Check out these environmental benefits of an anti-inflammatory diet and the potential health benefits to determine if a greener grocery list is best for you.
What Is an Anti-Inflammatory Diet?
An anti-inflammatory diet is a nutritional perspective that prioritizes whole foods, unsaturated fats, fruits, vegetables and protein. It limits or eliminates processed ingredients and added sugars to avoid causing cellular inflammation. People may start an anti-inflammatory diet to manage their health alongside the recommendations of their doctor or a nutritionist.
Anti-Inflammatory Diet Benefits for Your Health
There are numerous anti-inflammatory diet benefits you could experience after adjusting what you eat every day. These are just a few of the ways people start feeling better after eating fewer processed foods.
Lowered Blood Pressure
Researchers found that people with hypertension have higher systemic inflammation markers that contribute to their continual high blood pressure.
In a recent study, participants eating an anti-inflammatory diet reduced their mortality rates because their bodies had less inflammation than participants eating pro-inflammatory foods. Their blood pressure became more manageable because it wasn’t remaining high due to continual inflammation.
Reduced Physical Pain
Non-specific pain — pain unrelated to an injury — often occurs due to chronic inflammation maintained by factors like inflammation-triggering foods. Your body is telling you something’s wrong through your discomfort. Enjoying anti-inflammatory foods may ease your discomfort if chronic inflammation is behind your pain.
Improved Mental Health Symptoms
When inflammation constantly affects your nervous system, you may have worsened mental health symptoms. Researchers looked at over 157,000 study participants and found that those who ate long-term anti-inflammatory diets experienced fewer anxiety and depression symptoms compared to those eating processed foods. It’s another helpful tool for anyone improving their mental well-being.
Anti-Inflammatory Diet Benefits for the Planet
Your health isn’t the only thing that improves when you avoid processed foods. Check out how an anti-inflammatory diet benefits the planet, too.
You’ll Research Food Brand Processes
When you start an anti-inflammatory diet, you must know which of your current foods aren’t going to meet your new standards. You’ll have to research the brands you buy at the grocery store to understand how they make their products. T
he information you find may note their unsustainable resource use, making it easier to find green companies providing the same foods.
You’ll Learn About Agricultural Practices
Your research into specific food enterprises will also reveal their business practices. You can find these on most corporate websites because they want to be transparent with their customers. Read about how they grow their crops to see if they utilize practices that harm the planet.
Your favorite manufacturers might note how they use nitrogen fertilizers to grow more food. Nitrogen runoff causes toxic algae blooms that destroy water-based ecosystems. It also harms human health if it enters drinking water sources. Choosing a food brand that doesn’t use nitrogen fertilizers would mean you’re supporting eco-friendly agricultural practices and local communities.
You’ll Support Eco-Friendly Brand Initiatives
Charity donations are one of the passive anti-inflammatory diet benefits that often take consumers by surprise. The anti-inflammatory, sustainable food brands making your groceries might donate proceeds to environmental charities. Supporting them with your weekly grocery purchases means your money also goes to those charities. You’ll make a better environmental impact just by supporting your health.
You’ll Find New Places to Shop
Your anti-inflammatory diet consisting of more organic whole foods might inspire you to research local farms. You could get the same foods closer to home for more economical prices. Shopping locally means your diet has a lower carbon footprint. You won’t pay companies to ship food products to your grocery store, which contributes to almost one-fifth of global carbon emissions due to the worldwide population.
Finding grocery stores closer to your home is another one of the surprising sustainable diet benefits. You might discover some grocery shops near your house that sell the specific food brands you want to support. Driving thae shorter distance would reduce your environmental impact.
The specialty shop might also be closer to a bus stop. Getting groceries with public transportation would reduce your carbon footprint by two-thirds compared to driving your car for each trip.
You’ll Diversify Your Daily Meals
Anti-inflammatory diets prioritize whole foods rather than processed foods. You might start eating more plants and less processed meat in the long term. Given how an individual cow creates between 154 to 264 pounds of methane annually, you’ll avoid financially supporting that atmospheric pollution by eating fewer dishes with processed meat.
Understanding the benefits of each ingredient in your diet might also encourage you to make meals with more foods you love. You could reduce your household food waste by getting more interested in your meals, which prevents you from throwing out products made with limited natural resources.
What Is a Sustainable Diet?
A sustainable diet is any dietary structure that prioritizes the planet. It ensures you don’t compromise your eco-friendly lifestyle when buying groceries because you’ll know which corporations support the Earth through their manufacturing or agricultural processes. Other sustainable diet advantages include eating more plant-based foods in place of processed ingredients.
Are Sustainable Diet Benefits and Anti-Inflammatory Diet Benefits the Same?
The anti-inflammatory diet benefits and sustainable diet benefits are similar. They both reduce or eliminate processed ingredients. Whether you choose to replace those ingredients with plant-friendly brands is up to you. It’s easy to merge the two ways of eating if you want to minimize your cellular inflammation, improve your health and help the environment.
Improve Your Health and Your Planetary Impact
Start enjoying sustainable diet benefits and anti-inflammatory foods today by researching the brands you typically buy. Reading the information on their websites will indicate which companies prioritize the planet like you do. News reports could also reveal crucial information about your purchasing habits. Refine your diet to include more whole foods and fewer processed ingredients to start your greener, healthier nutritional routine today.
