Q. I find the IF Rating system on Nutrition Data.com more frustrating than useful. I eat a very healthy diet; it is very low in bad fats and simple carbohydrates. But I always have a negative IF Rating. I'd have to eat fish and curry powder at every single meal to get a positive IF Rating!
A. I’m sorry you found the IF Ratings frustrating but they can be useful in revealing a hidden issue with what, on the surface, seems like a very healthy diet! I often try to make the point that what we we've been taught to think of as a "healthy" diet is not necessarily anti-inflammatory. Your situation is a perfect illustration.
[Here's a link to an analysis I did on this user's diet, which was composed of:
Breakfast: A bowl of oatmeal, made with oatbran, flaxseed, raisins; coffee; 12 oz. lowfat milk
Lunch: A cheese sandwich made with whole wheat bread, an apple
Snacks: 1 handful almonds, 1 handful prunes
Dinner: A spinach salad with fresh mushrooms, broccoli, hard-boiled eggs, onion, and Italian dressing
and a dish made with brown rice, tomatoes, black beans and corn.]
At a glance, your diet looks great! You're choosing wholesome, nutritious foods. You’re eating an appropriate amount of calories (about 1800) and a good ratio of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins (55:29:16). So far so good.
I should also point out that none of the foods in your diet are strongly inflammatory. All have a place in an anti-inflammatory diet. HOWEVER, of the 22 foods you ate on this particular day, 15 of them are mildly or moderately inflammatory!
As I’ve been writing in recent posts, the idea is not to eliminate negatively-rated foods from the diet. The idea is to make sure that your diet is balanced from an inflammatory stand-point, and yours is not.
One thing that jumps out at me about your diet from an inflammatory perspective is a high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats, about 5:1. As you may be aware, omega-6 fats can be inflammatory when the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats is too high. Also, the glycemic load is a bit on the high side (125). Both of these things contribute to the negative rating.
In this case, as I said, it’s not one thing that's causing your diet to have a negative IF Rating but the combination of a whole lot of inflammatory foods: eggs, cheese, milk, grains (rice, oats), starchy veggies (beans, corn), and dried fruits (raisins, prunes), and very few anti-inflammatory foods to balance them out.
I think you can keep eating all of these foods but maybe not all on the same day. Substituting anti-inflammatory foods for some of the inflammatory ones can bring things into balance. How about a tuna sandwich instead of cheese? Strawberries on your cereal instead of raisins? Quinoa instead of rice?
Fish and curry powder are both anti-inflammatory foods that can help balance the IF Rating of your diet but you have many more options to choose from as well. Incorporate more red peppers, carrots, citrus fruit, garlic, chilies, ginger, olives and olive oil into your recipes. My point is, you don’t have to eat curried salmon at every meal to have an anti-inflammatory diet!
All of these issues are explored in detail in my book The Inflammation Free Diet Plan, which also includes lots of recipes and meal plans. Perhaps you can see if the book is at your local library. I think it might help show you how small changes can shift your otherwise healthy diet to be anti-inflammatory as well.