Comfort Food: How to Beat Arthritis with Your Food Habits

To avoid arthritis from debilitating your wellbeing, you need to ensure that you follow the proper treatment and management plan. This involves your choice of foods, as well as exercise and the medicines that your doctor prescribes. What you eat can worsen the wellness symptoms of arthritis, but the right kinds of foods can also help you relieve your pain and discomfort.

Firstly, spice up you diet with more vegetables such as garlic, onions and ginger. According to renowned dietician Naini Setalvad, ‘I would even suggest simply chewing on ginger all day long – that truly helps!’ You should also stock up on your supplies of chillies, getting a good range of everything from capsicum to fresh green chillies, and use other spices such as cloves and cinnamon. Setalvad adds that rotis made of jowar, nachani, raagi and bajri are great for your arthritis-ridden joints because they contain nutrients that help ease the problem.

Next, make sure you’re getting plenty of healthy fats to soothe your joints. These can be found in nuts such as walnuts, cashew nuts, pistachios, as well as seeds like sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and flax seeds. You can also get these fats by cooking your food in extra virgin olive oil, and they work to lubricate your joints and provide them with nutritious vitamins. If you have whipped up some rotis, Setalvad says don’t forget to dab them with ghee or coconut flesh to get some healthy fats in there too.

Keeping a food diary can help you to become more aware of foods that worsen the pain. As a rule, these foods tend to comprise of tomatoes, lemon, dairy products and wheat, and so should be avoided where possible. However, the downside to cutting these foods is that you could be depriving your body of much-needed vitamin C, which is vital in fighting inflammation. Therefore, make sure you get the amount you need from other sources, such as guava and blackcurrants. Also, make sure you avoid white foods; namely white flour, sugar and table salt, and replace them with wholemeal flour, natural sweeteners like dates and rock salt and sea salt, which contain additional healing minerals that are not available in white table salt.

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