Gouty arthritis is a form of arthritis that causes severe pain and tenderness in your joints. Symptoms you may experience with gout are a pain in the ankle, foot, and knee or lumps and stiffness in your joints. Although doctors can prescribe anti-inflammatory agents to help with the symptoms, self-care also plays a large role in keeping your symptoms from worsening. To start your road to recovery with diminishing the symptoms of gout, you can start by adding healthy snacks to your diet:

1. Fruits

Fruits are an excellent choice in snacks when you have been diagnosed with gouty arthritis as they provide you with an excellent source of Vitamin C. One of the best fruits you can add to your diet to help diminish your symptoms are cherries as the extract can help prevent gout episodes from even occurring. Before you go ahead and start a medication regimen, always remember to give fruit a try by adding it into your everyday snack schedule and gout diet.

2. Vegetables

An excellent choice for snacks when you are on gout diet are vegetables including broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. If you are looking for different ways to spice up your snack life with veggies, you can start by trying different salad recipes from around the country, making a vegetable and cheese bake in the oven, or even creating your very own veggie dip created around your taste buds favorites.

3. Dairy

Almost all dairy products are beneficial for gout symptoms as they are low purine foods, especially low-fat products. Instead of reaching for a soda in the afternoon, grab a glass of low-fat milk to help alleviate the symptoms you are experiencing. To help you add more dairy products into your diet, try spicing up your snack with a new type of cheese or substitute water in a recipe for just a touch of low-fat milk.

4. Substituting soda for coffee

Coffee is something many adults love, so it makes it very easy to keep this beverage in your snacking plans for the day. Where dairy is also great for gout symptoms, you may want to substitute your creamer for low-fat milk and go easy on the sugar. The caffeine in the coffee will help alleviate some of the pain you are feeling in your joints from the swelling that gout causes.

5. Trail mix

Trail mix is not only delicious but it also very helpful if you are experiencing severe pain from gout symptoms. Alongside dried fruit in your mix, you should always add low-purine nuts such as walnuts, almonds, flaxseeds, and cashews. These particular types of nuts will help lower your uric acid levels, which in return will help alleviate some of the symptoms you have been experiencing from ingesting low purine foods.