Healthy Cooking With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Are stiff and painful joints keeping you out of the kitchen? Cookbook author Melinda Winner shares 10 top household tools and techniques to get you cooking again. Plus, learn the 5 best foods to eat to reduce symptoms... A decade after her rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis, Melinda Winner was 100 pounds overweight, subsisting mainly on peanut butter and spending her days on her couch. She loved to cook, but stiff hand joints made it difficult to peel, pare, slice, dice, boil, bake and roast the healthy foods she loved. And her doctors couldn’t help. “When you have arthritis, they tell you to buy pre-cut, pre-packaged food,” says Winner, now a 48-year-old mother of three and grandmother of five in Tampa, Fla. “That’s a pet peeve of mine. Because I’m sick, I have to settle for food that isn’t good for me.” Winner decided to take health back into her hands by creating new cooking techniques that accommodated disability. It worked. Between eating well and daily walking, she maintained her goal weight of 130 pounds. A lighter frame has also relieved stress on her joints. Now, she’s sharing her kitchen tricks with 1.3 million RA sufferers, and 27 million with osteoarthritis who can’t eat well because of physical limitations. She created the Cooking With Arthritis website and A Complete Illustrated Guide to Cooking With Arthritis (Tate Publishing). Here, she shares her 10 most useful techniques: 1. Open plastic cartons with a ring. This technique, which Winner uses almost daily, came as she was struggling to open a yogurt container with a plastic top. As she was trying to pull off the top, a ring she wears on her left thumb accidentally caught its lip, offering the leverage she needed. “It popped off. It was the most amazing discovery.” Try it with cottage cheese, sour cream or other foods that come in covered plastic tubs. 2. Cut vegetables with an apple corer. This gadget, which looks like a small metal wagon wheel with handles, can slice other veggies into easy-to-work-with sizes, Winner says. “Potatoes, cucumbers, summer squash – even a tomato if it’s not too soft,” she says. “Put one handle toward you, the other away from you, and lean on it with your forearms.” 3. Slice produce into squares with a French fry cutter. This device uses a handle to push produce through wires laid in a grid, cutting them into small rectangular pieces. Again, use your body weight to lean on the handles instead of relying on sore hands. “I use it for mushrooms, strawberries and hard-boiled eggs for egg salad. It cuts and squishes them into uniform pieces,” Winner says. 4. Separate eggs with a small funnel. When she needs egg whites to make a meringue or a low-fat omelet and sore hands make it too hard to hold the shells, Winner uses this basic kitchen tool. “The whites slide through; the yolks stay in the funnel,” she says. 5. Roll out dough using forearms. The manual dexterity needed to maneuver a rolling pin can be hard on someone with hand or arm pain, so Winner uses her forearms and body weight to apply pressure. “I hold my hands like I’m praying and lean on the rolling pin with my forearms,” she says. “Don’t lean too hard, or you’ll go all the way through the dough.” 6. When cutting large items, steady them with a barbecue fork. Winner wraps a dishcloth and rubber around the long fork’s handle for stability, then pierces the vegetable, such as a head of cabbage. For stability, she holds the fork tightly between her underarm and body. To finish the cut, “I take the fork out, lay my forearm over the knife, and use my weight to rock it back and forth,” she says. 7. Remove boiled items with a spider skimmer. Pasta and vegetables are easily scooped and drained out of hot water using the round, shallow basket of this long-handled mesh spoon. 8. Put a rug and chair in your kitchen. A hard tile floor can cause back and foot pain, so Winner stands on a rubber-backed rug. And she keeps a stool nearby so she can sit when she gets tired. 9. Invest in the right gadgets. Food processers, mixers, juicers and electric can openers are important parts of an arthritis-friendly kitchen, Winner says. 10. Take breaks for temperature therapy. Both heat and cold can provide temporary relief from hand pain. Try both to see which feels best at that moment. Winner keeps cans of healthy drinks in the fridge because the cold can feels good in her hand. For warmth, she washes dishes. “It’s kind of like a hot tub for your hands,” she says. How to Eat Healthy with RA There’s no magic dietary bullet to ease arthritis pain, but many women find that switching to healthier foods improves symptoms. Processed foods lead to inflammation, says Kristin Baker, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine who researches nutrition and arthritis. That’s because they contain preservatives for longer shelf life and have been stripped of nutrients that protect against inflammation. Here are Baker’s recommendations for the right foods to choose: 1. Fruits and veggies. The best way to reduce inflammation is to load your plate with vegetables and fruits. Both raw and cooked veggies are good for RA sufferers because cooking releases additional nutrients in some foods. “Soups are great because nutrients remain in the broth,” Baker says. Watch out: Nightshade vegetables – potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and some peppers – can increase pain and decrease flexibility in some arthritis sufferers. Keep a food journal to see if these, or other, foods aggravate symptoms. 2. Healthy grains. Besides popular whole wheat and oatmeal, Baker recommends millet, quinoa and brown rice. “Eat as much as you can in the whole form, as opposed to ground up and processed,” Baker says. 3. Meat and poultry. Stick to small portions of grass-fed beef or chicken raised on natural grains. The nutrients make their way up the food chain, according to Baker. 4. Good oils. Oils high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as olive, canola and flaxseed oil (as well as fish oil), decrease joint inflammation, according to a 2002 review of studies published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. The same study found that high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids – found in such foods as margarine, mayonnaise, cooking oils and many processed foods – increases inflammation and, consequently, pain and stiffness. Because these oils compete within the body, a healthy diet puts them in balance: a healthy ratio is about 3 parts omega-6 to 1 part omega-3, Baker says. According to some estimates, the ratio in the average Western diet is more than 10 to 1. 5. A varied diet. Besides a diet of nutrient-rich foods, include vitamin K from leafy green vegetables, vitamin C from citrus fruits and vitamin D from fish and fortified dairy products. Wash it down with green tea, which has been shown to reduce inflammation in some arthritis sufferers, according to studies funded by the Arthritis Foundation. What’s Your Food Cures IQ? Food is medicine. That's the message from renowned nutritionist Joy Bauer. In her groundbreaking book Food Cures, she reveals the foods that manage, treat and even cure common health concerns such as arthritis, heart disease, diabetes and more. Do you have the prescription for better health?