The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer and Judi Bachrach

This is from someone who has found that sugars of all kinds are a trigger for his symptoms, even fruit, which he misses terribly. Grains can also be an issue for him. He says that fresh vegetables are the key to this delicious recipe.

Salmon a la Ken
Serves 2- a complete meal

1-2 Tablespoons oil of your choice (none if you use a non-stick pan)
3-4 cloves minced or crushed garlic
2 teaspoons of fresh ginger root ground on a grater
I peeled and chopped yellow or white onion
1 chopped red pepper
2 cups of finely chopped broccoli
2 pieces of salmon (or other fish of your choice) the size of a deck of cards

Heat the oil in a large pan on medium heat. Stir in the garlic and ginger first, until soft but not too browned. Then add in the onion and red pepper and sauté briefly. Now add the broccoli and cover for 5 minutes until the broccoli is getting soft. Make a well in the middle of the vegetables and add the fish. Cover and cook for 2 minutes. Remember not to overcook the broccoli or it tastes like mush. Now take the cover off and stir it altogether. Salt to taste.

Ken adds: You can hardly taste the garlic but it's so good for you and if you’ve been on this diet with no sugar for 3 months, the garlic and ginger taste like ambrosia. Enjoy!

The last time my husband and I were to go away on a vacation was to celebrate my 50th birthday in Tuscany 7 years ago. I was already very unstable in my capacity to walk and even sit for any length of time, but I was determined to go before any trip would become impossible. We were in touch with an international organization that supplied wheelchairs for free and arranged to have one available for me when we landed at the airport in Italy. Unfortunately for us, our departure date was September 13th 2001. Our flights were canceled after the tragedy of 9/11 struck and we had clients in Manhattan to counsel and simply wanted to remain on the same continent as our daughters. So we never went. And indeed, my symptoms subsequently became so bad that the pleasure of planning of that aborted trip was the only vacation we ever expected to have again.

Imagine my delight when we were recently invited to come to the French Alps to visit old dear Dutch friends of ours at their vacation home in the tiny village of St. Nicolas La Chapelle. And we went! And I had a wonderful time. I wasn’t exactly hiking up Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe visible from their house, but we took the gondola up to the top of the glacier (brown Saharan desert sands deposited by winds on the vast white expanse) and over the top onto the Italian side. We drove through the tunnel of Mont Blanc to the Val D’Aosta in Italy to the small village of Brussons where my maternal grandfather grew up. There my distant cousin Agnesi met us. She showed us his house where we ate raspberries and picked roses in his old overgrown garden. Returning to France, we went to several mountaintop farmhouse restaurants that crested the top of every mountain around Flumet, home of one grueling leg of the Tour de France, visited the medieval town of Annency with its picturesque canals, enjoyed the farmer’s market of Sallanches, and swam in the local spring fed mountain lake.

Because my hostess translated many recipes from our book into European equivalents, my stay was a very healthful one. The Europeans are no strangers to the ideas of ‘gluten free’ and I discovered that I could eat the local goat cheese and ‘Omega bread’ baked in the local bakery with no ill effect every other day. (I still observe moderation and rotation whenever I can!) At the end of our visit, a German guest of the downstairs neighbor borrowed our book and read it cover to cover in 1 day. She loved it, and is hoping to get a medical publisher friend of hers to do the legal footwork necessary to have it translated into German.

So I share this to say- the idea of recovery is still not a reality in the minds of many with MS. I am still not as strong as I hope to be one day. But the fact that I could make the long flight, navigate airports, and enjoy the spectacular Presence of the Alps, is further proof that healing is possible, and delayed dreams can yet become fulfilled for us all, wherever we reside.

Hello, ladies,

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I have found a great pasta of brown rice and stone ground millet. It is by Orgran and is free of all our no-nos. The corkscrew pasta holds up well instead of tuning to mush.

Here are two recipes:

Pasta with fire roasted tomatoes

One 8 oz. package Orgran corkscrew pasta
1 can Muir Glen organic fire roasted diced tomatoes
10 black kalamata olives pitted (optional)
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic crushed or minced
juice of one-half lemon
1 tspn. anchovy paste (optional)
1/4 tspn. red pepper, or to taste
salt to taste
2 tbsp. slivered fresh basil (optional)
Serves 2 as entree, 4 as side dish
Cooking and prep time 30 minutes

Boil water for pasta in large pot. Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat olive oil on medium, then add garlic. When garlic turns golden, add tomatoes and anchovy paste, if you like anchovy flavor. Stir to blend in paste. Cook on medium for about 5-10 minutes, until sauce thickens a bit, then add olives, lemon juice, salt and red pepper. While sauce thickens more, cook pasta in boiling water according to package directions. You may need to reduce heat under sauce if too much liquid evaporates, or add a tbsp. or so of pasta water to sauce. Be careful not to overcook pasta so it doesn't turn mushy. When it is done, drain, plate and garnish with slivered basil.

Here is another recipe:

Lemony pasta with chard, mushrooms and pine nuts

One 8 oz. package Orgran corkscrew pasta
One bunch chard, washed and sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 c. shitake mushrooms (optional)
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. pine nuts
3 tbsp. olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
zest of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
Serves 2 as generous main course, 4 as side dish
Prep time 30 minutes

While water for pasta is boiling, saute mushrooms and garlic on medium heat in a skillet that is large enough to ultimately hold the pasta. Boil pasta when water is ready, but undercook by about a minute, as you will finish it in skillet. When mushrooms are soft, add lemon juice, chard, and pinenuts and cook until chard wilts slightly, about 2 or 3 minutes. By now, pasta should be cooked. Drain it, and saute for about a minute with chard mixture, while zesting the lemon over the skillet and adding salt and pepper. For members of the family who can eat cheese, this is fantastic with grated parmesan.

Nicole Siebert

This comes from someone who has serious MS compromises and has enthusiastically embraced the diet. He writes us on a regular basis and with his permission, allowed us to post this latest email. Note especially his discovery that fruit has been a big problem for him (sugars of all kinds) and that he has found out from listening to his own body feedback what his particular triggers are. A most welcome improvement has been the gradual relief from agonizingly painful leg spasms and reducing the amount of drug he used to take a lot of. Grain fed meats also used to set him off. Judi

Well it has been a long month but well worth it. I eat no fruit at all but I am eating loads of tomatoes and raw vegetable and my plumbing is working 100% better. I am extremely sensitive to many nuts and nut butters; wild salmon and sardines are ok. Your recipe for cauliflower bake is very nice. The other day my wife made some roast vegetables with roast turnip and can you believe? I got a spasm from what I think was the turnip as it was quite a sweet turnip. You get a very refined sense of taste after a while. I think it was the high-glycemic value that was setting off the cramps. They only lasted a little while but the next day I had some elimination troubles.

I think I am really starting to understand my body a lot better. It's the body that is giving clues but the brain is a victim of past appetites. I always want what I shouldn't have so I really have to be vigilant and not stray. I am feeling very good. I still feel the hot spots in my old injuries but they aren't so severe and the spasm intensity has gone down so much since I started that I know we are on the right track. I feel that the real key to my healing is giving up the sweets, i.e. the fruit. My gut starts to heal but feedback is very extreme if I stray from the plan.

I am so glad that I found your book as it's really changing my life. I feel so much more positive and I am almost off my Gabapenten. I only use 100mg and that is good for the night. I usually wake up around 5:30am needing to use the john, and I can even lay back down afterwards for a little while, until maybe 7:15am. Oh, life is great when you have a little hope and that's what your diet is giving me .
Thanks again.

I was counseling someone with MS today and our exchange reminded me of something that it is of the utmost importance. No matter what form of exercise you choose, you need to let the instructor, trainer, coach, or teacher know what your limitations are. This client was going to check out a local gym and had no idea of what to expect. She is aware of the lack of endurance in her legs, and was hoping to find some equipment that could also challenge muscle groups in her upper body and still find some aerobic benefits. She had no idea that she would have a personal trainer assigned to her before she would be allowed on any of their machines.

I reminded her that it her job to explain to that trainer all of her limitations. Many trainers have no idea of what MS is all about, let alone that one person’s limitations do not match another’s. She must be clear about her lack of endurance- that she may appear to be strong for the first 15 minutes, but that she can suddenly go weak. For work on any equipment, this is critical information to give. No one wants her to get hurt.

Another anomaly of MS is that you may also get muscular feedback from a numb limb many minutes after you have completed an exercise. The cause and effect lag time can be erratic in both output and input. Value your need to stop and savor the sensation of a well used muscle. Shorter work out times may be better than longer ones. A properly executed exercise done twice can be more beneficial than 10 repetitions done incorrectly.

For many MSers, working out in hot and humid weather can be quite different than working out in the colder months. Add to this your own personal muscular habits, strengths and weaknesses and it is clear how important your information can be. Make sure that you feel heard by any teacher you find, and that they are open to feedback from you. It can make all the difference between an enjoyable sense of doing all you can to support your recovery process and preventing possible setbacks if you are in the wrong hands. Not all gyms or teachers are created equal- so choose carefully and do not be afraid of speaking out whenever you are unclear. It is your body and your health so take good care of them. Happy and safe exercising!