Rheumatoid and Seed Oils

RFK Jr and the wellness industry say seed oils, oil that comes from seeds such as soybean, rapeseed (canola oil) and sunflower, are poison. For me, I have limited oils altogether because it doesn’t add any nutrients and they’re almost all fat. I’ll use water and/or olive oil if I’m cooking or heating in a pan.

But I have been using certain brands of hummus with canola oil, and Ricemilk, which has sunflower and/or canola oil, and I haven’t had any issues with inflammation. In fact, I’ve added some lightly processed foods, such as hummus, mustard and an avocado-based mayonnaise to my diet. I think the problem with seed oils is that it’s in processed foods, and people are eating too much processed foods, so they’re eating too much sugar, salt, oil, and not getting enough nutrients.

It’s been a year since I had my last mild-moderate flare. It’s been seven years since I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid, and I’m still off meds. Never taken them. Trust me, if I needed them, I’d take them. But my diet and exercise have reduced the inflammation, so I don’t need the meds. Also, I have the autoantibodies for limited scleroderma and hashimoto’s and neither disease has surfaced yet.

I wish more people knew that you can decrease symptoms and reverse disease with dietary changes. It’s not easy, though. Most people wouldn’t like to go one month without sugar, dairy and gluten, let alone seven years. Most people would rather take a pill, and that’s ok. Eating well in the modern age calls for a lot of creativity when preparing food. Spices matter.

Some people might not need such a strict diet. I maintain the strict no-sugar diet because if I had a donut, it would be a slippery slope, and I like living without pain. I also like being at a healthy weight. One of the benefits of eating without sugar, gluten or dairy is weight loss. I didn’t even try to lose weight, but I lost about 60 pounds.

I don’t eat dairy because dairy is ice cream— slippery slope. Same for gluten, which is pizza, bread and all the yummy things with gluten — slippery slope. I do not have celiac disease, though, so I could eat gluten if I wanted. But for inflammatory conditions, it seems best to cut the gluten or at least limit it. When I excluded sugar, dairy and gluten from my diet, I had to get creative about preparing food and finding new foods without sugar, gluten or dairy. Go take a walk down the grocery aisle, and you’ll see it’s almost impossible to find anything on the shelf that doesn’t have one of those three things.

Listen to your own body. Create your own diet instead of following influencers. People are falling for scams and spending money on things that don’t work. You don’t need anyone but yourself to figure out what to eat. Take advice, but don’t make it gospel. What works for an influencer might not work for you. There are so many hardcore paleo people, but that wouldn’t work for me. Eat real food, mostly plants. I don’t eat meat, but maybe you can. It seems the meat industry is compromised in America. We are eating animals that are treated inhumanely. I don’t think that can be good for you. I do eat fish and eggs. The eggs I eat are from a neighborhood farm. Cheap for $3. Maybe eggs won’t work for you.

These are the things that work for me. I don’t eat too much of one thing, except for watermelon and cherries this time of year. I try to eat a lot of different plants. I try new things, such as pak choi, swiss chard and saffron, three things I never tried until after I got rheumatoid. I drink coffee every day. I drink chicory every day. I can eat a piece of 100% baker’s chocolate (no sugar), and it will taste like heaven. I eat all kinds of beans, nuts, and peanut butter that’s just peanut butter, chia seeds with oatmeal, and I use all kinds spices. Spices make the world go around.

If you’re just starting out with some crappy disease or you’ve had it for a while, I highly suggest changing your diet and getting a notebook. Write down what you eat, when you eat, pain levels, where the pain is, exercise you’ve done, and you will be able to see what works and you can see where you need to make changes. Just the act of keeping a notebook will make you think. I have so many of these notebooks. I don’t look back at them, but writing in them made me think about what I was doing.

Make it your mission to ease the inflammation in your body. You can do this at any time. The best part is that it doesn’t require extra money or gadgets. It doesn’t require dropping your meds, although you might be able to do that at a later date. It’s just you treating your body well

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