Inflammation Do’s & Don’ts - Juicing & Smoothies
Reducing Inflammation with Juicing + Smoothies
What to look for and what to avoid
Inflammation, juicing, and smoothies - 3 things that are a big part of my life. I’m kind of obsessed with smoothies - they’re my daily breakie even in colder months, and a green juice in the afternoon always hits the spot. And bummer of all bummers is that I deal with chronic inflammation due to an injury and thus am hyper aware of how to reduce it as much as possible through my diet. If you’ve been following me for long, you’ve probably heard me share that when I was kid, a car ran over (and then stopped) on my foot. I tore a bunch of muscles and tendons in my foot and ankle and it would cause things to flare up from time to time as an adult. Then, almost 2 years ago on a hike I tore something in my ankle . . . and it just won’t heal. So I pushed my doc to get me MRI’s to figure this out, and sure enough they found I have a bone deformity in my ankle - probably caused by the car accident as a kid. It’s causing constant inflammation in my ankle and not allowing the tear to heal.
The GOOD NEWS is they want to operate and it has an 80% success rate. YAHOO! Sometime in the next 11 months I’ll get the call, and I am beyond thrilled. I strongly believe with an anti-inflammatory diet and doing all of the physio required, I will be able to heal and get back to moving my body the way I love.
The power of anti-inflammatory eating has been so apparent these past 2 years when I experience a flare up. I get really focused on eating an anti-inflammatory diet, and will experience some relief within a few days. Drinking lots of our juices, and doing a 1-3 day juice cleanse continues to have dramatic results to dropping the inflammation and pain when it’s at it’s worse.
WHAT IS INFLAMMATION
Inflammation is part of the body's defence mechanism. It’s the process by which the immune system recognizes and tries to remove harmful stimuli or tries to heal or protect an injury. Inflammation can be either short term (acute) or long term (chronic). Besides injuries, chronic inflammation can be caused or linked to: stress, infections, exposure to foreign/dangerous stimuli or irritants over an extended period, autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, as well as other stressors and diseases in the body.
According to National Library of Medicine, “Chronic inflammatory diseases are the most significant cause of death in the world.” The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks chronic diseases as the greatest threat to human health. So not to be a bummer friends, but reducing inflammation in your body, especially if you are dealing with ANY TYPE of disease, ailment or injury is paramount.
One of the best parts of owning GLJ is the amount of people we get to help on their healing journey, and the question I get asked the most is:
“Which juices are best for reducing inflammation?”
Of course, I’m happy to answer that below, but I always want to empower you with knowledge for making juices and smoothies at home.
JUICING DO’S
for reducing inflammation at home
When it comes to anti-inflammatory juicing, we believe in keeping things as pure + simple as possible. Fresh veggies, fruits, citrus and herbs make for the perfect combo. Don’t try to cram in all your superfoods and the kitchen sink . . . it’s not ideal for digestion. Leave those superfoods and powders for your smoothies! One of the reasons juicing is so incredibly healing is because there is nothing to digest. With the fibre removed, your body easily and quickly digests the anti inflammatory compounds found in fruits and veggies. Furthermore, your digestive system is at rest, helping heal and restore your gut while preserving energy for further healing.
A hydrated body, which is a side effect of juicing, allows your body to function better - including managing inflammation.
BASE: Cucumber and/or celery
INCLUDE: Leafy greens
FLAVOUR: Citrus and/or fruit help balance the bitterness of greens. High water content veggies like cucumber, celery and romaine make for a milder tasting juice. You can easily wreck the flavour with too much ginger, turmeric or herbs so be mindful of those.
ADD INS: Ginger, turmeric, parsley, mint, cilantro, basil - chose a handful of one of the herbs and/or a nub of ginger.
TIPS: Citrus helps extend the juice’s shelf life and cuts the bitterness of the greens. If making more than one serving, fill your container to the top, eliminating air to keep it from oxidizing. Making big batches and freezing individual servings is a life hack! Leave room in the containers to freeze as liquid expands once frozen. Ideally a ratio of 1 part fruit to 4 parts veg would keep it more of a veggie based juice.
FLAVOUR PAIRING EXAMPLES
Celery, spinach, pear, mint, lime
Cucumber, kale, apple, ginger, lemon
JUICING DONT’S
We’ve had over 10 years of recipe testing juices here at GLJ, and I have to say, it’s pretty hard to mess things up! Juices are really forgiving if you keep our flavour tips top of mind, and follow our tips below:
Don’t add too many conflicting flavours, or strong flavours like ginger, turmeric or parsley (unless you LOVE them)
Don’t overcomplicate things by adding in every fruit, veg and superfood you love.
Don’t force yourself to use an ingredient that doesn’t agree with you - if your body has a hard time digesting something, that can inflammation
If anti-inflammation is the goal, don’t make the base high in fruit, but stick to some celery, cucumber and/or romaine.
ANTI INFLAMMATORY FOODS
that go well in smoothies
Leafy Greens / Almond Butter / Coconut Oil
Avocado / Berries / Ginger / Turmeric
SMOOTHIE DO’S
for reducing inflammation
I am a huge fan of smoothies. Like, HUGE! Even in the dead of winter I still drink a smoothie most days for breakfast. My digestion prefers a slow wake up, I love the micro and macro nutrients, and it’s starts my day off right. I tend to get hyper fixated on one in particular and drink it until I get sick of it. I have a lot of favourites, but I’ll put two of my favourite flavour pairings below:
BASE: Water, coconut water or unsweetened nut milk
INCLUDE: mild flavoured veggies like cauliflower, spinach, romaine, cucumber, or celery. Consider the flavour you are going for and what would taste good. Spinach and a stalk of celery goes with pretty much anything, but keep mind, the more veg you add, the more fruit you might need to balance it out, so no need to cram your blender full of veg.
FLAVOUR: Pick a lane! If going for a green smoothie we would opt for a small amount of pineapple, mango or banana as the fruit, with some combo of leafy’s, cucumber and celery. If you’re opting for mango or pineapple, I suggest adding some lime or mint if you have it - really compliments the tropical fruit well! We also love an anti inflammatory berry smoothie which I night add a little cauliflower and a handful of spinach for the veg - a touch of banana goes nice as well.
ADD INS: ginger, turmeric, parsley, mint, cilantro, basil - chose a handful of one of the herbs and/or a nub of ginger. Almond butter, avocado or coconut oil are great anti inflammatory healthy fats to consider bringing into the mix. Collagen is fabulous and a great anti inflammatory easy to digest protein. You can add collagen AND your protein powder.
SMOOTHIE DONT’S
When it comes to inflammation, it’s easier to mistakenly add inflammatory ingredients to a smoothie as opposed to a juice, so let’s get into it!
Don’t add too many ingredients. Just because it’s good for you, doesn’t need you HAVE to put it in there!
Strong conflicting flavours - again, the goal is to still LOVE the taste.
Don’t include too many sources of sugar. You don’t need fruit juice, fruit, sweetened yogurt and sweetened protein powder in there! An anti inflammatory smoothie should skip the juice and the sweetened yogurt and just rely on fruit to attain your preferred sweetness level.
Pay attention to food sensitivities and what you digest well. If dairy doesn’t always agree with you, skip adding milk, yogurt or whey protein. Dairy can be an inflammatory for some people, so be mindful if that’s you.
Pay close attention to your protein powder. This can be a huge inflammatory if chosen incorrectly.
PROTEIN POWDERS
As previously mentioned if you are sensitive to dairy, consider skipping whey protein. In terms of vegan protein powders, MANY are just as or even more inflammatory as whey is for a dairy sensitive person. Check the labels. The use of artificial ingredients, soybean, seeds oils and other ingredients added to effect taste and texture are incredibly inflammatory. They add them in because a lot of vegan protein powders just don’t taste that great! There are great vegan options that are not inflammatory . . . I am yet to find one that I like the taste of.
We are all so individual when it comes to selecting the protein powder that is right for us. I went to see Dave at Optimize Nutrition to help find the best one for my needs. Flavour and texture is really important to me. And although, anti-inflammatory is number one, I am not willing to sacrifice loving the taste so I knew there probably wasn’t a vegan protein powder that would hit all my needs. Since I am dairy sensitive, he suggested ATB Labs Supreme Beef Protein and I absolutely love it. If you’re in Nanaimo, go see Dave and his team - I can’t recommend them enough and love geeking out on nutrition with them!
COLLAGEN VS PROTEIN POWDERS
It’s not secret I am a firm believer in the benefits of collagen. The hydrating effects it has on my skin are unmatched by any skin care product. The health of my hair and nails is game changing. But it was actually the injuries in my body I suffered as a kid that initially propelled me to create our own line of collagen here at Good Life - I was researching what supplement could help my joints and injuries the most, and it kept coming back to collagen. Once we decided to source a 100% pure fish collagen, with no additives or fillers, it became a much bigger mission than I could have ever predicted. So many collagens claiming not to have additives or fillers did once we sent them to our independent lab. That kind of crap is most certainly going to cause inflammation! We are so proud to have partnered with our manufacturing team in Nova Scotia to create a collagen with only one ingredient. No fillers, no additives, totally pure! A fabulous supplement to add to your anti inflammatory routine.
Although I sourced our collagen to help people heal injuries like me, it was the incredible hair, skin and nail benefits that ended up being what draws so many people to our collagen!
Now, lets compare collagen to protein powder. The amino acids found in collagen are going to help optimize your body’s collagenous tissues and do a wealth of benefits, but it only has 8 of the 9 essential amino acids that make up a complete protein. You read that right, although collagen is a good source of protein, it’s is not a complete protein. So, when making your smoothie, you’ll want to add add a tbsp of collagen and a scoop of protein powder in order to hit your macro goals.