Anti-Inflammatory Juice/Smoothie

This green drink is inspired by the “ITIS Diet,” a slightly oddly named nutrition program developed for people with autoimmune conditions and described as a “supercharged Mediterranean diet” or “Mediterranean Diet 2.0.”

The suffix “-itis” denotes inflammation — as in tonsillitis (inflammation of the tonsils), appendicitis (inflammation of the appendix), colitis (inflammation of the lining of the colon), etc. Although the ITIS diet was originally designed for people with rheumatoid arthritis (found in a 2021 pilot study to derive great benefit from this way of eating), this dietary approach could be helpful for anyone dealing with inflammation or one sort or another — or wishing to prevent it.

Mediterranean food is anti-inflammatory

This isn’t the first time that the Mediterranean way of eating — which uses olive oil as the primary oil, emphasizes vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and includes regular intakes of fatty fish and fermented dairy products while being low in pro-inflammatory foods like sugar and refined grains — has been associated with reduced inflammation and joint pain. A 2017 review in Rheumatology International found a reduction in pain and improved physical function in people with RA who ate a Mediterranean diet in addition to taking their prescription medications.    

Other research has highlighted the Mediterranean diet’s wide-ranging anti-inflammatory benefits, which have been linked to a lower risk of diseases that have an inflammatory component: cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergic conditions, inflammatory bowel diseases, depression, and sepsis, among others.

From: Mediterranean Diet as a Tool to Combat Inflammation and Chronic Diseases. An Overview. Biomedicines. 2020 Jul; 8(7): 201.

The ITIS Diet Explained

The ITIS diet comprises many of the features you already know and love about the Mediterranean diet, with a few extra ones tacked on. Key components of the ITIS diet include (“-itis Smoothie” ingredients highlighted in bold):

• Green drinks containing green vegetables and fruit
• Fruits high in enzymes, such as pineapple and papaya
• Oily fish, such as sardines or salmon, at least twice a week
• Healthy fats such as avocado, walnuts, olive oil, or flaxseed oil
• Fermented foods, such as unsweetened yogurt, kefir, and miso
• Regular intakes of green tea, turmeric, and ginger

Since many of these ingredients aren’t typically found on American plates, I thought I’d combine them in this tasty smoothie. Feel free to play around with them until you find a combination you like — and do vary the ingredients regularly to obtain the widest possible range of nutrients and reduce potential over-exposure.

Oxalate warning

While green smoothies have acquired a health halo over the past decade or two, they can have a dark side. Many of the ingredients people typically add to smoothies — like spinach, chard, chia seeds, almond milk, cocoa, and turmeric — contain high levels of oxalate (a.k.a. oxalic acid), a compound naturally produced by plants to protect themselves from predators (like us). Ingested in excessive amounts, oxalate may increase your risk of developing kidney stones and can impair mineral absorption from the gut (see this article).

People who eat diets that contain a lot of these “superfoods” may be more prone to developing oxalate-related health issues, as Australian actor Liam Hemsworth discovered the hard way when he needed emergency kidney surgery to remove a kidney stone after four years on a plant-based diet rich in high-oxalate foods such as raw spinach, beans, nuts, and seeds.

There are ways to reduce the risk of high oxalate intakes, including limiting your consumption of oxalate-rich foods and adding calcium-rich foods (like kefir, yogurt, or cheese) to your meals. Calcium naturally binds to oxalate; thus, eating calcium-rich foods alongside foods containing oxalate encourages the binding and removal of oxalate through the stool rather than through urine.