You’ve been eating healthy, and you still feel terrible. What could possibly be the problem? It turns out that eating a healthy diet isn’t enough to cut inflammation in the body. Some of the veggies you’ve been eating just might be making your MS symptoms worse.
One particular group of vegetables, nightshades, may be to blame. While these vegetables don’t cause inflammation in all people, they can wreak havoc on people who are sensitive to them.
Read on to learn about the four vegetables that may cause inflammation (they’re all nightshades) and what you can do to diminish their impact.
Tomatoes
It’s almost that time of year when the tomatoes start showing up at your local farmer’s market, but they may be making your MS symptoms worse. Tomatoes and derivatives of tomatoes (spaghetti sauce, ketchup, etc.) are in a lot of foods, and you probably eat them more than you think.
If you can’t cut out tomatoes from your diet, at least stay away from green tomatoes. Unripe nightshades contain the most alkaloids, which may contribute to your inflammation.
Peppers
In most people, peppers are actually anti-inflammatory because the capsaicin causes minor irritation and your body overreacts, diminishing inflammation in the body. If you are one of the people sensitive to nightshades, your body will have the opposite response, kicking inflammation into overdrive whenever you taste something spicy.
If you love spicy foods, try giving up all nightshades for 30 days. If that helps, you may have to make the sacrifice in order to feel better. If it doesn’t help, you should be fine eating them.
Potatoes
Potatoes have a bad reputation. They’re the vegetable that doesn’t quite count as a vegetable, but they sure are delicious (and difficult to avoid). If you can’t stay away from potatoes, there are a few things you can do to diminish their nightshade impact.
Always peel your potatoes and throw out any potatoes that have sprouted eyes. Doing these two things will get rid of most of the alkaloids, which cause inflammation.
Eggplants
Nothing beats an eggplant parmesan, but if you’re cutting nightshades, this is gonna have to go too. Thankfully, eggplants should be easier to avoid than the other items on this list. If you can’t live without them, at least be sure to cook them. Cooking nightshades diminishes the inflammatory response in your body when you eat them.
While not everyone is sensitive to nightshades, cutting them out may be just what you need to cut down on inflammation in your body and start living symptom free again. Let us know in the comments what you’ll miss the most (and how you’re going to stay on track).