If you have arthritis, you may feel like doing anything can cause a flare up. Some things do cause a flare up, but it shouldn’t keep you from living your life. Certainly things like food shouldn’t stop you from living a normal life. In light of that, here are seven things that you should avoid eating if you have arthritis. Once you know about these, you can spend more time doing things that you want.

 

1. Fried Foods and Processed Foods: these include French fries, donuts, fried chicken, bacon, bologna,  anything fried or processed snack foods... In addition to this, try to avoid things that are high in sodium and are high in preservatives.

 

2. Advanced Glycation End (AGE) Products: these come from things that are grilled, fried, heated, and pasteurized. While you can’t totally avoid these, you can lower your intake of foods that are cooked at a high heat.

 

3. Dairy Products: like butter, ice cream, milk, etc.

 

4. Alcohol and Tobacco

 

5. Corn Oil

 

6. Sugars and Refined Products: refined products meaning things like white bread, white rice, crackers, cookies, soda, candy, etc.

 

7. Other Inflammatory Foods: these include trans fat, food made with animal fats (no, you “can not have a cheeseburger”), Omega-6 Fatty Acids, MSG, and gluten

While you don’t need to completely avoid these foods, lowering your intake of these could help your arthritis flare-ups and help you enjoy more of the things that you like to do.

Image by Renee Comet