It took my savings and 14 years but I’m about to beat arthritis

What this means is a lot of cooking from scratch, which means hands! So how about a whole food, plant based diet that requires very little preparation?

This is serious, so please do not waste time with 'cut out teh carbz' bro science. Do not take advice from anyone that talks of 'seed oils' and other keto talking points. Keto and carnivore diets are fad diets that are just another way to get to calorie restriction. They are popular amongst people with protein obsessions and social media influencers, because who does not want to eat steak and butter?

The whole food, plant based diet means no animal products, no refined sugars, no processed foods and lots of plants. Lots is important as vegetables, pulses, grains, beans and fruit are not as calorie dense as a lump of meat. You will need to be eating huge bowls of cooked food and not skipping meals just so you can get your calories in.

On a whole food, plant based diet, you can vary your diet by the season. This means buying from the vegetable and fruit aisles, going for whatever is on offer.

Due to the hands, you might want to buy lots of prepared frozen vegetables. Get the lot.

Oils are what you don't want in your system. Clearly we need some fats but there are plenty in nuts. Personally I only use a small amount of mild olive oil in the air fryer, I don't have butter or fake spreads.

Sugar is surprisingly easy to give up and comes with immediate health benefits as you have to home cook everything to avoid sugar. Sugar is in sauces and other savoury products that you would not expect.

Once you have knocked off sugar, you can knock off the animal products and expand your repertoire of goto plant based recipes.

What works for me is slow cooking. I usually start by putting a chopped onion and some garlic in the pot, to then add some starchy vegetables such as sweet potato, then some leafy greens, then a tonne of lentils and dried beans.

If there is room I put even more vegetables in and add some herbs and spices. Sometimes this could be a curry, or it could be a new herb I am experimenting with. Ginger goes in quite often, there is no fixed recipe as recipes are boring.

I usually add some chopped tomatoes, top up with water and set the thing to do its thing for about four hours.

This approach means I am spending twenty minutes in the kitchen every day, in total. I often add grains such as rice or barley, or I add pasta to the pot after taking my first portion, adding water as appropriate. Grains or pasta does not take four hours, an hour should be good. This means my second portion is a variation on the first.

To top out my slow cooked creation I put some tofu or even some vegetables such as broccoli in the air fryer, with some herbs. This gives different texture.

Just by varying the ingredients I can get variety even though I am doing a one pot meal.

Be an autodidact with this, implement your changes on a monthly basis and see how the inflammation in your hands changes. If you go WFPB then you should end up with excellent gut health, to be in the middle of the Bristol Poo Scale every time, with farts that don't smell.

This is an elimination diet, specifically sugar and animal products. Once you have done the 'factory reset' then you can add in the favourites again, super sensitive to how you feel afterwards. Or you might not want to. I could not care for sugar when it was gone, and the same with dairy, which I thought I was wedded to.

One pot meals, tray bakes and air fried things provide enough variety for me. I don't indulge in salads because of the lack of calories, and neither do I make smoothies because they are for babies, gym bros and people in care homes. Cooking is our original innovation and we need cooked food, mostly starches, to get the calories in.

https://archive.ph/Cwtq3