Arthritis is a condition that affects the individual’s mobility and causes excruciating pain. Arthritis can affect the joints in any part of the body, and being a chronic condition, there is no permanent cure for the same. However, there are various medications and lifestyle changes that can help you coexist with this condition.

Arthritis has a drastic impact on the individual’s life; it affects the individual’s ability to perform certain activities that they enjoyed doing. Be it a sport that you loved playing, or the hours you spent in the kitchen bringing your favorite recipes to life, arthritis acts as a hindrance when you set out to perform these activities.

As mentioned earlier, arthritis can affect any part of the body; if it affects your hands, it would deter you from performing even the most common tasks, such as baking. So, if you took pride in your choco chip cookies, and cannot bake due to arthritis of the hands, here are some baking hacks that will help you continue your love of baking.

• Baking involves a lot of mixing and pouring of the mixture or water from one bowl to another, and this can exert pressure on the joints in the hands. To avoid such strain, you can use plant stands with wheels for transporting water or cake mixture across the table, and a small measuring cup to transfer it.
• Chopping vegetables or the other ingredients required to bake casserole dishes might be a little taxing due to the pain in the hands when you put pressure to slice through the vegetables. Instead of risking a bout of pain while cutting the vegetables, use an apple corer. Place the apple corer over the fruit or the vegetable you wish to cut and use your forearms to put weight on the corer to slice through the food item. It is way easier than using a knife.
• If the dish you have decided to make requires eggs, and you need to separate the egg yolks from the whites, use a funnel. All you have to do is place the funnel over a glass and crack the egg into the funnel. This would neatly separate the egg yolk from the whites without putting in much effort.
• Almost every other kitchen appliance has handles. It becomes difficult for people with arthritis of the hands to exercise enough strength to open the doors without causing pain to the joints in the fingers. So, you can tie a ribbon to the handles and slip your arm in the loop and use your forearm strength to open the doors. This is quite useful when you are trying to open the micro-oven door or the refrigerator door.
• Baking a cake or your favorite cookies would require a lot whisking. This can be problematic since it requires strength and gives rise to pain in this process. So, you can make use of an electric mixer since they are lighter and more effective.
• Another effective way to keep arthritis pain at bay while baking is to freeze the herbs and spices you might use in baking certain food items in spoons or teaspoons. You can store these in water, milk, or cream. You can use an ice tray for this purpose since you can measure it appropriately. You can even freeze tomato sauce. The next time you need a teaspoon of basil, use the frozen cube. This saves time and you won’t have to use your hands a lot.