I thought I was eating clean until I audited my diet for inflammatory foods By Siya Bhambwani
I spent two years trying not to look too closely at myself. I wasn’t living on classically inflammatory foods. On paper, my lifestyle looked balanced. I walked my 10k steps. I didn’t binge on weekends. Yet almost overnight during the lockdown, my body felt unfamiliar. My gut was unsettled. My usually predictable skin developed angry patches, flare-ups and a general sort of puffiness that made everything feel slightly swollen.
I thought the culprit had to be something dramatic. A night of cocktails. A food slip-up. Something obvious. Instead, every practitioner I spoke to circled back to the same boring phrase: low-grade inflammation. It took time, scans, blood tests and uncomfortable honesty to realise that what was happening to me was a more intense version of what many people live with without realising it.
You think you’re doing everything right, yet your body reacts as if you’re living on takeout. Dietitian Vinoshini Rengaraj, nutrition expert at Bodycraft Clinic, sees this pattern often. “What I notice first in clients isn’t dramatic symptoms. It’s the things they ignore,” she says. “Feeling unusually tired by afternoon, mild puffiness around the eyes, random sugar cravings, slower digestion or skin dullness.”
When I finally sat down with my nutritionist, she didn’t ask about cheat meals. She asked about normal days. We broke it down: the rushed breakfast that was a banana and a protein bar, the 4pm Americano, the late-night handfuls of peanuts because “I haven’t eaten properly all day”.
What experts wish you’d focus on instead
The two biggest shifts my nutritionist suggested sounded almost too simple. Rengaraj frames them as daily habits rather than rules.
Inflammation builds when things stagnate: circulation, digestion and lymph. Drinking water throughout the day sounds basic, but it supports your body’s own anti-inflammatory pathways in the background.
“Add at least one naturally antioxidant-rich food to your meals every day,” says Rengaraj. “Colourful vegetables and fruits, herbs, spices, nuts and seeds all provide compounds that buffer inflammation.”
My own plan also involved stabilising blood sugar. Pairing carbs with protein and fat made a measurable difference: fruit with nuts instead of fruit alone, toast with an egg instead of a swipe of jam and avoiding the all-day drip of liquid sugar through juices and smoothies.
Sometimes it isn’t obvious ‘junk’ that causes trouble. It’s the foods you rely on without question. “Even nutrient-dense foods can trigger inflammatory responses depending on your gut health, genetic tendencies, stress levels or hormone balance,” says Rengaraj. Dairy for one person, particular grains or nuts for another, even specific fruits for someone with a sensitive gut. It’s less about labelling foods as bad and more about accepting that your body has preferences.
Switching to a Mediterranean-style eating pattern helped me. A 2014 study shows that this pattern, rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, olive oil and fish, can reduce inflammatory markers, like CRP (C-reactive protein: an inflammation indicator from your liver) and IL-6 (interleukin-6: a messenger chemical used by your immune system) over time.
You don’t need to suddenly eat
like an Italian nonna. You can build an Indian version of that logic
with legumes, extra vegetables, seeds on your curd and larger portions
of fish or lentils.
How to start without turning your life inside out
Some starting points that almost every expert I spoke to agreed on:
Pick one daily offender and downgrade it
Maybe
it’s a sugary drink. Maybe it’s nightly fried snacks. Swap just that
one thing for something slightly better for a month and see what shifts.
Sneak in fibre and colour
Add a bowl of salad to the meals you already eat. Sprinkle seeds on breakfast. Add one extra serving of fruit that isn’t juice.
Think of ultra-processed foods as occasional extras
Instant
noodles, packaged pastries, flavoured chips. They don’t need to
disappear, but if breakfast, snack and dinner all come with a barcode,
that’s a pattern worth rethinking.
Watch your body, not just your mirror
Check
how your energy feels in the afternoon. Notice if your rings fit more
comfortably. See if your skin looks calmer. These cues matter as much as
numbers.
Why it has to come from you
With clients, Dr
Prarthana Shah, integrative health coach and founder of Buova, focuses
on softening the all-or-nothing mindset. “Instead of ‘I missed my
workout so the day’s ruined’, we ask, ‘What’s one thing I can do right
now to feel good?’ Sometimes that’s a slow stretch, a quick walk
outdoors or simply sitting down to a nourishing meal.”
It isn’t
always as fun as ordering exactly what you want. But it can be the
difference between dragging yourself through the day and actually having
the energy to live it.
For me, the turning point was
understanding that I wasn’t being punished by giving up inflammatory
foods. I was relearning how food could dial down the internal static I
had been living with for years.