KUDOS!!! to Vicky for providing transportation so Myra could come and be a part of the meeting. Lori came because she wanted to visit with Lesa which is awesome. The more positive influence the better.
Myra Vicky Lori Lesa 09-13-08
Today we had our 2nd MS support group meeting here in my home. The reason the meeting was in my home is because Lesa is staying her to get better from her MS attacks she has been suffering for a few months. We are working on changing her diet and so far we are finding some foods are causing problems for her. We are starting to see a pattern which means what we are doing is helping Lesa realize that food is a huge key into staying healthy and MS attack free.
The topic of today’s meeting was about what kind of foods people who have MS should eat. One of the things is a low fat diet. Six things should be eliminated from the diet is – Gluten, Dairy and Animal Fat, Eggs, Legumes – such as peanuts, soy and Sugar.
Today everyone bought a dish to share. Healthy healthy food. WOW!
- Healthy Food
Thanks to Myra, she brought healthy organic veggies to make a salad and hard boiled eggs, Vicky and Lori brought organic fruit and rice pudding. I made an excellent fresh tomato dressing and avocado cilantro dressing to go over the salad and I made hummus and served with celery, carrots and organic rice soy crackers – which we later figured out that the crackers had sugar in them. CRAP! Trader Joe’s sells the rice crackers without the sugar so I will get those next time.
The food was so healthy and organic. I loved what we had today. It was so cool because people were asking me for things that were organic and healthy and I had everything. Kewl Beans! The food in my house is almost all organic, dairy and gluten free, so it is work in progress. I do miss the bread, cheese, and dairy products though. One negative thing today was that Lesa started to have a flare-up. We all figured it out that it had to do with eggs. So now she knows as of today she cannot have anything with dairy or eggs. I explained the importance of a food journal. Myra shared hers with the group, and she says that she keeps track of everything she eats. Lesa realized that keeping a journal is so important.
I copied some information out of the book “The MS Recovery Diet” by Ann D Saywer and Judith Bachrach – to share with the group about different foods we should watch out for with the MS. The one thing I talked about was that we cannot eat a typical American diet, because our MS bodies cannot handle it. The number one problem in today’s society is there are a lot of people who are sick all the time because they do not understand the importance of eating healthy organic food.
Caffeine and sugar is very addictive. If you drink coffee, some teas, cola soft drinks and chocolate – wean off these things slowly to prevent having a caffeine withdrawal and suffering from severe headaches. Learning to use subsitutes for baking and cooking such as spelt, potato and rice flour instead of flour. These types of flours are pretty much gluten free. Substitute a rice or nut milk instead of cow milk for baking, recipes will have to be tweaked for things to taste good. Instead of using sugar use Stevia – this is a natural sweet plant. Using olive oil, sunflower seed oil and canola oil instead of vegetable oil and shortenings because these are the healthier saturated fat oils.
Patience is important. It takes time to see the changes in our bodies and since MS is a disease that has no cure, we have time to make the proper adjustments to our diets so that we can live MS attack free lives. Wouldn’t that be an awesome thing!
What a productive day!
MS and My Life 