Endo-friendly foods are foods that help you reduce your chronic, systemic inflammation (if you'd like to find out how inflammation affects your Endometriosis, watch this video). They are the foods you should try to eat more of and add to all of your meals as much as you possibly can.

Antioxidant rich foods

Let me start by explaining what antioxidants do. It’s a term you hear a lot of, but not many people know what they are or do.

Certain foods, stress and less than optimum health are all factors that create free radicals. Free radicals are like a gang of aggressive hooligans, running around your body, damaging cells and tissues, and causing inflammation in their wake. Hmm, inflammation, again!

Antioxidants are like police officers, very good at catching those hooligans, slapping the handcuffs on and escorting them off the premises – i.e. your body.

If you eat a diet high in antioxidants, your body is able to remove the free radicals very effectively, reducing the unnecessary inflammation.

Endo-friendly foods that are high in antioxidants are:

• Red/orange vegetables: Carrots, sweet potato, red capsicum/peppers
• Green vegetables: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, Spinach
• Fresh fruit, especially high in vitamin C: kiwi, citrus, guava
• Seeds and nuts

Omega-3 fatty acids containing foods

In a study of more than 70,000 nurses in the US showed that the amount of fat you eat doesn’t impact your risk of endometriosis, but the type of fat does.

Omega-3 fatty acids are known to help reduce inflammation. Endo-friendly foods that contain Omega 3 fatty acids are:

• Fatty fish, like salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, sea mullet, redfish, flounder, trevally, tailor, Sydney rock oyster, blue mussel, rainbow trout, and whiting.
• Oils: flaxseed, hempseed, canola
• Nuts: especially walnuts.

Try to eat fish twice a week and have a handful of nuts and seeds twice a day.

Fibre

Fibre plays an important role in removing excess oestrogen from your body. It can attach itself to oestrogen, and then help remove it from the bowel.

Endo-friendly foods high in fibre are:

• Apples
• Oats (but check they are truly gluten-free)
• Fruit such as berries, pears (skin on), melon and oranges.
• Vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and sweetcorn.
• Peas, beans and pulses.
• Nuts and seeds.
• Potatoes with skin on.

By adding foods that are high in anti-oxidants, contain omega 3 fatty acids and are high in fibre, you provide your body with key nutrients to reduce your inflammation.

If you'd like to have a chat about how nutrition can help you reduce the severity of your Endometriosis symptoms, book a free 30-minute Endometriosis SOS Call.