Alkaline and anti-inflammatory diet are two types of modern diet types. A healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition. It also helps to mitigate the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Both alkaline and anti-inflammatory diets improve your health and reduce chronic diseases.
The key difference between alkaline and anti-inflammatory diet is their nature. An alkaline diet replaces acid-forming foods with alkaline foods to promote overall health, while an anti-inflammatory diet favors foods rich in antioxidants, which help reduce free radicals and combat inflammation.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is an Alkaline Diet
3. What is an Anti-inflammatory Diet
4. Similarities – Alkaline and Anti-inflammatory Diet
5. Alkaline vs Anti-inflammatory Diet in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Alkaline vs Anti-inflammatory Diet
7. FAQ – Alkaline and Anti-inflammatory Diet
What is Alkaline Diet?
An alkaline diet helps fight diseases by reducing body’s pH levels. This diet may support health by limiting processed foods and promoting more whole foods. An alkaline diet is based on the idea of replacing acid-forming foods with alkaline foods. Moreover, this diet is thought to protect people from illnesses such as cancer, while an acidic diet can make people vulnerable to many diseases.
Figure 01: Alkaline Diet
An alkaline diet typically consists of more fruits, nuts, legumes, and vegetables and less meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, and alcohol. Furthermore, an alkaline diet maintains a pH between 7 to 14. One popular example of an alkaline diet is a plant-based diet.
What is an Anti-inflammatory Diet?
An anti-inflammatory diet involves eating less processed food, alcohol, and red meat and more plant-based foods, which may help manage inflammation in the body. Mediterranean diets and DASH diets are examples of some well-known anti-inflammatory diets. An anti-inflammatory diet reduces short- and long-term inflammation in many cases, although its efficacy will depend on a person’s overall health.
Figure 02: Anti-inflammatory Food
An anti-inflammatory diet could reduce diseases such as psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma. Furthermore, an anti-inflammatory diet focuses on fresh fruits, vegetables, omega-3 fatty acids, food rich in vitamin C, polyphenols, and probiotics.
Similarities Between Alkaline and Anti-inflammatory Diet
- Alkaline and anti-inflammatory diets are two modern diet types for healthy living.
- Both diet types reduce diseases.
- These diet types are rich in antioxidants.
- Both diet types are mostly plant-based and include lots of fruits and vegetables.
Difference Between Alkaline and Anti-inflammatory Diet
Definition
- An alkaline diet typically prioritizes alkaline foods over acidic foods.
- An anti-inflammatory diet typically prioritizes anti-inflammatory foods over inflammatory foods.
Examples
- Classic Mediterranean diet.
- Mediterranean diet, DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) diet, and vegetarian and vegan diets.
Foods Contained
- An alkaline diet contains non-starchy vegetables, fruits, legumes like kidney beans or white beans, nuts like chestnuts or pumpkin seeds.
- An anti-inflammatory diet contains fresh fruits, vegetables, omega-3 fatty acids, food rich in vitamin C and polyphenols, and probiotics.
Benefits
- An alkaline diet reduces the risk of getting diseases like gastritis, hypertension, and strokes.
- An anti-inflammatory diet reduces the risk of getting diseases like psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma.
The following table summarizes the difference between alkaline and anti-inflammatory diet.
Summary – Alkaline vs Anti-inflammatory Diet
Alkaline and anti-inflammatory diets are two types of healthy modern diets. An alkaline diet encourages people to eat foods that are alkaline instead of those that are acidic, while an anti-inflammatory diet encourages people to eat more foods that are naturally anti-inflammatory and avoid foods that cause inflammation. This is the main difference between alkaline and anti-inflammatory diet.
FAQ: Alkaline and Anti-inflammatory Diet
1. What foods make urine acidic?
- Examples of foods that result in more acidity in urine include foods high in protein like fish, beans, and nuts, and high carbohydrate foods like sugary foods and sodas.
2. Which foods are high in alkaline?
- Alkaline diet foods include fruits such as apples, cherries, pineapple, avocado, bananas, apricots, cantaloupe, non-starchy vegetables, fruit juices (unsweetened), mineral water, and herbal teas.
3. What food is in the DASH diet?
- The DASH diet requires no special food. However, it provides daily and weekly nutritional goals. The DASH diet recommends eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, including fat-free or low-fat dairy products, beans, nuts, fish, poultry, and vegetable oils.
4. What foods are on an anti-inflammatory diet?
- An anti-inflammatory diet includes foods like tomatoes, olive oil, nuts like almonds and walnuts, green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, and collards, fatty fish like mackerel, salmon, and tuna, and fruits like blueberries, cherries, and oranges.
5. What is the fastest way to reduce inflammation in the body?
- Chronic inflammation can be reduced by eating anti-inflammatory foods, quitting smoking, limiting alcohol, avoiding inflammatory foods, practicing stress management techniques, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and regularly practicing good sleep hygiene habits.
Reference:
1. Blackburn, Kellie Bramlet. “The Alkaline Diet: What You Need to Know.” MD Anderson Cancer Center.
2. “Anti-Inflammatory Diet: What to Eat (and Avoid).” Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Clinic.
Image Courtesy:
1. “Anti-inflammatory-food-pyramid” By SBR x BRC x SportIT (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) via Flickr
2. “Salad in Plate” (CC0) via Pexels
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