Which is more inflammatory: red meat or chicken?

I just saw this article about diet and inflammation on Ediets.com. As many of you know, I recently wrote a book on this subject, so this is a topic near and dear to my heart! I'm always glad to see articles about anti-inflammatory diets--especially on a popular web site like Ediets--because I think it's important for people to understand the relationship between food, inflammation, and health. But I'm frustrated by the fact that so many of these articles perpetuate certain myths about food and inflammation--in particular, that red meat is inflammatory and chicken is anti-inflammatory.

Many people simply assume that all the foods that we're used to thinking of as "healthy" are anti-inflammatory and foods that we have been trained to view as "unhealthy" are inflammatory. In reality, the research on foods and inflammation challenges some of these assumptions.

A boneless, skinless chicken breast--that Holy Grail of diet food--is low in total fat and saturated fat, it's true. But that's not the whole story. Chicken is also relatively high in arachidonic acid, a fatty acid that directly feeds cellular production of inflammatory chemicals.

Beef tenderloin, on the other hand, is slightly higher in fat than a chicken breast but contains only half as much arachidonic acid and higher levels of anti-inflammatory nutrients such as selenium and zinc. When you look at all the facts, I don't know how you could conclude that beef belongs on the inflammatory list and chicken on the anti-inflammatory one!

My research into this area of nutrition eventually led me to develop the IF Rating system to rate the inflammatory and anti-inflammatory potential of different foods. The IF Rating, which is provided as part of ND's analysis of foods and recipes, can help you choose anti-inflammatory foods and avoid inflammatory ones. For example, you can see that 100 grams of chicken breast has an IF Rating of -21 (mildly inflammatory), while the same sized serving of beef tenderloin rates a +12 (mildly anti-inflammatory). For more information about the IF rating system and the science of food and inflammation, see also InflammationFactor.com

The overall message of the Ediets article is right on target, however. An anti-inflammatory diet can not only reduce discomfort from joint pain, allergies, and asthma, it can also reduce your risk of serious diseases like heart disease and cancer.