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Health And Beauty Tips
Arthritis Diet Eating the
Right Foods
 Dietary
practices have a major impact on arthritis. Among the offenders
are saturated fats (which occur in cooking oils and fried
foods), white flour and sugar, red meat, chemical additives,
yeast, and milk and dairy products. These foods can increase
inflammation, invoke allergies, and interfere with hormone
production, cellular integrity, and the function and mobility of
the joints.
Changing the way you eat will change the way you feel. The right
foods can keep you free of stiff joints, swelling, and fatigue
while also promoting longevity and overall health. Choose to eat
right by eliminating problematic foods and increasing your daily
intake of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
What we call the "Arthritis Diet" is primarily a
vegetarian, whole foods diet consisting of fruits and
vegetables, raw seeds and nuts and their butters, fermented bean
products, fish, and grains -- all considered
"arthritis-friendly" foods.
These foods are high in dietary fiber, which helps move food and
wastes through the digestive tract before they have a chance to
form toxic substances. Many degenerative illnesses, including
arthritis, are related to a diet low in fiber.
Whole (unprocessed) foods are rich in the nutrients needed to
fight destructive free radicals, promote skin and tissue health,
repair bones, muscles, and tendons, and promote regularity.
In addition, being more nutrient-dense, whole foods are more
filling and decrease the likelihood of overeating and subsequent
weight gain; losing weight and reducing the stress on
weight-bearing joints are crucial steps to recovering from
arthritis.
Whole foods also put less overall stress on the body, because
they are more easily digested and contain fewer toxic substances
than processed foods.
Dietary fats are an important consideration for anyone with
arthritis. The wrong kind of fats can increase inflammation in
joints, while the "good" fats will help keep
inflammation in check.
As a percentage of calories, most vegetables contain less than
10% fat and most grains contain 16%-20% fat. By comparison,
whole milk and cheeses contain 74% fat (even low-fat milk
contains 38% fat on a percentage-of-calories basis). Most animal
foods contain large quantities of fat, mostly saturated fats,
which raise levels of inflammatory compounds in the body and
increase arthritic symptoms.
Commercially produced, corn-fed meat and dairy products and
shellfish are also high in arachidonic acid which is converted
by the body into powerful pro-inflammatory compounds.
Arachidonic acid is a fatty acid found primarily in animal foods
such as meat, poultry, and dairy products, and to a lesser
extent in fish and vegetables. When the diet is abundant with
arachidonic acids, these are stored in cell membranes: an enzyme
transforms these stored acids into chemical messengers called
prostaglandins and leukotrienes with instigate inflammation.
Whole foods, however, are typically high in healthy fats,
including the essential fatty acids, which research has proven
help decrease inflammation and improve the health of people with
rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and osteoarthritis.
Arthritis sufferers commonly have a high level of acidity (a
urine pH that is lower than 6.3), which increases the potential
for developing inflammatory conditions. The term pH represents a
scale for the relative acidity or alkalinity of a solution.
Acidity is measured as a pH of 0.1 to 6.9. alkalinity is 7.1 to
14, and neutral pH is 7.0. The numbers refer to how many
hydrogen atoms are present compared to an ideal or standard
solution. Normally, blood is slightly alkaline, at 7.35 to 7.45;
urine pH can range from 4.8 to 8.0, but is usually somewhat
acidic, with a normal reading between 5.0 and 6.0.
Acidity can be decreased by reducing your intake of acid-forming
foods and increasing intake of alkaline-forming foods in the
diet. The most acid-forming foods are sugar, alcohol, vinegar,
coffee, meat, and dairy products.
Foods known to increase the alkalinity of the body include all
vegetables (except tomatoes), aloe vera, and green foods, such
as chlorella, barley grass, wheat grass, chlorophyll, parsley,
and alfalfa. As a general rule of thumb, the greener the
vegetable, the more it will help increase alkalinity in the
body.
Tips to Ease the Shift to Healthier Foods
1. Begin by changing one meal a day to healthful eating.
This makes shopping and cooking more manageable while you adjust
to the new lifestyle. Maintain this for about a month until you
tackle the next meal. Within three months, your habits will be
transformed.
2. Stop buying snack foods such as sodas, chips, and
cookies. Substitute trail mix, popcorn, and herb teas as an
interim step.
3. Cook large quantities of main dish recipes so there
will be leftovers for lunch or the next day's dinner. Avoid
freezing foods as this process may kill important nutrients.
4. Do not insist that children or other family members
eat your diet. Simply serve an increasing number of healthful
choices with each meal. This, combined with weaning them from
sugar and refined flour products, will produce a hunger for good
food.
5. When dining at other people's homes, eat lightly,
focus on what you can have, and pass up the allergenic foods.
Avoid debates about diet. Soon your improved health may prompt a
great deal of positive interest in your diet.
6. Choose restaurants where there are healthful choices.
Ask if the chef will modify a dish (skip the cream sauce, for
example) to make it fit your new diet. If that is not possible,
you can eat beforehand at home and just sip a beverage while
enjoying the social contact. Be positive, keep the focus off
your diet, and, above all, do not be self-righteous.
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