Outlook 2016 - Grey Body Background Color on Messages with Tables

[dschwam]

Hello all.  I am hoping someone might be able to help me with a Outlook challenge I am experiencing.  

I have noticed that with some incoming emails the background color of the message body is always grey.  I want the body of the email to always be white when I open them - because I have to forward them and do not want to have to manually change the background color to white each time I forward them.  Is this possible?  

Here is some additional information:

1. The emails are coming from two completely different sources - which have no relation to each other.
2. The emails contain tables
3. The tables are white or partially white (see accompanying images)
4. The emails contain a small image.  It does not matter, however, if Outlook is set to either manually or automatically download images.  The result is the same.
5. The Office background color is set to white
6. The Internet Explorer background color is set to white
7. It does not matter if CSS is active or inactive. The result is the same.
8. If I open the emails in the Outlook app on my phone, the background is white.  If I forward those messages from my phone, the recipients receive the email with an all white background.
9. I am using Outlook 2016 (Office 365 Business)

[#2]

@dschwam 

Outlook inserts a table in the background. If you hover over the grey background you can select this background table and you can set the color to white and collapse cells so it takes minimal space. The background table is really annoying and I have no idea how to get rid of it.

Best regards