Professional chef Michael Symon was diagnosed with arthritis in his 20s, on top of lupus that affects the joints. For a chef who spends hours standing in the kitchen constantly gripping tools and ingredients, arthritis can be a nightmare, but Symon found a solution through food.

After initially dabbling with a vegan diet, he decided it wasn’t suited for him and focused on eliminating the foods that flared up his joint pain. Symon claims this helped to eliminate about 80% of the joint pain he had, and steering clear of dairy products and sugar helped enormously, even though giving up ice cream was tough.

After solving his daily aches and pain with his personal solution, Symon co-authored “Fix It With Food” in 2019, as well as a follow-up in 2021 containing recipes to help inflammation discomforts. Symon has empathy towards victims of joint pain — professional chef or not — and his second book provides easy recipes for amateur cooks as well.