Inflammatory foods: the ones I actually limit (and the ones that don't deserve their bad reputation)

You've almost certainly seen one of these lists. "25 inflammatory foods to ban", with bread, cheese, tomatoes, coffee, eggs, bananas and sometimes even lentils all thrown in together. By the end, there's not much left to eat, and even less desire to cook.

People regularly send me screenshots of these lists with the same question: "Do I really have to stop everything?" No. And I'll explain why by ranking things: what really matters, what matters a little, and what doesn't deserve the fear attached to it.

Inflammation: what we're talking about

Inflammation isn't the enemy. When you cut yourself or catch a virus, your body triggers acute inflammation to repair and defend itself. It rises, does its job, and settles down. It's indispensable.

What causes problems is chronic low-grade inflammation: a light inflammatory background that never quite switches off. You don't feel it as a specific pain. It settles in over months, and it's associated with many everyday complaints and long-term diseases.

And that kind of inflammation doesn't come down to one food. It depends on what you eat week after week, but also on your sleep, your stress, your physical activity, your gut microbiome. A croissant on Sunday won't inflame you. A croissant every morning, with a fizzy drink at lunch, ready meals in the evening and five hours of sleep, is another story.

The real top foods to limit (without the drama)

Here's my ranking. The higher on the list, the more it's worth dealing with.

1. Sugary drinks. Fizzy drinks, fruit juice, iced tea, flavoured coffees. It's liquid sugar, absorbed at full speed, with no fibre or protein to slow it down. If you change only one thing, change this one.
2. Ultra-processed food. More on this just below, it's the big one.
3. Processed meat. Salami, bacon, industrial ham, sausages. They pile up salt, saturated fat and additives like nitrites.
4. Alcohol. It irritates the gut, tires the liver and damages sleep, which is itself a regulator of inflammation.
5. Fried food and oil heated over and over. Doughnuts, fast-food fries, crisps.
6. Too much refined flour. White bread, biscuits, pastries, white pasta every day.

A nuance on oils. You read everywhere that seed oils (sunflower, corn, soybean) are "inflammatory" because of their omega-6. Precision Nutrition has looked into it, and the reality is less clear-cut: omega-6 isn't poison, and these oils aren't a problem in small amounts. The real issue is that they turn up in huge quantities in fried and processed food, and that they replace olive oil. So I cook with olive oil, dress salads with rapeseed or walnut oil for their omega-3, and I don't throw out my bottle of sunflower oil either.

Sugar and ultra-processed food: the duo to watch

Added sugar causes blood sugar spikes, and repeated spikes keep inflammation going. It also hides where you don't expect it: sauces, sliced bread, "fitness" cereals, flavoured yoghurts, savoury ready meals.

Ultra-processed food is a different family. Yuka's guide describes it well: products made from extracted or modified ingredients (syrups, isolates, hydrogenated oils) and additives you'd never find in a home kitchen, like emulsifiers, flavourings or sweeteners. The problem isn't one particular ingredient, it's the whole package: very little fibre, a texture designed to be eaten fast and in excess, and additives, some of which are being studied for their effects on the gut microbiome.

My test at the supermarket: I read the ingredient list. If it's long and contains words I'd never use when cooking, the product moves into the "now and then" category. I don't forbid myself anything, I just spot it.

Gluten and dairy: do you really need to cut them?

These are the two big fears of the moment, and in my view they're largely overrated.

Gluten. If you have coeliac disease or a confirmed sensitivity, cutting it out is essential, and a doctor confirms that. For everyone else, Healthline points out that there's no demonstrated benefit to going gluten-free, and that processed gluten-free products often contain more sugar, fat and additives to make up for the texture. A practical point: if you suspect a problem with gluten, get tested before you stop eating it, because the tests need you to still be eating it to be reliable.

Solaia's data illustrates this really well. Among the app's 352 recipes, each rated on an anti-inflammatory score from 0 to 100, the two lowest-rated recipes that call themselves "gluten-free" are desserts: the Soft Cacao-Hazelnut Cookies (Gluten-Free) and the Individual Gluten-Free Carrot Cake, both at 45. Meanwhile, Sardines in Oil on Dark Rye Bread, which contains gluten, scores 95. Gluten-free is not an anti-inflammatory label.

Dairy. Some people digest it poorly, and others notice a link with their skin. If that's you, listen to it. But there's no reason to cut it out on principle. Fermented dairy (plain yoghurt, kefir, skyr) brings useful bacteria, and ZOE lists it among the foods that support the gut.

And the rest of those anxiety-inducing lists? Tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are accused of being inflammatory, with no solid evidence for the vast majority of people, even though they're vegetables rich in antioxidants. Coffee, unsweetened and not too late in the day, brings polyphenols. Eggs are an excellent protein. If one of them is a problem for you personally, you'll find out with the method I give you below. Otherwise, keep them.

It's not the food, it's the context of the meal

If you only keep one part of this article, keep this one. I really understood it by going through our recipe scores.

The average across the 352 recipes is around 82 out of 100. Snacks and desserts sit around 75, main dishes around 83. But within the same family, the gaps are huge, and they almost never come from a single ingredient.

Take tofu. Tamari Sautéed Tofu with Broccoli scores 90. Sesame-Panko Breaded Tofu, cooked in sunflower oil, drops to 65. Same food, different preparation, different company.

Same with feta. In the Buckwheat, Feta & Roasted Broccoli Bowl, it's surrounded by buckwheat, broccoli and almonds: 87. In the Watermelon & Feta Duo, it only has watermelon and mint for company: 70.

And dark chocolate: a square with a handful of almonds scores 80. The same chocolate melted into a white-flour banana bread scores 60.

The most telling case is wraps. The two lowest-rated main dishes in the whole database are tortilla wraps (45 and 55), even though their fillings are pretty good. Swap the tortilla for a big lettuce leaf, and the Lettuce Wraps with Sautéed Chicken climb to 88.

What pushes a score up is what's around the food: vegetables, fibre, a protein, a good fat, spices. An "inflammatory" food on a plate full of vegetables and pulses doesn't weigh much. A "healthy" food drowned in sugar and frying oil saves nothing.

My clever swaps to calm things down without missing out

Rather than cutting out, I swap. Here are the ones that work best, with the matching Solaia recipes and their scores:

• Fizzy drinks become sparkling water with lemon and a few mint leaves, or an iced herbal tea.
• Breakfast cereal becomes an Anti-Inflammatory Blueberry Porridge (92).
• Flavoured yoghurt becomes a Greek Yogurt Bowl with Raspberries & Almonds (85) or Skyr with Blueberries & Pumpkin Seeds (82).
• The 4 pm packet of biscuits becomes a few almonds and a square of dark chocolate (80, it's a recipe in its own right in the app).
• Crisps with drinks become Tamari-Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (88).
• The ham sandwich becomes Sardines in Oil on Dark Rye Bread (95). No cooking, and it keeps you going until the evening.
• Shop-bought dressing becomes olive or rapeseed oil, lemon, mustard.
• The deep fryer becomes the oven, with a drizzle of olive oil.

I don't do it all at once. One swap a week, and I keep the ones I like.

How to spot your own triggers

Generic lists don't know your body. The only way to know what doesn't agree with you is to observe.

For two to three weeks, write down what you eat and how you feel: digestion, energy, skin, sleep, mood. No need for a spreadsheet, notes on your phone are enough. You may see a pattern come back.

If a food seems suspect, remove it on its own for two to three weeks, then reintroduce it and watch. One at a time, otherwise you'll never know which one mattered.

And note where you are in your cycle. The same plate doesn't land the same way in every phase: in the luteal phase, digestion slows and the body handles sugar less well. A food that bloats you the week before your period may go down perfectly well the rest of the month. I don't have a universal answer on that, everyone has her own calendar.

If your symptoms are strong, persistent, or come with pain, weight loss or significant digestive problems, it's no longer a shopping list matter. See a doctor.

What I take away

I really limit sugary drinks, ultra-processed food, processed meat, alcohol and fried food. I don't demonise gluten or dairy when they suit me. And I look at the whole plate rather than a single ingredient, because the same food can go from 90 to 65 depending on what surrounds it.

If you want to see where your meals stand, every Solaia recipe shows its anti-inflammatory score. Start by comparing two versions of a dish you make often: that's often where you find your first swap.