Foods That Reduce or Cause Inflammation

Inflammation is the body’s short-term alarm. After a splinter, a scrape or a cold, the immune system floods the spot with repair cells, heat and swelling. Then the trouble clears like it is meant to do.

The modern problem is a different one. When inflammation stays switched on for years at a low level, fed by ultra-processed food, poor sleep or constant stress, the immune system begins to damage healthy tissue. Harvard Health links this long-running inflammation to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

What you eat is the choice most within your reach, and you make it approximately three times a day.

Seven Foods That Reduce Inflammation

Each of these seven appears again and again in large published studies. For each one, here is what it does in the body and the evidence behind it. Organic food is grown without most synthetic pesticides, so every food on this list is best bought organic and fresh.

1. Fatty fish — salmon, sardines, mackerel

Fatty fish carry two omega-3 fats, EPA and DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid), which lower the chemical signals that keep inflammation running. — Pick: wild-caught salmon, sardines or mackerel, two or three times a week.

2. Extra-virgin olive oil

Extra-virgin olive oil, pressed from olives without heat or chemicals, carries polyphenols, plant compounds that lower the body’s markers of inflammation. In Spain, a trial called PREDIMED, short for Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (Prevention with the Mediterranean Diet), followed 7,447 people aged 55 to 80 at high risk of heart disease. Those who ate a Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil added had approximately 30 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes or deaths from heart disease than those on a low-fat diet. — Pick: an organic extra-virgin olive oil, freshly made and high in polyphenols. Dress salads with it, keeping the cooking heat under medium.

3. Berries — blueberries, strawberries, blackberries

Colorful fruits carry anthocyanins and other polyphenols. Anthocyanins are the pigments that turn berries deep red, blue or purple, and they lower inflammation in the blood. In Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study II, Aedín Cassidy followed 93,600 women for 18 years. Those who ate the most anthocyanins had a 32 percent lower risk of a heart attack than those who ate the least. — Pick: organic fresh berries, wild blueberries among them, a cup most days; add them to oats, yogurt or a smoothie.

4. Leafy greens — spinach, kale, arugula, Swiss chard

Greens carry vitamin K, folate, magnesium and the plant compounds the gut turns into anti-inflammatory signals. Harvard Health lists green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, kale and collards, among the foods that fight inflammation. — Pick: organic greens; a handful into every warm meal and every smoothie.

5. Turmeric — always with black pepper

Curcumin, the yellow pigment in turmeric, lowers the same inflammatory signals the strongest medicines target. Curcumin on its own is poorly absorbed. Ayurveda has paired turmeric with black pepper for twenty-five hundred years to help the body absorb it. In the fourth chapter of the Charaka Samhita, written approximately two thousand years ago, Charaka listed turmeric among the herbs for skin disease and for poisons. — Pick: a teaspoon of organic ground turmeric with a pinch of organic black pepper in warm milk, soup or scrambled eggs.

6. Ginger

Ginger’s compounds gingerol and shogaol lower the inflammatory signals behind joint pain, nausea and gut irritation. In the same chapter of the Charaka Samhita, Charaka placed ginger beside black pepper among the herbs that strengthen digestion. — Pick: organic fresh root, grated into tea with lemon.

7. Black seed oil

Black seed oil is pressed from the seeds of Nigella sativa, a flowering plant grown from the Mediterranean to India. Its main working compound is thymoquinone, the substance that lowers inflammation. A 2025 review led by Ali Jafari pooled 82 trials with 5,026 people and found that black seed lowered inflammation in the blood. A 2022 study led by Elisabeth Khaikin put a safe daily amount at under 48.6 milligrams of thymoquinone for an adult. — Pick: an organic, cold-pressed black seed oil whose label states its thymoquinone percentage. The higher the percentage, the more of the working compound in each spoonful.

Six Foods That Cause Inflammation

Here are some foods known to increase inflammation and best to limit or avoid:

1. Refined carbohydrates — white bread and pastries, made from flour stripped of its bran and germ.
2. French fries and other fried foods.
3. Soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks.
4. Well-done red meat, and meat high in nitrates, the salts added to cure and preserve it.
5. Processed meat — hot dogs, sausage and some cold cuts.
6. Margarine, shortening and some seed oils.

One Day of Anti-Inflammatory Meals

An ordinary day built around the seven foods that help, every food organic and fresh, the fish wild-caught:

1. Breakfast: oats with a cup of organic fresh wild blueberries, a spoon of ground flax and a handful of walnuts.
2. Lunch: a wide salad of baby spinach, arugula, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, wild-caught sardines, extra-virgin olive oil and lemon.
3. Afternoon: a warm cup of fresh ginger tea with honey.
4. Dinner: wild-caught salmon baked with turmeric and black pepper, a mound of roasted broccoli, a small sweet potato.
5. Evening: dark chocolate (70 percent cacao or higher), two squares.

Three Small Swaps for Tomorrow

1. Swap margarine and shortening for extra-virgin olive oil in salads and low-heat cooking.
2. Swap the afternoon sweet for a cup of organic fresh wild blueberries — the pleasure holds, the sugar drops, the polyphenols rise.
3. Add a teaspoon of turmeric and a pinch of black pepper to the warm meal of the day. One pairing, every day, is enough to begin.

Buy every one of these foods organic and fresh, with the fish wild-caught.

Food is the slowest medicine but a reliable one. The fire inside you cools by what you set beside the fork.

Sources & Inspiration: PREDIMED Trial (Ramón Estruch, Emilio Ros et al., New England Journal of Medicine 378, 2018 republication) — 7,447 participants. Harvard Health Publishing, “Foods that fight inflammation.” Jaime Uribarri et al., “Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet” (Journal of the American Dietetic Association 110, 2010). Aedín Cassidy et al., anthocyanins and heart attack in 93,600 women of the Nurses’ Health Study II (Circulation 127, 2013). Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana, chapter 4. Ali Jafari et al., black seed review of 82 trials, 5,026 participants (Pharmacological Research 219, 2025). Elisabeth Khaikin et al., thymoquinone in 11 commercial black seed products (Nutrients 14, 2022).