The 13 Most Inflammatory Foods (and Habits) to Quit Eating in 2025

there are two key mechanisms that I want to focus on when I talk about the most inflammatory habits and foods of 2024 those two pathways are going to be gut barrier Integrity things that affect our ability to keep lipopolysaccharides LPS within our gut from leaking out into our bloodstream because that's a very inflammatory thing and the other is going to be visceral fat visceral fat is highly highly inflammatory okay it leaks inflammatory cyto it quite frankly emits inflammation so we focus on these two things particularly we can manage inflammatory responses a little bit better so

I've got 13 things that we're going to blast okay the first one is not incorporating vigorous exercise at this point the science is really solid vigorous high intensity activity even relatively short bouts is highly highly highly effective at reducing visceral fat okay so visceral fat again leaking inflammatory cyto kindes il6 il1 beta that is what it's most commonly known for like we know that when there's a high degree of visceral fat there's a high degree of inflammation and we see that in like longer duration cardio that's hugely beneficial for v2 Max it's hely beneficial for

fat oxidation for cardiometabolic health but it doesn't make a huge impact on visceral fat like high-intensity activity does so if you're not incorporating short bouts of intense activity I would almost say that that is inflammatory in and of itself the second thing rancid oils okay rancid oils oxidized oils are inflammatory and we could have a discussion on Omega 6 versus omega3 and linolic acid incorporating into a cell membrane that whole discussion that's valid and there is stuff there to talk about but it's still too controversial and a little bit too much to really like squeeze

into a shorter video but the one thing that we can all agree on is that oxidized oils are problematic so using things like seed oils and cooking with seed oils not just because the polyunsaturated fatty acid nature of them is bad but because the fact they are oxidized so if we are still using these rampantly going into 2025 I think we need to have a reality check because these oils oxidize and they oxidize fast by the time you are opening them and cooking with them they are probably oxidized and there are countless studies now that

demonstrate that linolic acid in an oxidized form is not good for the cellular membrane it's not good for overall oxidative stress within the body and it's hugely problematic and it does incorporate into our cell membranes so forget the Omega 6 versus omega-3 discussion for a minute and let's just focus on getting rid of the oxidized oils switching to things like Tallow switching to things like you know even butter to cook with right things that are going to be a little more stable and just making these incremental changes I'm not suggesting getting rid of nuts and

seeds that's not what I'm saying at all number three is going to be emulsifiers I think we're going to start seeing a big push away from emulsifiers in the next couple of years there is pretty strong evidence published in the journal microbiome looking at polysorbate 80 polysorbate 20 in fact 18 out of the 20 emulsifiers they looked at disrupted gut barrier Integrity so what happens is the gut is hermetically sealed it's sealed right so when you have these emulsifiers it breaks down the gut barrier making it so that pathogenic material can pass through into the

bloodstream and then our body does what it's supposed to do which is attack it with an inflammatory response because it's pathogenic material it's lipopolysaccharides LPS it's not supposed to happen so what I suggest you do look for things that are using leian Okay leian can come from egg yolk it can come from soy it can come from a number of different things and we could poke holes in lethan but leian seems to be the safest emulsifier bottom line is we're probably not supposed to be using chemical emulsifiers probably not really good to go inside of

our body number four is using cruddy light if you're still using really wacky bad blue light all the time as your source of light then you're probably just maybe getting left behind I don't want to be rude but the reality is the evidence is pretty strong now that we need full spectrum of light we need spectrums of red light spectrums of blue light realistically we need the darn sun right and when you are lacking that it is highly inflammatory when your vitamin D levels are low it is highly inflammatory when your circadian rhythms are completely

whacked out as a result of this it is highly inflammatory and I think that sometimes the biohacking community scream so loud that it scares away the mainstream but utilizing things like red light or utilizing the full spectrum of light that you can get from the Sun at different hours of the day is hugely important and it's hugely important even for joint pain relief people don't realize how much different their body feels when they're getting the proper light that is why NFL teams that is why professional sports teams that is why military Special Forces operators that's

why they use red light panels that's why they do those things because they modulate the inflammatory response through that mitochondrial photobiomodulation that is a real thing I put a link for what I've been using recently for particular joint pain it's a l laser focused red light so it uses the same 660 nanometer wavelength except it's concentrated into a laser so you're using laser light technology to get red light penetrating deep into a joint where it can actually make changes at a joint level in a very quick amount of time so I strap the Ken and

move Plus I even strap it from my lower back I've got six blown discs in my back from years of rugby and beating myself up this thing makes a huge difference I put a link down below that's a 15% off discount link I highly recommend if you have any kind of inflammatory joint pain that you try this out it is super effective and again with that 15% off discount link it's a pretty smoking deal so I use it pre-workout I use it I don't really have much joint problems I have a little bit of a

shoulder issue but it's mainly my back but I've used it on other family members and I have a number of people that I know that have started using it based on my recommendation and it's now an integral part of their routine so for localized inflammatory relief it's quite powerful so it's called the Kenan move plus again that link is down below for 15% off highly recommend you try it number five if you haven't Incorporated small amounts of Honey into your diet or you're still using another sweetener right I would say Stevia monk fruit honey those

are my three main sweetener choices after that it goes down to dates goes down to maple syrup after that and if you're wondering if it's any different than regular sugar you could take honey in the same amount of sugar and compare it to regular honey and it would be wildly wildly different there is a 42 study trial published in phytotherapy research that found that when honey was added in it had massive effects on inflammatory markers it reduced inflammatory cyto tnf Alpha il6 il1 Beta massively and this is a huge meta analysis additionally there was a

study published in the Journal of the American College of nutrition that gave subjects 450 calories with isog glucidic amounts of carbohydrates so same GI one was sucrose like table sugar one was honey the honey group had a reduction in visceral fat and a protection against the formation of fatty liver not to mention gin levels were lower and they ended up eating less throughout the course of the day huge differences so reduction in visceral fat and overall just inflammatory reduction has to do with the flavonoid and the antioxidants that are in honey all you would really

need to do is add like one teaspoon up to a tablespoon of good Manuka Honey number six is alcohol I don't need to spend a ton of time on this one but alcohol is inflammatory plain and simple unfortunately I hate to say it but if you're still having like more than a drink a week you're probably doing yourself a pretty serious disservice the more recent evidence that's come out in the last two years but really in the last year it says no amount of alcohol is beneficial and any amount of alcohol is really detrimental there

was a study published in alcohol metabolism that found that there was a very clear linear relationship between any kind of alcohol consumption and C reactive protein levels that's your primary like metabolic marker or your marker for inflammation within the body very clear one drink it went up like that five drinks up like that all very linearly correlated if you still like to have a little buzz or something like that I recommend something called hop water which is a uh like a sparkling water that has adaptogens and has these other things it really gives you a

calming effect if you're looking for more of a calming effect in general I recommend a product called trocal from a company called tros scriptions that's a really good way to influence Gaba that same calming effect but without the detrimental effects of alcohol the next one is MSG okay and I'm not going to go too hard on MSG because I understand okay it is a flavor enhancer it increases that Umami effect but it is an excitotoxin it does light up the brain it makes you want to eat more for me it makes me not sleep very

well but there's also some evidence stacked against it in other ways there's a study published in basic and clinical phology and toxicology that found that MSG affected the microrna of inflammatory cocin what this means is that at a very micro level it's influencing an inflammatory response specifically in the adapost tissue which is already going to be inflammatory so in other words MSG is potentially making your body fat more inflammatory I have a little bit of a vendetta MSG anyway I I feel like these things that manufacture like a good feeling in our brain when we

eat are problematic to begin with now there's foods that naturally contain glutamate and MSG but then there's really adding it to food to make it more palatable and to increase the desire to eat it that just seems wrong on all fronts the next one number eight is going to get me in a little bit of trouble because people have their opinions here but the evidence again is starting to get strong okay I love my Dairy I drink a fair bit of milk I eat a lot of cheese I eat a ton of yogurt and cotage

cheese I'm just into it I like Dairy I was just in Switzerland for the last five weeks and I like it because their Dairy quality is crazy high and I can eat it without a negative effect less than less people are lactose intolerant than you would think okay very small percentage are actually lactose intolerant there's increasing Bodies of Evidence suggesting there where people have intolerances are with the beta quesam morphins okay casomorphin 7 bcm7 you've seen Brands out there that are pushing what is called the A2 variety of milk okay we're starting to see that

maybe the inflammatory response that people are having for milk is more so with the casin proteins than anything else so we may want to start focusing on getting A2 milk A2 protein milk there's Brands out there that use A2 now it has less to do with whether it's organic or not and more to do with the genetic variety of cattle so they use A1 more than likely in the United States because it allows for more production of milk but you go to areas of Europe and like Switzerland it's predominantly A2 a little less of milk

but potentially much higher quality and potentially less inflammatory bcm7 is a casin derived protein and it can actually increase DNA methylation in epithelial cells so it can cause disruption and inflammation within the gut itself literally and I quote from a 2024 nutrition reviews study bcm7 also altered the expression of several genes linked to gut inflammation we're starting to see this coming out more and more that was a new July 2024 study so we're seeing that bcm7 and these A1 varieties of milk are highly gut inflammatory one could make the argument that Dairy shouldn't be consumed

much anyway because like are we really supposed to be consuming the milk of a cow or a sheep or whatnot I think we can handle it but when we start changing variety of cattle for mass production of milk it would make sense that there would be sort of an effect there and bcm7 has bioactive opioids in it which might actually influence an inflammatory response in the gut to begin with so in my opinion look for A2 milk whenever possible number nine not enough non-exercise activity thermogenesis as a society we have too much focus on exercise

and less focus on just movement throughout the day there are studies now that show quite clearly that you will offset the positive benefits of your morning hour of exercise if you are sedentary the rest of the day I promise you just like I mentioned the very first thing vigorous activity a small amount of vigorous activity 15 20 minutes and a day of activity throughout the rest of the day of just getting up and moving around is going to be significantly better for your waistline for your brain for your long-term Health than anything else okay this

includes inflammatory responses within the body stop destroying yourself for an hour in the gym destroy yourself for 15 minutes and then just be active throughout the rest of the day overe exercising is inflammatory as well okay that's why athletes hurt that's why we're in pain a lot right shorten those periods let them be the Catalyst and then let your activity throughout the rest of the day be better not to mention non-exercise activity thermogenesis is probably the largest driver of your caloric burn and probably your fat oxidation throughout the day too number 10 you're consistently snacking

there is no denying that when we eat it is an inflammatory process digestion is inflammatory food is inflammatory it's all going to trigger an inflammatory response that is okay but if you're consistently eating you're never giving your body a break you're constantly going to be bombarding your body with taxation things it has to do try to have clear and distinct periods between meals just try try to not snack in graze try to limit consumption of things for 3 four hours between meals number 11's new and it's probably going to ruffle feathers because it's new but

we're going to start seeing more and more of it and I'm going to lead this in politely and nicely rather than in a fear-mongering way here's what I want to do rinse your dishes before using them if you ran them through the dishwasher what we're starting to see now is that some of the components that are of dish detergent particularly the pods they have emulsifiers they have other things in there that are designed to break down food and Grime on our plates on our dishes Etc that's a problem if we consume it obviously we're not

going to consume dish detergent it's terrible for us right there is a significant amount of residue that is on the plates on our silverware and if you really want to just get past it all you have to do is rinse your silverware before you use it or rinse your plate and just dry it off real quick nothing crazy this residue comes off really easily but it is highly inflammatory in the sense that it massively can disrupt our gut barrier but it also has a huge impact on our gut microbiome so trust me when I say

this is a real deal there's clinical evidence that is now coming out it's just hard to talk about because it makes it sound like you're fearmongering not saying don't wash your dishes in a dishwasher I'm saying give them a quick rinse number 12 a big one is the overuse of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories inates this is hugely inflammatory because even though in the short term it's a cyc oxygenase enzyme 2 inhibitor meaning it's going to modulate inflammation in the short term how it affects the gut in the long term leads to gut barrier Integrity problems it leads

to an inflammatory response within the gut and net net it's probably putting you in a less good position from an inflammatory standpoint number 13 the last one that I'll leave you with I'm going to put a positive spin on it because again I'm not trying to scare anyone okay gluten is different in Europe than it is in the US okay it's using more of a soft white sort of wheat versus the red wheat and there's also other differences in terms of How It's processed and also the quality in general okay when I'm in the United

States gluten flares me bad okay it brings up joint pain that I didn't have before when I'm in Europe I can usually eat it still have some some issues but nothing like I do in the US now what we're starting to see is that some people have just an intolerance to gluten to begin with whether it's Celiac or not and that's going to relate to something that's called zonulin zulin increases and can certainly affect gut barrier Integrity which can lead to an inflammatory response it doesn't mean that you're can't eat gluten but what it means

is that maybe you be aware so what I say with this is trial and error with gluten if you are in pain and you're puffy and you're holding water and you feel inflamed then you probably are and sometimes just removing gluten makes a big dent in this so I'm not saying with absolute certainty this is 100% the way but I can tell you that about half the people that I talked to about this when they reduce gluten or eliminate gluten those problems tend to kind of ease up so again there is evidence to suggest that

there is a thing as gluten intolerance not just full-blown Celiac there is a scale as always keep it locked in here on my channel and I'll see you tomorrow