How should someone decide whether to exclude potentially pro-inflammatory vegetables?

How to think about cutting “pro-inflammatory” vegetables

Most of the time, here at Alloy we encourage starting with the big picture, because a veggie-by-veggie “good vs bad” approach can backfire. Chronic inflammation tends to rise in perimenopause and menopause, and the most reliable dietary pattern for lowering it is still a nutrient-rich, high-fiber way of eating that includes lots of plants, along with other anti-inflammatory staples like berries, nuts and seeds, fermented foods, and omega-3 rich fish. We talk through that approach in our Month 3 Weight Care guidance here: Optimize Your Weight Care Journey with Alloy

When it comes to “potentially pro-inflammatory vegetables,” the main group you’ll hear about are nightshades. In our YouTube talk with Dr. Jayne Morgan, she explains that people following a very strict anti-inflammatory diet often avoid nightshades, and she calls out tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms, and some peppers, but she also points out the tradeoff, those foods still have real nutritional upsides, so it can come down to balance and how you feel with them. That chapter is here: Menopause, Hormones & Your Heart: What You Need to Know | Dr. Jayne Morgan - Nightshade Vegetables and Inflammation

A practical way to decide is to only consider excluding them if you have a clear reason, for example, you notice a consistent pattern where a specific food seems to worsen symptoms you’re tracking (often gut symptoms like bloating, or inflammatory symptoms like achy joints). If you do try cutting them, it helps to keep the rest of your diet fiber-forward and diverse (rather than just “eating less”), since gut health and inflammation are tightly connected in midlife. Our gut health reads are good supports for that mindset:

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