What was once called “clean eating” is now being rebranded as “anti-inflammatory.” This week we unpack the evidence behind this wellness-culture trend—and discuss what to do if it’s harmed your relationship with food.

Resources Mentioned

• Subscribe to the weekly newsletter, Food Psych Weekly 

• Submit your questions for a chance to have them answered in the weekly newsletter

• My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals

• My first book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

• My upcoming book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being

• The Making Peace with Food Card Deck

• Subscribe to the podcast here

• My October 24 newsletter

• PREDIMED paper on inflammation  (CW: nutritional minutiae, weight-stigmatizing language)

• 2019 analysis of PREDIMED trial

• Food frequency questionnaires are notoriously unreliable

• Inflammatory biomarkers in the blood are not particularly sensitive or specific indicators of chronic inflammation (CW: weight-stigmatizing language)

• Higher-income, better-educated people with fewer traumatic incidents in their past (CW for both: food- and weight-stigmatizing language) also tend to be the ones who eat fewer “inflammatory” foods.