The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer and Judi Bachrach

Are you growing too much lettuce, spinach, or other greens and cannot even give them away?
If you buy lettuce and it looks as if you cannot eat it fresh before it wilts too much, try this soup.

Cream of lettuce soup- serves at least 3-4 people
Ingredients:
1 peeled and chopped onion
3 large heads of lettuce washed and cut into chunks and/or bunches of spinach or other greens
½ cup chopped fennel (optional; can use celery instead)
1 medium sized chopped potato
chicken or vegetable broth
rice or nut milk
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
grated nutmeg (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in soup pot and add in onion, and fennel/celery if using, and potato. Soften by heating over medium heat until soft- 5- 6 minutes. Toss in on top of them the washed but not dried greens and herbs. The water from the lettuce will add enough moisture to keep the potatoes and other vegetables from sticking. Add enough broth to cover and simmer until all is soft- @15 minutes. Add enough rice or nut milk until there is enough liquid to make it a soup(or it remains a vegetable potage). Blend together with stick blender.Grate as much nutmeg (start with ¼ teaspoon and then add more) as you like and add in salt and pepper to taste.

Suggestions:
*You can use all rice or nut milk and skip the broth. If you don’t add in additional milk after the vegetables are cooked, it becomes creamed greens- a creamed potage.

*You can also add a tablespoon or so of fresh squeezed lemon juice for a more tart flavor.

*Add in any other chopped fresh herb while cooking; basil, fresh mint, dill, or rosemary.

*Place slices of turkey bacon under the broiler while vegetables are cooking and broil until crisped. Cut into small pieces and serve on top of each bowl of soup.

More and more people tell us that they are bringing their MS Recovery Diet book along when they go to see their doctors. Most of our readers report that they receive lack of support or even denigration from their physicians. An Englishman wrote to say that his doctor said- “ Oh, are the authors American?” in a very patronizing way.

The bad news is that doctors are very reluctant to give credence to something that is beyond their training and for which, as of yet, there are no hard scientific studies or statistics to help open their minds. The good news is that physicians everywhere are learning from patients like you that with or without their medications or their support, the diet is a viable choice.

As you begin to recover, they will see the empirical evidence for themselves that it works. This is the gift you bring to not only the doctor, who after all does want to help heal his clients, but to all patients with MS when you carry the message with you.

Thank you for daring to experiment with hope and healing; two elements that naturally go hand in hand.

I have written this before, but it bears repeating to help those just starting out on their recovery. The keys to recovery seem to be:
1. The diet is not a rigid set of rules, rather a set of guidelines to work with until you determine the specifics of what foods cause you problems and what foods seem to help you. Each person is unique in the trigger foods that cause symptoms in this highly idopathic disease. In a culture where medicine prescribes one specific medicine to each person with a certain disease with an expectation that all will be cured, this concept of a unique solution, within certain parameters, demands that we look at our bodies in a different light.
2. To find your specific dietary program, it is necessary to listen to you body, get to know its unique reactions and to get to know your MS. Do not be afraid to experiment with different foods so you can expand your diet as much as possible. You may get a flare in symptoms, but if you have already experienced so recovery, you will know these are short lived. From reports, the people who seem to do the best in recovery are the ones who tune into their bodies and are not afraid to test out foods.
3. Recovery is not just a matter of diet; fatigue and stress are also critical components of the disease. It is not a matter of just changing how you eat, it is also important to consider how you live. Does it work for you? Do you have time to rest and relax, reflect on your life? If not, you may need to make some changes there as well. Notice that in each recovery story a spiritual aspect is mentioned in a positive way.
4. Get outside and exercise, but not to the point of over taxing yourself. Vitiamin D is best gotten via sunlight. Use your body, it makes the nerves work, but again there is a balance. If your body is over taxed, it hasn't the energy to repair and restore functioning.
5. Give yourself time to heal. Improvements can be measured in millimeters oftentimes, but they add up to big changes over time.
6. Pay attention to your digestion. Digestive health is crucial to healing as we write about in the book.
7. I don't know how exactly to put this, but I realized how much easier it was for me when I stopped being afraid of the disease. My fear fed my stress which fed the disease and I obsessed about the disease; it was on my mind all the time. That is counter productive. Now in my mind, the ferocious lion of the disease MS, is like a house cat, which follows me around, but I don't have to pay too much attention to it. So, if you can think of other matters, imagine, create, it will take some of the power away from the disease.
I hope this helps, again, we are very gratified by all the healing stories we hear.

The issue of CCSVI keeps coming up in the e-mails we receive. Now I am not an expert on the subject, but I can contribute some observations and resources.
I talked to a man who had 5 stents placed in his circulatory system last August after an evaluation that he did indeed have CCSVI. This was done at Stamford University where I believe they have stopped all such procedures because one person died and another had a stroke as a result. My informant shared that he has not improved at all in his physical symptoms, if anything he is worse. He feels, however, that the operation was more than his body could handle. He did share that his mind is more alert and he is better cognitively and a slight bit better in handling heat. He said that the operation was the most painful event he had ever encountered in his life. He does not regret doing it at all as he is more alert. He added that sometimes people improve after even more time elapses.
Ashton Embry of the Direct-MS.org is a prime mover in finding a treatment/cure for MS. He has on his website much of the research about this procedure which I suggest anyone read. It is not conclusive as a causative factor for MS in most people, but it does seem to impact some. At first he totally advocated for it, now he has modified his recommendation somewhat. Ashton is a scientist and has the integrity to present the facts as they are, he has no bias and no vested interest beyond the truth and finding an effective treatment/s, so I would follow as he presents the unfolding data on his website. If there is some data about who is helped by this procedure and who is not, it will be posted on this site. The website is www.Direct-MS.org.
One thing I have observed over my years of being intimately connected with this disease—there is often a strong placebo effect with any treatment. There has been a lot of hype, first about the ABC drugs, later CRAB drugs, they about Tysabri, and now about the stents for CCSVI. Multiple Sclerosis has befuddled them all, so be cautious with your body.

Depending on where you live, new fresh foods are appearing in the markets every day. If you are able to get to a farmer’s market, try to take advantage of the local produce and goods that you will find there. Try tasting different vegetables in a new combination either cooked or raw in crispy flavorful salads. Try making your own dressings with parsley, cilantro or other fresh herbs.

An easy way to create a whole meal is to steam, roast, or lightly sauté vegetables to mix in with whatever pasta you can eat- be it made of rice, quinoa, millet or buckwheat. If you are not eating any grains right now, don’t forget you can make spaghetti strands from baked spaghetti squash. You can also make ‘noodles’ from thinly sliced, steamed until soft but not soggy- eggplants, zucchini, or yellow summer squash.

Use the non dairy pesto recipe from the book, or drizzle a little flax seed oil or olive oil and/or balsamic vinegar or lemon juice on top for flavor, add in a little crushed garlic, and/or capers, and you have Pasta Primavera. If not using pesto, (the nuts and seeds are your protein and fat) add in some diced meat or fish, reheated with the vegetables or freshly cooked. Salt and pepper to taste for a complete fresh tasting spring meal. Enjoy!