Thanks for the information.
I just have one request. Could you be more specific about the types of foods to which you were referring?
Yes. Let me round off previous information first.
To have a change in proportions of your hormones, leukotrienes, for instance, by eating food containing AA or much gamma-linoleic acid -18:3 (n−6)- you foster leukotrienes-4, and by eating food containing EPA or much alfa-linoleic acid -18:3 (n-3)- you foster leukotrienes-5. The latter favour bonchodilation so it has been found that diet has an influence in asthma and allergic rhinitis.
So you may regulate the fatty acids you eat by reducing the intake of omega-6, and increasing the intake of omega-3 and omega-9 (the last are neutral and help to acquire a balance). Let's start for those with shorter carbon chain:
- 18-carbon
- to reduce omega-6: Avoid soybean oil, corn oil, peanut oil, cottonseed oil, common sunflower oil, common safflower oil. Use with caution canola oil, hemp oil, high-oleic sunflower oil, high-oleic safflower oil, high-oleic peanut oil (they either have a good proportion of omega-6 and omega-3, or little omega-6 and almost none omega-3, so they help you to balance your diet but they're not "the solution" if you don't change other items). Also reduce the ingest of animal fat when the cattle, poultry of fish are fed with common grains. Farmed salmon may be the doppelgänger of wild salmon. Grass fed animals are OK but you have all the saturated fats you should avoid for different reasons (Anyway, we have to die of something, haven't we?)
- to increase omega-9: use olive oil.
- to increase omega-3: eat chia seeds, linseed/flax (horrible as it is)
- As a general rule, read nutrition facts and ingredients and be careful about supplements, pills and trendy products like spirulina or nattoo. Supplements are not vaccines: you can't take a chia oil capsule and then go fetch your Colonel Sanders bucket.
- 20/22-carbon (for direct effects)
- to decrease AA: Avoid most sausages; good quality I-can-see-chunks-in-it sausages can be consumed, a premium Italian salami for instance; but the hot dog like or liverwurst are a no-no. Avoid tripe and other inner organs.
- to increase EPA and DHA: Eat fish, tons of fish from colder ocean waters. Canned fish is OK but for it to be really good you have to avoid those from tropical seas or those canned during local summer. I go to a wholesaler to buy packages of Argentine tuna, sardine and anchovy and Chilean jack mackerel canned in August -southern winter-. Eat a little fish as frequent as you can. A can of sardines here, a couple of Alaskan surimi steaks there. Two or three full meals with fish per week. Farmed fish -except mussel- is a no-no because they are fed pellets containing omega-6 fatty acids and not the algae containing omega-3 fatty acids that are the base of the sea food chain.
And about other food, as a general rule reduce sugars and starches and increase leaf vegetables. You have to learn by yourself: for instance potatoes and sweet potatoes are similar in calories but potatoes are much inflammatory, specially those cheap flakes to make instant mashed potato that are manufactured from damaged tubers (potatoes defend themselves with toxins and only a long cooking can get rid of those). On the contrary, sweet potatoes are just mildly inflammatory.
If you want to learn by yourself, you can get some rules of thumb from browsing
http://nutritiondata.self.com/ and looking for the inflammation factor rating. My favourite natural "pseudo anti-inflammatories" are spinach, parsley and garlic, all fresh and as raw as possible.
And don't look only for inflammation factors and fatty acids as you may conclude that tons of vitamin A is good for you when in fact minor excesses increase cancer rates. As a general rule eat natural food -no need for it to be organic, or grass fed, or from happy animals with a bell in their neck- and not supplements. When you read "this pill contains as much vitamin XYZ as 20 cantaloupes", well, who'd eat 20 cantaloupes? then, who'd need 20 cantaloupes? The most probably outcome is you having to XYZ. Also be cautious with natural supplements like cod liver oil, because you may get healthy fatty acids but lots of vitamin A and D you don't need. Never say "I will swallow a spoon of cod liver oil a day to replenish my reserves of DHA and EPA because you'd be getting a near dangerous level of vitamin A with that -if you eat your carrots- and a dose of vitamin D that only a sub-Saharan African living in Northern Norway would need during Winter.
Also exert caution about interactions with medicines and always tell your physician you're on a diet heavy in this or that. For instance, if you eat lots of EPA, avoid AA like sin and also take aspirin daily to protect your heart -or worse, you take a couple of aspirins for any cause- you may go to the dentist to pull a tooth or any other more modern surgery and you may end up with a serious problem to stop the bleeding. Consult your physician as the same don't necessary apply with other surgeries.
