Emily Johnson (Arthritis Foodie): How Healthy Swaps Helped Her Beat Arthritis NATURALLY!

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me, Richard Coles.

0:04Emily Johnson:And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid on what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello sir, good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their stuff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Emily Johnson:Now, you actually knew Princess Diana. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the present. But before that interview, no-one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game-changer? So, join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5, as we catch up with the Royals.

1:02Hello and welcome to The Unprocessed Truth where we'll be diving into the food and lifestyle choices of our amazing guests. For years I was struggling and getting ill myself when I decided to take things into my own hands and look at the food and the lifestyle choices I was making and how they affected my body. So I'm here today to investigate and understand more about what our amazing guests have been doing so that they can live an amazing and a healthy life. And we'll delve into what's in their trolley and what they're putting on their plate so you can hopefully learn a few tips and tricks to live life healthy for you.

1:41So you can learn the good, the bad and of course the healthy. Today we're joined by the arthritis foodie Emily Johnson. at just 20 years old, she experienced the first symptom of seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. It took her till she was 22 to get her first diagnosis. And she spent the last eight years taking back control, taking her life into her own hands and starting the now famous blog, The Arthritis Foodie, which investigates tests and studies everything she puts on her plate nutritionally and in her body through medicine to help manage her symptoms and do her best to keep it under control.

2:24Emily is now a two-time best-selling author who has written the book on arthritis and the cookbook to go along with it so that she can teach you what she's learned on her journey. Let's get into it. Welcome to The Unprocessed Truth, Emily. Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you on the show. We start at the beginning, always with all our guests that want to know where you came from, what happened in your childhood, how did that shape your food? So can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up as a kid in your house, what food was eating, what were the favourite meals?

3:00So growing up we were actually a very healthy household to be quite honest with you. We always had vegetables, we always had fruits, we always had water at the dinner table we weren't allowed juices or coca-cola occasionally on weekends we were allowed that and takeaways as well i have a vivid memory of only being allowed frosties at christmas on christmas day that was when we were allowed frosties yeah because of the sugar content so they yeah my parents were very aware of what was healthy what was not but in the same breath you know back then you know we didn't know a lot about processed foods so there were occasionally no pre-packaged goods and pre-made foods oven foods and things like that frozen foods etc that we know a bit more about now um but i would say my my grandma was my mom's mom was a bit of a trailblazer in that she always had almond milk soy milk in the fridge when my mom was a kid so um yeah always very healthy to be quite honest with you but i suppose now know a lot more about health and nutrition yeah yeah fascinating so what you mentioned takeaways what was your favorite takeaway grainer yeah probably a chinese takeaway and my sister and i would have egg fried rice with prawn crackers and then ketchup just like squirt it all over it yeah and stirred it in and then on a prawn cracker which yeah it was like we've had that catch up on a lot of weird things in this podcast and i don't get it but anyway each to their own but so you mentioned on your social media that it was at four actually that you suffered with swollen knees first what was happening there do you have memories of it what was it like for your parents what have you been told yes so I do have memories of being in hospital at four years old I have vivid memories of being carried to the bathroom in hospital to go to the toilet to have a wash and things like that was in I was actually hospitalized for a week with swollen knees and they didn't really know what was going on at the time um obviously very worrying time for my parents having spoken to my mum you know as an adult about it and yeah they seemed to go down over over months after and you know I was checked for juvenile idiopathic arthritis for 12 months following that and nothing came of it and I was kind of signed off everything was everything was fine so to speak um and it was only years later that my arthritis essentially fled up again and it yeah so at the time what what were you thinking what what were your parents thinking in terms of what happened what's going on nothing got diagnosed no there was no formal diagnosis at all I was under the care of a rheumatologist and checked for the juvenile arthritis but as I said it just nothing came of it and because I got better and my knees went down just that was it yeah and I didn't know about it growing up until my arthritis fled at 20 years old so wow yeah that's crazy so nothing ever happened again through your childhood it was just a one-off random yeah yeah wow so your parents just were like that's it it's done you're fine yeah pretty much pretty much pretty much yeah really interesting okay well let's move forward then into because obviously you left home you then went to university yeah I did and then what happened so at university I did all the typical things that a university student does definitely drinking too much definitely not eating the right foods definitely not sleeping enough and not really taking care of myself I'd say back then I was eating to live not living to eat I really didn't care about what was on my plate, to be quite honest with you.

6:38I was more interested in socializing and studying and all of those things. So yeah, I definitely did not take care of myself in the way that I do now. What kind of things were you eating back then? Oh gosh, I like probably like super noodles, baked beans on toast, you know, fried eggs and a fried egg sandwich probably, fish fingers and you know, cod fish fingers that you put in the oven and oven chips and takeaways yeah and and with the occasional like broccoli thrown in so that's a good measure I mean it sounds like a solid stewing diet did the parents or your grandma ever teach you about cooking before yeah absolutely yeah my mum my mum really instilled all the right cooking skills I did I did my grandma and I could cook for myself I could cook a nice pasta bake I could cook all of those things I just didn't care son and I just was not interested I just I will be perfectly honest I just was not interested at all and it was only later on obviously now I mean my mum and all my family actually were like you're bringing out a cookbook like why is this um you know looking back on how I used to be with food yeah yeah well I think everyone goes through that arc right you leave home you rebel you eat crap but I did the same I remember when I was at university I lived off 50p baguettes there was a 50p baguette shop any baguette for 50p and we would go and buy six and that would be our food for like two days and it's so cheap and so wonderful in the center of birmingham where i went to uni but obviously i'd never do that now that is not good health advice but so what happened at university then so uh at university uh the first symptoms began age 20 i was a friend's barbecue and i was kind of already not taking care of myself as mentioned pushing the boundaries on sleep on on everything yeah so I'd been working as um as a tutor in Italy and teaching teaching English to to telling kids so I was rushed off my feet doing that I'd been working at a hotel a restaurant and bar I'd be working all hours doing that so I was just constantly on the go and not having any rest really and um at this barbecue I ended up with food poisoning and this food poisoning lasted the symptoms of it lasted two weeks um I was really poorly and by the time I went to the GP those kind of food poisoning symptoms had had gone but then my finger started to swell um and the first the first finger that swelled was this one and actually this is a ring that I got for my 18th birthday from my mum and I couldn't get it on it was like that because my I mean they look fine now but they were like sausages like my fingers were so swollen painful stiff um it was agonizing and I just didn't know what was happening and I was starting my third year of university went back to university with with these symptoms and I was sleeping 16 hours a day I was um just absolutely exhausted I was sneezing all the time had like cold and flu symptoms I was I was very unwell to be quite honest with you and of course trying to keep up with the you know the freshers week I mean did they still do that now but but freshers week was like you go out get drunk every single night hang out with your friends meet new people and I was trying to do that not very well and didn't end up doing much of that week to be quite honest I was just in bed and yeah I just didn't know what's happening so went to the gp and they were like oh you've got freshers flu which was like an illness that kind of a bug that went around because everyone's everyone's intermingling with each other yeah exactly and i was like no it can't be that i'm i'm really unwell um ended up in hospital ended up going to a and e in hospital because my thumbs were so so i couldn't move them i just was absolutely desperate to not know what was going on it was a it was a really difficult time really how are you feeling like you're a student you want to be enjoying yourself but you have no idea what's going on you in your body and you just your body's keeping up yeah i was really low really low i hit a massive rock bottom to be quite honest and ended up going back home to my mum for six weeks and being looked after by her whilst i started to kind of heal and mend a little bit home-cooked meals you know lots of sleep lots of rest and um by that point I had been referred I had ended up going to the rheumatologist at home and then I did get referred to a rheumatologist so yeah I did get kind of some diagnosis but again it wasn't the right diagnosis it was fibromyalgia that I got diagnosed with initially and then reactive arthritis and got told you know it'll just last a year it'll just last a year and I was like okay I mean it hasn't lasted a year it's now 12 years that I've had arthritis and ups and downs but But yeah, it was, like I said, just a very, very difficult time.

11:35But what was the advice given to you by the doctors? Was it just like, ride it out, it'll last a year, good luck? Yeah, and put me on some medication, some steroid-based medication at the time. And yeah, essentially, yeah, I told that it'll go down in a year and it's just reaction to, you know, obviously... To the food poisoning. Yeah, food poisoning triggered it, yeah. Yeah, so... Who would have thought food poisoning could trigger something in the body like that? Yeah, yeah. Well, the phrase that I like to say is your genetics hold the bullets, your environment pulls the trigger. And the trigger for me was that food poisoning.

12:10Yeah. So what was it like for you at university then? Because it sounds like you were alone. Did your friends really understand what was going on if the doctors didn't? What was that like? It was really hard, really hard. and I did feel very alone, especially because during that time, you know, everybody's drinking, everybody's going out, everybody's got their own things going on. And I did feel very alone, but I did have also some really wonderful, good friends who I'm still friends with now that did look out for me and check in on me, which I really appreciated. But it was when I went to my mum's, that's when I really sort of got myself a bit better to get myself back to university but it was a very lonely time and I was I was very down yeah very down and so mum sorted you out she looked after you she cooked you good food um but then you went back what was it like going back to university were you taking note of what you were eating then and being a bit more cautious or were you just back into uni swing of I was back into a university swing of things um and I also really didn't want people to know so much what was going on especially as it started to veer towards the arthritis diagnosis I was embarrassed um I mean I'm not now I literally speak about arthritis all the time 20 year old at uni I mean that is a kind of like oh I don't want to tell my friends I've got this one I don't want to tell people about it at all really wanted to keep it to myself um and and which also kind of ended up being another burden for me to carry as well as the actual disease itself yeah um you know I'm a bit of a type a person I so I always you know really wanted to do well at university I was also volunteering at a primary school with teaching little kids how to read I was also um in the damp society I was a brand ambassador for the university taking tours around the campus I there was so many things I was doing and all of that had to stop and my rheumatologist said look realistically you just just focus on your degree and that to me was I mean that was really hard for me to take but I did listen and I just fully focused on my studies and did really well and yeah but but it was hard it was really hard pushing through what I was feeling the pain the peak and then so okay so you didn't get any kind of help when you went back to that kind of university lifestyle of eating cooking your own kind of egg sandwiches and whatever else you were making um when was the next like did you get another flare-up how were the symptoms what were you feeling was it still really bad and painful or was it getting better at this point?

14:41It started to get better a little bit. And then I kind of thought, okay, you know, maybe I can just live with this, you know, maybe it'll be all right. And there were definitely ups and downs where there were times where it was worse than others. I mean, I actually had a scribe and I also had a laptop for some of my exams because I couldn't properly write and hold a pen. Yeah. um so that you know things had to be amended in that regard but yeah it was it was just it was just such a hard time such a hard time yeah massively so that was your final year final year at what point when you came out of uni did you start to take an interest what was the turning point where you started to look at your own health and lifestyle that contributed So the medication did actually start to work and start to help.

15:35So I thought, okay, great. And I actually managed to get into a bit of a remission with my arthritis. I've always been really ambitious and I really was like, I'm not going to let this stop me. So I want to move to London. I want to get my career off the ground. So I moved to London when I was 22. And, you know, my mum was like, oh God, you know, please take care of yourself. Don't burn the candle at both ends of that. And I did try and look after my health, but again, kind of probably pushed myself a bit too far. And then I was away with my friends on holiday and I just got really like the worst flare-up I've ever had.

16:10And I thought to myself, I actually can't live like this anymore. And what did it was I had really bad flu Christmas 2017 and the fluid went into my ankles and in my knee. I had a really bad flare-up that had just been in my hands. So it went into my ankles, my knee, and I was like, oh God. And then I was like, right, OK, just increase the dose of medication, had a steroid injection to kind of help the pain and swelling. None of those things really worked. And then by the summer of 2018, I hit this rock bottom on holiday with my friends and my elbow had swollen and I couldn't stretch my arm. And I was like, I really just can't do this.

16:50I just can't do this anymore because something's got to change. so at the time my team I was working with uh we were really close to um the deliciousie a la cafe in Mayfair and they introduced me to matcha they introduced me to quinoa I'd never had quinoa before um or quinoa because I didn't know how to pronounce it at the time and uh and I was like god yeah all this healthy food like I wonder if maybe it could make a difference I don't know and I started to think about it and my my friends at work were like Em why don't you just try it like you're like you should just try it and I was like yeah I should and what have I got to lose I'm literally at rock bottom right now the medications aren't working the temporary things that would normally help aren't helping yeah I'm just going to go for it so that's when arthritis foodie was was born so you went for it but so were your friends in the know at this point they were supportive or still hiding I was still hiding it I was actually still hiding it yeah so I all that time yeah i was actually still hiding it aside from close friends and close family i was still hiding it so when i actually started arthritis foodie in 2018 i did it anonymously the account was anonymous an anonymous food diary um and i because at the time i was googling you know arthritis diets arthritis nutrition and just couldn't find anything and everything so much was um conflicted you know in terms of the advice so i just thought i'm just gonna self-experiment and just go for it and try things out myself and documented it at the same time.

18:18All whilst looking up, you know, Dr. Rupi and Dr. Jenner and Dr. Gemma Newman and all these incredible doctors who were on the nutrition side of things started to look at their recipes and thought, okay, I'm going to give this a go basically and really tested it out. And a lot of the books that, because there were books on arthritis and arthritis diets at the time, but they were about, you know, 20, 25 years old. They were old, they were outdated, they weren't backed into science. And so I just thought, I'm just going to go off and do this myself and give it a try. See what happens. And see what happens.

18:51And it genuinely started to help me. It really, really did. It's funny how the world's progressed since 2018, right? If you think you were going to do it anonymously because there was this, like, embarrassment, this shame around a diagnosis, which clearly isn't your fault. And, you know, you want and you should want your friends there, your family to support you. and you're keeping it secret whereas now everything's on podcasts and talked about and put out there for content's sake but in a way we've got a much more transparent open society which is really good right because I think if you'd have had your friends through that time at uni it might have been a little bit less of a burden for you it would have done it absolutely would have done and it was it was really cathartic for me actually starting arthritis foodie because I was I was putting my pain somewhere and I was also building a community of people who understood that pain and understood how I was feeling and were also looking for alternative ways to take care of their health and you know my thing is you you will never be able to fully cure arthritis that's I will never say that but what you can do is find a better way to live with it every single day and reduce your symptoms as best as you can and manage those flare-ups and get yourself to a better place that's a really interesting point you said you had a doctor supporting you through this journey when you started doing that did you tell them did you have a discussion with them about using nutrition and food to manage your symptoms what was the that conversation like yeah so i actually spoke with my rheumatologist at the time that i didn't tell them about off-race food but i did tell them that i was looking into nutrition and they kind of just shrugged it off and said well healthy balanced diet that's all you can do yeah and i was like oh god there's it's got more to it than that there's just got to be more to it than that and i just knew instinctively to just keep going and keep trying and you know there is research coming out now about this sort of thing um yeah there was one that came out in to whoever's listening to the podcast it came out may 2025 um and it showed that a mediterranean diet and polyunsaturated fatty acids alongside medication can reduce inflammation and symptoms in people with rheumatoid arthritis and these things are starting to come out now amazing and it's all the stuff that I was doing back then and my recipes are based on the Mediterranean diet.

21:08Yeah the body's assistant right yeah feed it good things and it'll work properly and I always think that you know any expression of disease in the body it's all connected right it's not part of the challenge with the medical system is we try and diagnose it put it in a little black box call it this one thing and all you can do is take this steroid that will then reduce the symptom but it doesn't actually look at the root cause where it came from do you have any thoughts about where it came from or do you think it's genetic or what it rolls in the environment i know the food poisoning triggered it you think there was more to it than that yeah definitely um so it's not just diet that i talk about it's everything from stress sleep exercise the environment you're in they call it the exposome which is like everything your body is is around and consuming effectively so yeah it's not it's not just diet and i know when my stress levels are high that is that i'm more likely to have a flow up i'm more likely to be in pain it just goes hand in hand yeah and it's same with sleep as well if i don't sleep enough i i really feel it in my joints so it's that whole yeah 100 it's that whole picture around inflammation when you've got an instant feedback loop in a way although it's a disease and it's not nice but in a way it tells you exactly what's going on in your body very quickly whereas most of us are kind of suppressed to it we're not in tune with our body and we just carry on till it's too late yeah absolutely absolutely and and knowing yourself and knowing your body is the best gift you can give yourself it really is well I mean so you started Arthur Wright as foodie and you were kind of everyday blogging what you were eating how you were feeling you know what was that journey like you said it was quite therapeutic in a way you know what did you learn on that journey yeah it was it was really therapeutic and I like I said I ended up finding people and making friends with people online who were of a similar age to me with arthritis and I just couldn't believe it because in the waiting rooms that I had been in you know there were there weren't any there weren't anyone there wasn't anyone yeah there weren't 20 year old yeah it just no no no yeah so I just that was just awesome for me I was like oh oh my gosh, I'm...

23:24You're not alone. Yeah, I'm not alone, which is huge, which is absolutely huge. And like I said, you know, it really genuinely started to help me and my symptoms and my health took a huge turn for the better. Oh, really? Just through that process? Through the food, yeah. Having a community, the food. Everything. Everything. So, okay, so what were some of the first things you learned then about your body on that journey and its relationship with food? Oh my gosh. so not just what you eat but also the timing of when you eat it so you know not not snacking late at night um fasting as well I do I still do that now um your water intake making sure you're hydrated your drinks joints are lubricated essentially um all of that as well that I hadn't even I mean it just hadn't even crossed my mind prior to starting my blog um over time the the account grew so i did i was like okay i need to like put my face to this i need to come clear what was that what was the moment where you decided enough is enough i need to tell people who i am and be honest about yeah so it was as i started to get more and more followers i think i was like starting to get towards 10 000 followers and i was like oh my gosh so i can't if i'm gonna really help people i've got to be honest and open about who i am what i look like i don't look like I've got arthritis and that's the whole point.

24:50So as I actually got to start really doing this. And so, yeah, I put my face out there and kind of got over the nerves of that and just did it. And I'm so grateful that I have because it's given other people the comfort to be more open and honest about their condition and about where they're at. And then, of course, I got messages saying, you know, how can I do this? Where can I get this information? how can I help myself and I had all the information in my mind but I had nowhere to send people to which is how the first book was born okay so then you decided to formulate it put it in a book which I have a copy right here you do beat arthritis naturally so you'd already been blogging for a few years you had all these questions from your community about what can I do how can you help and I mean how much time was this taking you this must have been a real labor of love massive labor of love yeah I started writing it I'd say in 2019 I started writing it uh I actually still have the original handwritten pages that I that I began with just as a little souvenir yeah and it is everything you could possibly need to know about living well with arthritis and it's all the things I've already spoken about not just diet but stress sleep inflammatory loads so any inflammatory foods inflammatory substances you know alcohol being one of them you know it's all of that and it's backed in research in scientific studies and rheumatologists has also signed and approved the entire book and i've got over 10 different healthcare experts on each each chapter has got health expert in it as well amazing so you mentioned in the beginning when you were starting arthritis foodie there was a lot of kind of conflicting messages you know there were certain books out there but they weren't backed by science like what was going on how did you approach this subject because you're not a scientist you're not a doctor you're just someone living the pain of arthritis how did you approach the subject to create something that's so backed by science grounded in the truth without being a nutritionist or a doctor yourself a self-taught I just was like I I was so hungry to know this information that I was I was scrolling PubMed like scrolling the scientific studies just constantly I was always wanting to find out the right information for this book and I and I it's like you said it's a labor of love it's it's something I'm so deeply passionate about that I wanted to do it justice and I wanted to do it right so that's where it came from even though I'm not technically officially qualified or anything like that and I am training to be but yeah that's why I got the health experts on board that's why I got rheotologist on board because I don't want to sit here and, you know, I don't want to harm anyone.

27:40I don't want people to take it the wrong way, et cetera. And I would never recommend people come off the medication. Absolutely not. No, but I mean, living with arthritis and experimenting on yourself gives you a direct feedback loop and a deeper interest in this subject than probably most doctors. But going through that process and what were some of the biggest kind of myths with arthritis that you came across and some things you wanted to debunk? Yeah. Oh, gosh. So there's so many. One of them would possibly be nightshade vegetables. So things like aubergines, tomatoes, potatoes, a lot of people who have arthritis.

28:17I mean, some will say that it does help them to cut them out, which in that case, if it works for you, absolutely fine. but there's no scientific studies at this point to say that cutting out nitrate vegetables has an impact on inflammation they're actually very healthful they're actually you know part of fiber vitamins minerals etc that are very good for you so yeah that was definitely a myth that did you try it yourself i did so you tried cutting out you just didn't do anything didn't didn't seem to do anything yeah not for me anyway well i think everybody's different right i think some people swear by cutting out nightshades yeah and that's the thing i think maybe you're a bit react some people are a bit reactive to it others just aren't and so when you do a study you're not going to find anything conclusive because it's not ubiquitous to everybody but that's interesting and that's why i said like my book is is the beginning of your journey almost because you have to then go away and self-experiment on what works for you and what works for your body and yes there are things that are anti-inflammatory and inflammatory however what might be more impactful for you might not be for somebody else exactly yeah it's different for everybody so go on then give us a couple more of these myths oh my gosh i have to think i think one of them was like putting cabbage leaves on your joints and like steaming cabbage leaves or something i'm sure i'm sure i looked into that i'm sure i looked into that at the time yeah definitely not also cabbage leaves have an interesting history because don't they freeze them and then put them on breasts for mastitis i've experienced that could be a thing not myself personally but yeah i don't quite know whether it's the cooling properties or what um yeah that could be so cabbage leaves on the ankles don't work yeah definitely i can understand why that would work necessarily i mean look i've been there myself in a way with anya when she had ulcerative colitis and it was probably around 2016 2017 time when we were going through this and the information wasn't there online like it is today and so you are left like buying an obscure book of a case study of someone who wrote something down about it once you know to try and figure this stuff out but you try everything and you I think honestly that's probably the best way to approach these things is just constantly test and learn constantly go do you know what I've got nothing to lose let me just give it a go and then you figure out what works and what doesn't for you because it is very individual so you know I think it's great really really good what you did and how was the process of you know basically taking years of all your social media self-experimenting and putting it in this book did you really feel like you were on a on a mission to help the arthritis community absolutely and i and i'm still on that mission now and i i feel like i have been almost given this as a gift to use to help people that's how i see having arthritis i don't see it as a burden i see it as a gift because now it means i can help as many people as i can all over the world and that's the goal and yeah and if someone's experiencing arthritis what's the first thing you'd recommend?

31:29Oh my gosh, self-compassion is actually the first thing I'd recommend. Of course, look my books up, but self-compassion because I think that because there is so much information out there, you're told, you know, from your doctors to do one thing, your rheumatologist to another, your friends and family might give you their recommendations and ideas, which are all, you know, lovely and welcome. But I think you have to have some self-compassion to sit with yourself and go okay what's right for me and what can I do in this moment and what can you do once a day just one small thing a day what can you do what can you change you know could you start by having green tea instead of coffee in the morning could you try that you know it's got more antioxidants in with a bit of manuka honey or something you know yeah could you just try little by little to change things in your in your day-to-day well I think the psychology of having that open mind to it is really really important because i've had friends and people i've worked with have been diagnosed with certain things and i've tried to approach them and talk to them and say hey look and you went through a similar thing this is what we did like would you be open to a chat and some people turn around to me flatly and said no i'm just gonna do what the doctor says for now and absolutely you should do what the doctor says but you should also look at the other side of the equation, right?

32:53And look at it holistically and have, I believe, the mindset to say, I can do something about this, not I have this condition and therefore whatever the doctor gives me as a drug, that's it. That's all I'm doing. We are, you know, we're a whole entity, a whole system. So the more people that have that mindset, like you say, I think is really important. Yeah, take your power back. That's the way I view it. And that's how I write about it in my books is, you know, you almost when you sit there with the rheumatologist or the doctor and they are giving you all the things to do, they've got the power of your condition there, which of course they should.

33:30Of course, they should have that power. But you kind of almost sit back and let them deal with it. Whereas if you start to do things for your health, you really start to educate yourself, learn about your own body, learn about what works for you, the nutrition, the sleep, everything. that's power that no one can take away from you and you have have have that for life um so take your power back i love that that's so important so fundamental to any disease any health situation anything you're doing take your power back take it into your own hands and do something because no one's going to care about it as much as you do when you've been living with that condition for years and years and years in silence hiding it from your friends going through uni doing all of that stuff as a 20 year old with arthritis yeah and and also you can feel when you have a condition like this you can feel really out of control really out of control and especially when you have that diagnosis it can feel very overwhelming and also like oh my goodness i'm gonna live with this for the rest of my life and that that feels really whoa so if you can take take some of that control back yeah and do something for yourself wow that actually feels really good what can i do for myself every day yeah yeah okay so i'm coming over for dinner what one thing uh this beautiful book eat well with arthritis we could cook for me what's the game changer so i believe it's page 146 oh wow you got to memorize salmon um with the lentils and orange dressing but i mean i may not be and you have poor smoky jack jackfruit salad you got the page wrong terrible is it the next one no it's not if i was i know 148 salmon before the end is an orange dressing that was a good shout that was good knowledge of your own book so that's what you're cooking me for dinner it looks lovely yes but essentially the makeup of this meal will talk us through it yeah so you've got the fiber with your lentils you've got the The watercress, you've got nitrates to help with the blood vessels.

35:36You've got amigas with the salmon. And then, you know, it's got to taste good, right? So we've got a nice orange dressing, a bit of vitamin C there as well. But yeah, I actually could not live without my omega-3 supplements. That is something that I really do feel a difference with, with my joints. Yeah. If you can't have fish every day or you're vegan, et cetera, omega-3. You need your omega-3 for sure. Yeah, you're omega-3, yeah. I mean, Dr. Rhonda Patrick recently said not taking fish oil or eating enough fish is akin to shortening your life the same way as smoking, which is wild. It's really important for your brain as well.

36:12Really important. Yeah. I mean, so good for so many things. Brain, heart, you name it, even vision. It can be incredibly good for if you're getting a quality supplement. I try and eat fish at least once a week, but I'm definitely not that consistent with it. So I do take a fish oil as well. You need to do it. But that sounds delicious. I would come over for dinner. That's great. I love that. Awesome. And there's 85 recipes in this book that will teach people to eat healthy. But also you're basically eating meat and vegetables. Yes. Which is a thing I like to touch on because I think we're typically trained to put the carbohydrate on the plate first.

36:51Do you find much of that in your book? Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a lot of vegetables and fruits. there's a lot of carbohydrates yeah but protein is so important so yeah you should definitely be getting your your salmon your chicken sorry i should clarify i mean refined carbohydrates like so carbohydrate vegetables no but this is a good point vegetables are carbohydrates yes so if you talk about putting carbs on you you need good carbs on your plate when someone says that i'm like cool put your two veg on that plate and you're good to go from a carbohydrate perspective but I think we're trained in this world where actually most people are putting pasta, rice, bread on their plate.

37:29What's your view on that? Do you use them much in your diet? Not too much, no. I think everything in moderation. Yeah. To be quite honest with you, the issue I think that people have with things like refined carbohydrates and gluten is that they will be having, you know, I don't know, slice of toast for breakfast and then a ham sandwich for lunch and then pasta for dinner with not much variation on that and that's where the problem is I think because you're not getting your you know your fibrous virgin you're not getting all your different polyphenols and vitamins and minerals so I think that's where the issue is there's too much consumption of it I think in model everything in moderation right but I tend not to have too much of it 100 % I mean I agree this you have a bit of pasta have a bit of I do everybody does it's fine but it's become like the main staple of every meal whether it be breakfast lunch dinner there's that heavy refined carb which actually we should be focusing on the nutrition of the vegetables and the meat which is what your book does wonderfully it's a very good job it looks like a great book so let's get on to the next stage of the podcast the good the bad and the healthy we want to find out about what you're doing today and then start with the good what's one thing you're proud of in your diet at the moment my meal prepping oh milk yeah I do meal prep I do meal prep and I it's something I talk about and recommend a lot for my community because on the days when you don't have much energy or your pain levels are high or you've had a stressful day or you know not very much sleep you want to be able to reach in the fridge and have something that you've already prepared or in the freezer that you've frozen yeah so just there and you don't have to yeah yeah so overnight oats is a massive one for me i love a good meal prep overnight oats i love making like chili bean chili and that and portions that will go in the freezer as well what's your overnight oat recipe so i will do oats almond milk chia seeds a bit of cinnamon some raisins a bit of ginger a tiny bit of ground clove uh yeah and it has like a cinnamon toast like it's in it's what it's one in front of the book has like a cinnamon toast flavor yeah nice and does that fill you up there's not much protein in there no no there isn't it does it does fill me up though it's really yeah it's really I occasionally have a protein shake as well next to it in the mornings um with a bit of tribe tribe cacao protein powder nice good one with no artificial sweetenies exactly yeah very good very good I like it okay so then let's get into the bad, that bit of rubbish that everyone has in their diet, right?

40:05We all have our odd cheat meal. Yeah, yeah we do. What's yours? Do you know what my Achilles heel is? If I'm out for brunch I might occasionally buy it in hash browns. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I love hash browns. A greasy fried one or like the proper homemade style in a cafe? I will have it however it's however it comes yeah yeah so hash browns try to bake beans like yeah because Anya's the same my wife she she loves a hash brown and whenever we go out for breakfast if they've got it on the menu she'll add it or always add a hash brown but if they make it properly and fresh I think it can be one of the most delicious things ever if you get those like frozen ones that are just that little weird triangle that are then deep fried it just like That to me is absolute trash.

40:55Like I can literally not even eat it. It tastes so vile, I think. It's soaked in that oil. I can't stand it. Yeah, I will have to like add to this that deep fried foods is something that does trigger me. So having like a deep fried hash brown is not really a good thing for me, which is why it isn't great. So you'll do it anyway? Well, not every G can, but yeah. It's an Achilles heel. Screw my heart. I need this hash brown. Wow. Okay. we've all got our vices right but it's about making more of the good choices and less of the bad right that's fair enough okay so let's discuss then the healthy what's from your books or something you've done recently what's one of the things that's had the biggest impact on your arthritis oh i've already mentioned omega-3 i'll mention it again honestly best thing ever i'm absolutely could not live without my um supplement there um i'm a superfood powders so i have like yeah yeah like cacao powder cacao powder maca powder and obviously my matcha powder as well and spirulina all of those like when i'm making a really good smoothie in the mornings yeah i've got to get those superfoods in get all those antioxidants and polyphenols load it in yeah it's a good choice it's a good choice so that's in your protein shake is it yeah typically yeah does that look like then protein powder you tried protein powder plus extra cacao yeah extra cacao yeah the extra antioxidants yeah those blavanols yeah big fan of your can yeah and then some flax seeds gram flax seeds yeah banana nice um i may put some frozen fruit in there like frozen berries um and then yeah my maca maca powder and matcha i'll make a matcha separately and then yeah almond milk or soy milk yeah nice interesting i mean it's frozen berries is the key to a good smoothie for me you need that something cold to blend it up with so then it's like a really nice gives it really good texture as well oh yeah thick and creamy that's that's my number one tip for a proper smoothie okay really interesting so you you've done a lot of very interesting things with your health i mean you've got so much knowledge and so much you've done is there any like science or other bits you want to talk about in terms of arthritis specifically of what you've learned over the years for anyone who's listening with arthritis that you know you you can help them with their life yeah so as i've said earlier there is a lot of information out there there's a lot of misinformation disinformation hearsay or life's tales all of that and i think it can feel very overwhelming when you're diagnosed so i think starts starts more have a lot of compassion for yourself and also know that it's an adjustment and it won't happen overnight so you know I now know really well how to manage my condition and how to manage it in social situations when I go on holiday where I'm at work I really understand myself and understand my condition but that's not happened overnight yeah so you really have to be patient with yourself so I think if you're sat here and you're just diagnosed or you're about to be diagnosed and you're not sure what's going on and you're feeling that frustration and overwhelm just take a deep breath and yeah be kind to yourself and be patient and it will get better yeah absolutely well so how long because you touch on time being a really important factor how long did it take for you to feel like you had it a bit under control when you started after the right foodie i'd say after three months i started to notice changes with my health so that's quite quick yeah 12 weeks and then six months i really really felt a difference but it's like when you have a new medication they say give it 12 weeks and then after 12 weeks they say okay give it six months so if you're going to give a medication that long give this that long as well you have to give it a chance yeah yeah yeah i guess and that's the problem right we all want instant fixes and we want quick results now give me the drug stop the pain you know let us crack on but the reality is much different than that yeah there isn't a quick fist there isn't a quick tumour shot you can you can take you know it's the whole picture so yeah and it yeah it's not gonna happen overnight and also it's okay if you fall off the wagon or you eat something that you maybe shouldn't have eaten or you drink something you maybe shouldn't have drank or you have a late night or you whatever it is because we're all human nobody's perfect so you also have to have compassion in that regard as well and just because you've you know had a had a flare-up doesn't mean that you can't get better from that but when you're in it it can feel really like oh gosh when will this end yeah but it does get better when you had arthritis for how long now 12 years 12 years and do you think you'll ever get it totally in remission or do you think you're going to live with it for the rest of the day i would i would love to be able to say that i can get it to a point where i will never have flare-ups but that's not realistic so absolutely i would i would want to get it to a better place every day better and better and i am in a really good place now I actually haven't had a significant flare-up in about 18 months oh wow that's a long time yeah really I'm doing really well so for all intents and purposes it's is it like you're totally better you can live your life without arthritis or do you still kind of notice this I do notice it in times of stress and like a sleep and things like that you know recently moved moved home so that was a bit of a stressor so but I didn't have a significant flare-up like I did 18 months ago.

46:28So that for me is a huge win. Well, it's a game changer. Yeah. You can live your life. Yeah. Amazing. That's so good. That's so encouraging for people that they can do that and they can get it to that level, which is, I think, phenomenal. So let's get on to some quickfire questions so we can get into the truth and find out what's really going on behind the scenes of the Arthur Wright's Foodie. So let's go with your favourite on-the-go healthy snack. Oh, okay. I'm gonna have to say pistachios so curious choice yeah and they're not they're not easy to open if you have arthritic cancer I actually get them from M &S because they're already deshelled okay and they're so yummy they're so so nice so yeah that's like probably one of my go-tos yeah so the Dubai chocolate trend where they're putting pistachio in everything is like your thing right now quite possibly how much Dubai chocolate have you I have tried so much the dark chocolate one Yeah, I have actually tried things.

47:23You like it? Yes or no? Yeah, it's okay. Worth it? I think it's a bit of a hype. It's a bit of a hype. Like 10 pound for a bar of chocolate. That's not the one, is it? That's crazy. Yeah, not the one. Okay, if you could eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh my gosh, one meal for the rest of my life. What would that be? Doesn't have to be from the duck. Could you see my face just like scrolling through my book? Like, like, recipe. Page 452. Not quite. Do you know what? I'm going to be really basic right now and say, it would be avocado, smoked salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, a bit of sweet chili jam.

48:00Mmm, yum. Yeah, yeah. Healthy. Like a brunch, a really good brunch food. All your immediate three would be done there. Good fats from the avocado, salt. Yeah, all of that, yeah. Good choice, I could eat. And poached eggs, yeah, poached eggs.

48:13Emily Johnson:Yeah, they need diets, obviously they need diets. Any food that you think deserves superfood status? so i have been drinking matcha since 2018 and it's having a moment so you start and i still yeah matcha girly no i definitely did not start the trend and actually at the time my friends were like what are you like what are you drinking what is this what is this green thing it's this stuff you're drinking yeah matcha i i honestly love it i will keep talking about it forever i think i'm always drinking it because you get that caffeine hit but you also get l-theanine at the same time so you get this calm release of energy during the day i had one this morning very good while you're on fire love it so then obviously you've written the book on arthritis you've written the cookbook on arthritis in that process what's the one food that surprised you the most in terms of having an impact on your heart so this is one that people will have heard of and that's turmeric so I really thought turmeric was just a hype yeah and there wasn't anything in it but actually it's game-changing and I do try and fit it in my diet wherever I can I sneak it into salad dressings I sneak it into pasta sauces you know I do actually I do actually use that one and it's not it's not hype there's a lot of research that's in both of my books about turmeric so how do you sneak it any powdering does the spice have the same benefit yeah turmeric powder is what I'm using and then if you can also use black pepper at the same time it helps with the piperine to so everything all your white kitchen counters are now yellow pretty much it's in everything yeah but it's quite a versatile ingredient in the sense it doesn't have such a strong flavor like you could add it in sneakily to a lot of stuff really can yeah and of course if you're having curries as well that's also you can also load it as you know load it up in there yeah and that made a big did you notice a big difference on your i thought right that's where you yeah well all of it the whole picture the whole picture definitely but it was more the the research around true mate that was i was like wow okay this is this is actually you know it's not an old wives tale this is actually a thing legit yeah a lot of science yeah i love it i mean there is so much science behind what food can do for the body it's amazing when you get into your late night pub med sessions you start to like uncover this whole world but you know from a regulatory perspective the government and the eu specifically say food is not medicine and food can never be medicine and treat or cure or prevent any disease which is just complete bullshit frankly um that needs to change because it's not that we need to dismiss the world of medicine it's that we need to work together yeah work together absolutely absolutely amazing so for those who don't know can you tell us a little bit more of the science on turmeric and the research that you discovered that makes it such a powerful ingredient yes i can in my book It's in your book.

51:08Go, get it out. I absolutely can do that. So it's actually 10 times more active as an antioxidant than vitamin E, according to some studies. And it also can exceed the anti-arthritic activity of an NSAID, which is a type of an arthritic drug. Curcumin has also shown some promising effects in patients with various pro-inflammatory diseases, including arthritis, irritable bowel disease, and psoriasis. Amazing. yeah so it's even more powerful than the NSAID according to one study according to one study okay it's not conclusive the more is a yada yada yada caveats you can get the you can get the papers in the back of here as well it's all referencing the book I mean it's I guess that's the beauty of science right is that there is that one study that says something and you're like oh my god is this true we maybe don't know we can't prove it but the whole point of what you've done is let's go find it out let's go test it on myself and see whether that study is true or not it's not to say the science has to give us the answer but it can point us in the right direction to test it on our own body and then see if it actually works it's not to say throw away them and just start taking turmeric but why not try add turmeric in as well see if it doubles the effect and has that improvement on your health but most of us just go no no no that's all nonsense so let me just take the drug which is wild that's really interesting do both i'm doing both you're doing both and you're crushing it look at you it's amazing that's really interesting so you've tried so many different things from matcha to turmeric and all the recipes in your book but how do you know like what's the feedback loop what's the process for testing these things for someone if they're sitting here today going I'm gonna actually try some of these things how do you know what's working for you that is a really good question so when I first started arthritis foodie I was testing everything one at a time.

53:00Oh really she was very methodical. Really methodical and I have all my diaries handwritten diaries from back then with which I used to to write the book. I basically cut out everything that was potentially inflammatory and then gradually introduced one inflammatory thing per week to see if that would impact me or affect me including the nightshade vegetables and things like that and then of course also So simultaneously, once I'd done that, started introducing the anti-inflammatory once a week, specific, dedicated, you know. How long did that take? It sounds like you were on a proper testing schedule for like a year.

53:37Yeah, pretty much. I was testing so many things. Yeah. Yeah. And I was I was obsessed with it. Obsessed with it. Well, it's your life, right? You're trying to fix your life. Still a bit obsessed with it, to be honest. there's nothing wrong with a bit of obsession but in that process then you mentioned you went to kind of a very baseline diet what did that look like if someone wants to go on one of these kind of testing protocols how do you strip out all inflammatory foods and what are you eating they can go to mine it's in your book secrets in the book buy the book no i i started cooking everything from scratch um yeah literally back to basics and what i do and even still now what i do is I have everything in my store cupboard.

54:21So, you know, my tinned butter beans, my tinned chickpeas, all my spices and herbs, my quinoa, my brown rice pasta, whatever it is, is in my store cupboards. And then I just buy the food fresh for the fridge. And then I can essentially make anything from that. You had a good grounding in cooking, helpfully. Yeah, that also helps. And you decided you wanted to cook after uni. Yeah, that also helps. You had a good grounding. But I mean, that's fundamental to everything, right? You need to learn to cook food so you can control what's going in your food. Yeah, definitely. That's definitely. Fascinating.

54:53Fascinating. What a story. I mean, there's so much to unpack in this whole thing. And I hope really from this, people just take away that nugget of they can do something about their health, whatever it is, whether it is arthritis or something else, you have the power, your body has the power to kind of heal itself if you create the right environment. And that's what you've done and thoroughly tested and then put in these wonderful books for everyone else to learn from. So well done, Emily. It's an amazing, amazing story. Thanks very much. Thank you so much for coming in. You know, it's a really hard topic to talk about with what you went through at the university and being so brave to first blog it anonymously and then, you know, put your face in front of it and kind of share, you know, I'm sure you've changed thousands of people's lives with arthritis, which I think is, you know, phenomenal.

55:43and you've given them the access to information that wasn't there before so well done I think it's huge but yeah thank you for coming in thanks for having me you're welcome until next time keep your trolley stocked with the good less of the bad and of course more of the healthy