Cook, Eat & Thrive With Chef Biju

Released Nov. 10, 2026
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Trina Wilcox: Welcome to the Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast. My name's Trina Wilcox. I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at age 6. And fortunately, I've been able to have a really active lifestyle. I've known from a young age how important it is to stay active, exercise and eat well. So, I am very excited for our guest today, Chef Biju Thomas. You are co-author of The Feed Zone Cookbook and host of The Road Less Eaten. Welcome.
Biju Thomas: Thank you. Yes, indeed, I am those things. And also, I've had gout since 2010, or 2011, was my first flare-up. And yeah, that's something I've had to learn to work with and live with in a very, very physical and active life and work that I do. So yes, I can relate to quite a few of the listeners and people out there, too.
Trina Wilcox: So, take me back to when you found out you had gout. Were you already an active human, getting out, doing things, eating well, or were you just a couch potato having all the junk?
Biju Thomas: No, no, no. I never had the luxury of being a couch potato, coming up from very strict parents. I'm a chef by trade and had been working in the sports world since early 2000s, so about 23, 24 years. And we had just started a new sports nutrition company that is still out there called Scratch Labs. We do, you know, high-caliber or high-quality sports nutrition products for athletes. And we were just launching that in 2010 and 2011, during which there was a big bike race in Northern California, the Tour of California, and I was the exec chef of that. I woke up one morning outside of Lake Tahoe, and my right big toe was not functioning. It was just swollen. There was so much pain. And I thought I got bit by a spider because nothing else would explain like why overnight for the first time ever I couldn't get my socks on; I couldn't get my shoes on. It was a mess.
Anybody who's had gout knows: It feels like your skin's on fire. And so I went to urgent care and the lady's like, "Oh no, you have gout." So, it was a pretty quick diagnosis. It went untreated for many years because I didn't know what to do, and I didn't really look into it, because the flare-ups were kind of far apart. For the most part, I would just do massive amounts of ibuprofen or over-the-counter anti-inflammatories if I could. I didn't drink a lot, so drinking wasn't really a thing. And eating all the organ meats and stuff, that's not really part of my diet. It was mostly just dealing with the pain and getting back to work. But short answer, no. I was always very, very active and didn't really have an option even when there are flare-ups.
Trina Wilcox: Did you find that personally frustrating, knowing that you didn't eat the typical way that people find out that they have to change when they do have gout?
Biju Thomas: If you look at gout throughout history, there was moments in which it was considered a bonus to have gout flare-ups, because it signaled to the world that you were eating well and you were part of the royalty and you didn't do anything and you ate really nutrient-rich organ meats, (they) are very nutrient-dense, which is why people eat liver and heart and kidney and whatnot, incredibly nutrient-dense, but also dense in things that are not good for us and those of us that are dealing with gout.
So yeah, it was incredibly frustrating for me personally to think like, OK, I don't drink excessively. And that varies by person. And for some people it's wine; some people, it's beer, some people, it's cocktail that trips it, cocktails rather. Yeah, so it was a combination of discovering that I, for the most part, live a very healthy lifestyle, eat well, do all the things, and still it didn't matter. It was just one of those genetic things that I was predisposed to have at some point or some version of it, and that's what I got.
Trina Wilcox: At what point did you realize that you needed maybe a little more help in alleviating the symptoms? And how did you start taking advantage of your diet to help that?
Biju Thomas: Yeah. As far as getting help with the symptoms, I was the first person in my family to deal with it. Then it turns out two of my brothers now have it, one, two of my nephews. And so, it's been one of those things that's bigger part of the conversation within the family now, whereas before, I was just kind of trying to figure it out myself. So, I did go to my doctor. Initially, they got me on allopurinol and colchicine and a few things. And then now I travel with colchicine and prednisone because the only pain-relieving source that works for me is prednisone immediately when something starts. And if I take it that first day, then it kind of goes away, and I don't have to worry about it for a few weeks.
But that took a long time to figure out that I personally don't need to stay on something every single day, and I could deal with it on an episode-by-episode basis. So, that was a big discovery, learning how to deal with it. My diet, I do like to have a drink with my friends, and I do love Belgian beers when I'm traveling and when I'm… I fly a lot internationally. I love a gin and tonic when I'm in flight. So, it's those things of, OK, how do I deal with that while still at the same time being able to function as a very active human being? My drinking went down significantly, and I save it for very, very special occasions with the idea that if it does trigger a gout episode, at least I know that going into it, it won't be a surprise to me.
But beyond that, changing my diet wasn't particularly hard for me, because I already eat fairly healthy. But even that, the statement eating healthy, on its own, I don't think really means much, as it varies by individual on what can trigger your gout, versus somebody else's, you know, or your arthritis episodes. Even though there's universally some things we all want to avoid and other things we want to increase, it's definitely a case-by-case situation, and people just need to really pay attention to their own bodies of what the early, early symptoms and signs are of a flare-up or an episode coming on.
Trina Wilcox: So, as you were kind of leaning into changing certain things, did you change how you traveled and prepared your meals or what you were going to plan out for an endurance event?
Biju Thomas: Yes, for sure. As you mentioned earlier, I work with athletes. I work with endurance athletes and high-performance athletes. I've been a chef in that space for many years. I'm the exec chef for the U.S. Olympic team on the cycling side, so road and mountain. And then also, I just came back yesterday from Mountain Bike World Championships, which are in Italy. So, even these younger athletes that are at the top of their game were very, very aware of foods that trigger inflammation. During events or during competition, in the few days coming into competition, we tend to go very low-gluten foods or low in wheat gluten foods. So, we tend to avoid a lot of pasta, a lot of bread, pastries and whatnot, and go to foods that are lower in wheat gluten and the higher nutrient density.
For endurance sports, you're looking for high-carb food, so we go heavy into rice and potatoes and all the rest of it. And definitely good, clean fats. And I know that word gets tossed around a lot, or that phrase, “clean fats.” And that simplest form is you want to get really good chicken, beef, pork, whatever you eat, fish, but also not have it deep-fried and battered and coated and deep-fried. And if you can, eat it in really good olive oil, which you can get so much good olive oil now in the U.S. that is incredibly affordable and inexpensive. Even though you look at the store shelf, like, OK, that's going to be 15 bucks for a bottle, that's going to last you three months, right? So, you're going to use it every day. Those little things add up to a really clean, easy-to-do-at-home diet.
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Trina Wilcox: Even though you've been very active throughout your life, how did you get worked in with the elite level of athletes and cooking for them and with them?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I grew up in Colorado. I live in Arkansas now. I started racing bicycles in high school, and back in the '80s when I first started, bike racing was kind of a big thing, you know, in the U.S., and it's kind of gotten back to that space. I grew up racing bikes, and I learned early on that the food that I was eating at home and the food that I knew wasn't really helping me with my own performance, whether it was because our food was really spicy or it was the nutrient balance was off for the job at hand that I had to do.
So, I started cooking my own food. And in the '80s, if you were in cycling in the U.S., we were all pretty much obsessed with and in love with European culture, because cycling's such a European sport. And back then, it was Italian or French culture that we really loved, and started really falling into: What did the Italians eat? What did the Europeans eat? So now we're all talking with our fake Italian accents and making pasta at home, or we're learning how to make French sauces and learning, you know, watching French chefs with their toques and their hats and their cool things.
So, my friends and I were all obsessed with French and Italian food and culture as it related to cycling. We all got jobs at French and Italian restaurants in Denver, and we started working in the kitchens, prep cooks and busboys, and it was one of the coolest things we ever did because we were around that culture and that food all the time, while at the same time racing bikes. And, you know, it's like we were living in this fantasy world in high school and college where we were playing European, and that's how I got into it. So, I stayed in that forever. And then, as a couple of small teams were coming together in Denver, I was friends with the founders of these teams.
I was able to support them by doing dinners and fundraisers and helping to bring sponsors. And as those teams got bigger and bigger, I got to stay with those teams and support them as they went on to do national competitions and go do international stuff. And so, I've always been around cycling, and that was really it. I was the first chef in the U.S. that anybody knows of to really be active at the high level in the cycling space. And so, when it came time for somebody to help support World Championships or Olympics or the national team, there really weren't that many options. So, I just lucked out in that I was already there. I didn't really have to do anything special. I just had to be there and show up and do the thing. I know it's not a really great answer, but a lot of times, that's what it is. You just got to be there.
Trina Wilcox: Yeah. What's something you remember making a difference for one of the cyclists during an event?
Biju Thomas: Yeah. I'll tell you one big one. Allen Lim, who's the founder of Scratch Labs, Allen and I co-wrote The Feed Zone books. Allen is Chinese. He started working the Tour de France in Europe in the early-, mid-2000s. I want to say 2005 or 2006 was his first one. And just for ease and convenience, he was working with one or two athletes, and he would travel with a rice cooker. He would bring a rice cooker and make rice. At that time, no one was eating rice in the European Peloton because cycling is such a European sport. The athletes all only ate pasta, they only ate bread, they ate risotto, they ate, you know, polenta, only European grains and foods. Rice was considered very much an Asian ingredient, so Asian culture hadn't yet become part of such a Eurocentric sport.
So, rice was really, really not a welcome addition to bike racing. It was really looked at as an invasion of a very Eurocentric culture and a Eurocentric diet. The first couple of years, there's many stories of Allen's rice cooker, the cord getting cut, the rice cooker getting destroyed, getting thrown away, because the European staff did not appreciate that this Chinese guy was telling them to eat rice instead of pasta. So, that was a very important thing. But now the thing is, the tides have changed in that every single team, whether professional, collegiate, college, high school, it doesn't matter, every single team, the primary ingredient that they eat is rice. And that started with us. Allen and I were the first ones to really introduce rice on a global scale to ultra elite endurance athletes in the cycling space. And from that, it grew and grew and grew, and it became OK for other sports in the endurance world to be like, "Oh, we can eat rice." Now nobody thinks about it, but we started doing that 25 years ago, when no one was doing it. And that is massive impact globally on the endurance sports world. So, I'll take that one.
Trina Wilcox: What kind of rice?
Biju Thomas: Depending on the event, during events — and this is not recommended for normal life — during high-endurance competition, the only fuel you're really burning is carbohydrates. And so, to do that, we want low-fiber loads in competition. We want easy to cook and nutrient density. We want as much moisture in the rice and as much caloric density. So typically, the best rice, pound for pound, is going to be sushi rice or Calrose, which is very common in the U.S., because if you get a cup of Calrose, it's really heavy and it's dense because it's got a lot of water in it, which means it's going to absorb more easily, digest easily, it's nutrient-dense.
So, if you're doing a long bike ride, if you're doing one of the Arthritis Foundation rides and you want to eat, morning of, you make a big bowl of rice and scrambled eggs three hours before the ride. You make rice cakes, and we're the guys who brought rice cakes to the world, or little sushi cakes you wrap up, put in your back pocket. In the middle of the ride, take it out and eat it. And we brought that to the world. And now everybody eats those. So, white rice… When you're in the middle of an event, when you're eating for the event — in regular life, definitely eat brown rice, higher fiber loads, all that — but during an event, you're only burning carbohydrates. The rest of the time, you want fiber, you want all the other nutrients.
Trina Wilcox: Very good. Thank you.
Biju Thomas: Sure. Long answer, short question. It's really cool to see the impact that that's had globally, which is really a cool thing, something small that we started doing, and it's taken off. That's what I grew up with. And I'm originally from South India, Kerala, south end of the country, super tropical. The two things we eat, we… Wheat was not part of our diet. It was cassava. We call it yucca there, or tapioca. Cassava every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or rice. That's what we ate. And the rice we grew up with is these tiny little round grains. Round, red grains. They take about two hours to cook because they're so dense. But man, I love cassava. I have it in the freezer right now for emergencies.
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Trina Wilcox: As a chef, I would think a lot of things start becoming second nature to you, but where do you go when you need inspiration or a new meal or something different?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, I think I go to the same place everybody else does now. It's Instagram, it's TikTok, it's YouTube, because, you know, the crazy thing is I've been cooking my whole life. I've been working in and out of restaurants in some capacity for 40 years, and there are days when you wake up, or when I wake up, and I can't think of a single thing to make. And the cool thing now is you can turn on any social media, YouTube thing, and there's a million incredibly talented people making incredibly wonderful, beautiful, really simple dishes. When I was starting off in the kitchen space and working back in the '80s and early '90s, we would watch PBS, great chefs of wherever, and they made incredible food. But it was so complex and complicated that you needed to follow a specific method, you needed ingredients, you needed some level of skill and knowledge, which kind of, you know, made it a spectator sport more than something you could do.
You couldn't really get involved, whereas the vast majority of food you see in social media now, if you pay attention, it's all three or four ingredients, one or two steps. Nobody's making really complicated, incredibly intense food. So, I think information and inspiration is available to everybody for free. We just got to, like, be open-minded, like, "Oh, that does not look complicated. It doesn't look hard. I can do that." So, I think that's what I do. I just go scroll through Instagram for a few seconds, few minutes, and there it is. I'll find so many things. I just started keeping a folder of all the things I want to eventually do.
Trina Wilcox: What do you pull out of your folder — for elite athletes, or something that could be adapted for just the average person at home, or maybe they're on a strict budget — that they could do and have a delicious, healthy meal?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, that's a great question. I think for elite athletes, for normal home people, having visual color on the plate is really important. Nobody wants to sit at home every day and eat, you know, peas out of a blender and boiled chicken breast and just everything is bland and beige-looking. There are times when that's what you got to do to get through a treatment or whatever you're going through, but as a whole, we're all wired to want to have beautiful food and beautiful things surrounding us and beautiful things in our life, and your food can be beautiful. So, why not? Simplest way to do that is adding more vegetables and more fruits into every meal. And the simplest way that we do it, especially now, you can get all those gorgeous little heirloom tomatoes, right? All the little cherry tomatoes. You can get them at Costco, you can get them at the regular groceries for incredibly inexpensive.
So, that tends to play a big portion of the heavy lifting on a lot of menus that we do now, which are the little bright cherries and the little bright tomatoes and the little smaller fruit. Anything can become a salad, right? And I think, especially for men, the word salad tends to make it sound less like a meal and more like something that's an aside. Whereas you think about entree salads, they're incredible things. You get whatever you have: peaches, watermelon, cherries, any fruit. You chop it up, throw it together with some garlic and some crisp red onion, throw some olive oil in there, squirt of lemon juice and a sprinkle of really good salt. And then you put a piece of chicken or fish or something on it, you got a great dish.
And that's something that really, if you plan it out right, you can do it so cheaply. It doesn't have to be just incredibly convoluted or expensive. But that's usually my go-to. So, more color on the plate, more fresh things on the plate, and then a reasonable amount of protein, reasonable amount of fat, but focusing really on the bright, colorful things.
Trina Wilcox: It seems like anytime you start looking at foods, recipes, doing some research, you come across the Mediterranean diet.
Biju Thomas: Yeah.
Trina Wilcox: So, the principles can be applied possibly to other cultural cuisines. How? Talk to me about it.
Biju Thomas: Yeah, I love the idea of the Mediterranean diet because we all instantly think of a very specific thing, right? We're thinking of, oh, OK, there's olive oil. There's hummus, there's grilled chicken, there's fish. We see bright blue skies and blue ocean water, and maybe you're thinking of Greece, maybe you're thinking of Turkey, maybe you're thinking of Italy. You know, the Mediterranean itself, as far as all the countries that border up against the Mediterranean Sea, it's like 20-ish countries. But they all share in a fairly similar kind of food culture. There's a lot of olive oil across that whole region because olives grow everywhere. So, you've got European countries that border up against, or you've got Asian countries, which are like Turkey and Lebanon and Palestine, you've got African countries, you've got Morocco and Egypt and Tunisia.
There's olive oil everywhere. And there's a really rich culture across all those countries of grilling meats and grilling fish. So, less so deep-frying in fat and in mystery oils, you know, stuff that's been battered and coated and more really fresh olive oil, really great meat that's on a skewer or directly on the grill without a lot of coating and a lot of stuff. And if you go, and if you're fortunate enough to be able to travel to these parts of the world, for the most part things are seasoned really lightly. It's a little bit of salt, pepper. Everybody uses some sort of a citrus, whether it's lemon, fresh lemon juice or something similar, and some reasonable, or some regional, herbs and spices. So, the flavors are incredibly light, and they go with everything. But the idea of a Mediterranean diet is exactly that: really nutrient-dense food that is fresh as possible that you can get, and then grilled or pan-seared, not deep-fried, and not with a bunch of mystery ingredients in it.
If you look across the region, there's a lot of similarities in the food. The food is really bright and beautiful and flavorful. They're eating it with their family and their friends. You seldom see people just sitting in a parking lot by themselves eating a delicious kebab and hummus and a tomato salad, right? That's something you do at a table. The Mediterranean diet is also part culture and how we approach eating, which is just as important as the ingredients and the components on the plate.
Trina Wilcox: What's something that you always travel with? For me, it's baby carrots, so that way I have something to grab and munch on if I'm running through the airport and I need a snack. What's something that you always make sure that you have with you at all times?
Biju Thomas: Yeah. I travel all the time. I bring salted cashews because I love cashews. I'm allergic to nuts, but I still eat them, because (laughs), why not? There are a few things that I bring with me all the time. I always have salted cashews. I bring date sugar, you know, your sugar from dates, because it's delicious; it's got a slightly nuttier, more rich flavor, but also it's a lower glycemic index. So, for somebody, if you have any sort of diabetes or pre-diabetes, or if you have insulin-related issues, you don't get that insulin spike from date sugar. I always travel with that, because I do have a really ridiculous insulin response anytime I have sugar or carbs. But I love those things because they're a little bit hard to find. And also on an airplane, there's nothing better than kicking back with a cup of the airplane coffee and some salted cashews in flight. But I always travel with that, and if I'm going somewhere to cook, I will definitely bring good salt. I'll bring the flaky Maldon salt. I'll bring good kosher salt, because salts are hard to find. When you're kind of just stuck somewhere and have to cook for a bunch of people, the very specific thing you want might be hard to find.
Two things that we run into that are difficult when traveling with teams: One is, ice is incredibly hard to find. Ice cubes are not really part of a lot of cultures, so cubed ice, nobody really has it. And this last eight weeks across Europe, every day was pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so it's been incredibly hot. So, we need ice just to keep the athletes cold because we make little ice packs they put in the back of their jerseys. We need ice to keep their drinks cold in the cars. So, that's a really difficult thing to find. The other is, a lot of times we're cooking out of essentially Airbnbs or little hotels or places where the kitchen might just be one induction burner, because you go to these tiny little Airbnbs, nobody's really cooking like we think in tiny apartments.
And we'll rent like 15 apartments for everybody. Everybody has one. I just happen to have the one everyone's eating in, but it's the same kitchen. So, it'll be a little induction stove. A lot of times it's adapting what we're going to eat to the resources I have, because I've got to feed 15 or 20 people, but I'm cooking off of one burner and nothing else. Ingredients anymore, you can pretty much get anything anywhere in the world of big stuff. We came through Lyon and through the Dijon region when we were in France. And those days, we wanted to highlight ingredients from that region. So, we try to do a little something fun, but ultimately, the food itself is very similar. Really low spice, really low this. I don't batter-fry anything, but we'll use one or two ingredients just to highlight where we are in the world.
Other than that, it's really not that hard anymore to find stuff. If you grew up in any sort of an ethnic family in the U.S. back in the '70s and '80s, and you went to a grocery store, I don't know if you remember this, but in the produce section, there was almost nothing. Nobody ate any produce back in the '80s, '70s. Like jalapenos would be a tiny little wicker basket with like three peppers in it. You can go back there a week later, they would still be there. There was no fresh herbs, no real fruit. Americans didn't eat it much then. Nobody ate it then. To go from where we were 30 years ago in the grocery aisle to now, where you can get everything, it's mind-blowing. And the rest of the world is very similar. You can get all the things everywhere, which is a really cool thing if you like to cook and eat. Yeah.
Trina Wilcox: For someone listening today, who's living with arthritis, and they want to feel stronger, healthier, more energized and even more confident in the kitchen, what's the first step you'd encourage them to take?
Biju Thomas: OK, first step: You need to make sure you've got good olive oil. If there's a bottle in the kitchen that's been open for more than three months, it's OK to throw it out and get a new one. You can get really, really good olive oils now for really cheap. I bought these two beautiful bottles of Spanish olive oil from Costco. They're a liter bottle each. Two bottles was like 18 bucks. That'll last me six months at home. And then get in the habit of eating it. If you're hungry for a snack, you get a piece of bread that you really like, a good piece of, grill it or put it on the toaster, put some scrambled eggs on there, or chop up some tomatoes, put it on there, drizzle some olive oil on there.
And the reason for the olive oil is, one, all the nutrients you're getting out of the olive oil, but also it'll help you feel a little more full when you're eating, from the fat content of it, and it just tastes good, and it'll get you in the habit of getting away from other fats that you might be craving. It'll replace that. So, get some good olive oil in the kitchen, make sure you've got good salt, good salt and pepper. Spend the extra couple bucks. It'll last you many, many months. It's not like one of those things that's going to go bad in a week, you know?
Trina Wilcox: Very good. Do what he says, except don't eat nuts if you're allergic to nuts.
Biju Thomas: (laughs) Yeah.
Trina Wilcox: Don't take that advice. Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven’t covered?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, as far as cooking goes, don't be afraid to try things, especially if you're already dealing with arthritis or some sort of physical condition where diet can play a major part of your day-to-day, just productivity, comfort levels, your ability to just stay in the game, because I know how unbelievably frustrating it can be when you're down with painful symptoms to one of these things. It isn't just like you can forget about it. It takes over your entire life. And if there's small things you can do to manage these big conditions, and really, it starts with what you consume, what you eat.
It's important that, while we're watching the world go by, that we take care of our own mental and physical health, starting with the small steps that we can actually manage and handle. We can all find a way to get a good bottle of olive oil for eight bucks. It will change how you eat. You can find a way to get a piece of chicken and grill it, or a piece of fish and grill it, or pan fry it really lightly and make a delicious meal, even if it isn't every day, once a week, getting in the habit of a Sunday supper where you're sitting with friends, sitting with family.
Having a nice dinner together with somebody will change your mental and physical health. And that's really, I think, one of the biggest takeaways from my many years of working with athletes and in sports, just the ability to eat with people, eat healthy with people. Life will mean more, and your joyful enjoyment of life will go up significantly while you're dealing with all the things you've got to deal with anyway, you know?
Trina Wilcox: Very good. Any other takeaways from the conversation that you can think of?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, so we've talked about Mediterranean diets as a whole, and in general, it's usually leaning more towards Western or the European side of the Mediterranean, but… and kind of avoids African and Asian countries. But the Mediterranean diet, if you think of it more just as a term and not specific to the Mediterranean region, the term applies to every culture. All of us that come from old cultures, you know, there was a time at which the food was very simple, it was very basic. The way that our great-grandmothers and grandmothers cooked. They had a handful of ingredients that they grew in their own garden or they found at the market right down the street, and they cooked it simply. And that is the best way to eat for all of us, even if it isn't Mediterranean. It doesn't have to be.
It can be whatever we grew up with, whatever good memories we have of a good, healthy, clean, easy meal at home that didn't have a bunch of mystery ingredients in it, just something fresh that you can sit down and eat with your family, and that is ultimately what the spirit of the Mediterranean diet is: clean, simple, fresh. And the Mediterranean, I'm telling you, these people always eat together. So, I went to France two months ago to go work the Women's Tour de France. We were there with a team from Paris. I was there as the chef with two other chefs with me. We traveled with this team for two weeks straight. We started off in Geneva and Switzerland, and then we went into France. Everywhere we went, the people are incredibly fit, in great shape, most incredible legs you've ever seen on people because they're walking all day everywhere. It doesn't matter the age. It could be a child, it could be someone 85, 90 years old, incredible legs. And I'm telling you, the diet there — these people, for breakfast, espresso and cigarettes everywhere you went. That's what their diet looked like, everywhere you went. And I'm like, "Holy crap." So, there's something to be said for just staying physically active and being around people all day long.
And these folks are like, you never see anybody eating by themselves. They're with groups, they're moving around, they're active, they're active, they're walking here, walking, they're walking. So, those little things that we can do for ourselves and really focusing in on finding a community amd reconnecting with friends and family for every meal. That, I think, would be the biggest game changer for most people that are dealing with lifelong conditions and things that are manageable with medication, but to really find ways to bring joy into life, especially around food, will help with everything else.
Trina Wilcox: I love that. I would agree. Having a meal with people is a great thing. I love the idea of keeping it simple and trying new things.
Biju Thomas: I know keeping in budget and people not having a lot of money to spend is really important, especially now. Everything is so unbelievably expensive. But that being said, you have to prioritize your health and day-to-day mental health, which means eating slightly better. There's places we can cut one thing to pick up things that last longer. Olive oil, I keep coming back to good olive oil, fresh lemons, good salt will go a long way in making every meal feel special. In my kitchen, I have every imaginable spice here, ingredient here. I cook all day every day, and then I'll still go out and eat with my friends. So, it's one of those things where, if somebody called right now and said, "Hey, we're going for tacos," I would be going for tacos. I'm just fortunate in that I'm surrounded by people who love food and I get to cook and everybody comes to my house all the time. So, I buy lots of stuff, but I also feed a lot of people all the time. So, it makes it really fun to do that.
It doesn't have to be every day. If it's once a week, you know, finding a place for a Sunday supper or church supper, something where you can go and be with people. And I'm fortunate in that I've always been wired to do that and be that person in every community I've lived in, where I'll just start throwing dinners and inviting all my neighbors over. And then, all of a sudden, we have a friends group, and those people get to hang out together. And I've done that everywhere I've ever lived. And some of us have that skill and are wired for that, and you've got to lean into that, because a lot of people are not. And they're just at home because they don't know how to do that and how to have that first conversation. And that has such a massive impact on mental health, which ultimately affects your physical health, and which then affects your ability to make better decisions for yourself.
None of these things happen in a vacuum. You can't just suddenly decide, "I'm going to eat better every day," and you're going to suddenly eat better and feel better. That needs to be part of overall life, everything. OK, I'm going to eat better, but I'm going to eat better with someone, so that ultimately I get to enjoy that meal more, which means I'm going to feel better, which means I'm going to make better decisions, which means I'm going to choose better ingredients. OK. So, all of a sudden, it becomes a bigger thing than just, "I'm going to eat better by myself in my apartment."
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Trina Wilcox: Where can people go to connect with you and find out more about your books?
Biju Thomas: Yeah, so my books are sold all over the country, all over the world. They're called The Feed Zone. There's three of them out. I should probably write another one, one of these days. But The Feed Zone Cookbooks, there's a series of three. The very first one was just, you know, food for athletes, but they're just normal food. Second one was all portable, so things you can make and take instead of your store-bought bars and gels and stuff. And the final one was called The Feed Zone Table, where we did exactly what we're talking about today. The recipes are all larger batch foods, so you can eat with family and friends. And in the preface, we talk about, throughout history, how folks, all things being equal, if everyone's ability levels are the same and the conditions are the same, the groups that tend to do better are the groups that eat together.
And I do like to think back to most of us that grew up in the '80s, '90s or before. We all have memories of eating with our family every night. You didn't sit down and eat until both your parents were there. You ate together, good or bad, and that really created an energy and a vibe for us that I think a lot of people today didn't get to experience. So, the idea of eating together, whatever the meal is, is really, really important. That's my last book, The Feed Zone Table. The best way to find me is Instagram. I don't really do anything else. It's Instagram: bijuthechef.
Or I have a TV show on Outside TV. It's available on most cable around the U.S. If you have Sony LG, if you have any of those TV, Samsung TV, it's already baked into your TV thing. It's The Road Less Eaten on Outside TV, where I go all over the country and go on fun adventures and try the local food and get to meet local people and do silly things. It's quite the life. (laughs) So The Road Less Eaten or bijuthechef on Instagram. That's it.
Trina Wilcox: That's great. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Come back anytime.
Biju Thomas: Thank you so much for doing this. It's been wonderful. Thank you.
Trina Wilcox: Thank you. If you have questions or maybe an idea for the show, please email [email protected] and you can get plugged into a local chapter and find all kinds of information at arthritis.org.
PODCAST CLOSE: Thank you for listening to the Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast, produced as a public service by the Arthritis Foundation. Get show notes and other episode details at arthritis.org/podcast. Review, rate and recommend us wherever you get your podcasts, on Apple, Spotify and other platforms. This podcast and other life-changing Arthritis Foundation programs, resources and services are made possible in part by generous donors like you. Consider making a gift to support our work at arthritis.org/donate. We appreciate you listening. And please join us again!