Following a Low-fat Diet

Starting in 2013 I decided not to eat red meat (beef and pork) and to take my health into my own hands. I wanted to go the natural way, not just take drugs approved by the FDA; drugs that (in my opinion) had stopped working. I wanted to do anything that helped me (that I considered morally right.) In December 2012 I bought a book by Roy Swank called The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book. (Dr. Swank was a neurologist who studied the causes of MS beginning in the 1940's. He did a study that included over 2,000 people who ate a low-fat diet that improved their health so much that they barely had any MS related symptoms. That study lasted for 36 years but isn't mentioned by doctors because it never got FDA approved.) It's not a diet just for people with MS (even though the title says it is) but for anyone who wants to eat little fat. The book is written in a way that keeps people with MS in mind, looking up "Swank Diet" on the internet will probably be more beneficial for people without MS. I got off on a tangent from what I wanted to say. Back to my post...

I'm not sure what results I'll see when following this diet but I think I'll be healthier. My goal is not to lose weight but to feel better (but I won't argue if I lose weight!) It will probably take me an entire year to get used to this new way of eating. I'm going to have to adjust my current diet to include new recipes, and get used to eating a new way (since this is something I'll do for the rest of my life.) 

Per and I made "butter" the other day. It's called "spread" but it's really butter. (This diet says to eat hardly any animal fat and instead to eat most fat from oil.) The "butter" recipe includes buttermilk, nonfat dry milk and oil (to name a few ingredients) and looks like mayonnaise when blended. (We used vegetable oil but will also try other oils.) We used more salt than the recipe said because the mixture tasted kinda sweet (probably from the milk.) 

Last night, Per combined garlic and parsley with a bit of the spread and made garlic bread. He put a thin layer on the bottoms of the bread, and a thicker layer on the tops. It looked and smelled like garlic bread bought from the freezer section of the grocery store, but when he cooked it - the butter on top didn't completely melt. The breads looked like they had cheese on top. (I'm guessing the butter didn't melt because it wasn't completely butter.) But...it tasted great.

Per also made meatless spaghetti which tasted great too. It's gonna take a while for us to adjust to not eating beef and pork because we've gotten into the habit of eating those things a lot. It will be a challenge to find a substitute meat for the recipes we like, and a substitute for dairy products, but once we find what we like I think we won't miss the other things.

In 2008 I asked my doctor if I should follow a certain diet since I had MS. He said "no" and that no research had proved that a certain diet made MS better. I had a natural medicine book (The Prescription to Natural Healing) and looked up what it said about MS, but decided not to follow it because it seemed too radical. (It said not to eat red meat and to take a bunch of vitamins.)

In the four years since I've had MS, I've learned that doctors only recommend things approved by the FDA. When I asked my doctor if I should follow a certain diet since I had MS and he said what he did, he meant that NO RESEARCH HAD BEEN APPROVED BY THE FDA to prove that a certain diet made MS better. (My theory about doctors is that they truly want to help people. But doctors also don't want to say something for which they could get sued. It's a shame that when a doctor says something in this country and it doesn't work out - the person can sue them. I think doctors don't say the things they want to say because they don't want to get sued. It's my experience that doctors don't say things that "might" or "could" help people.)

Last year (2012) I wondered if I should follow my doctor (who tells things to do, based on a product being researched and approved by the FDA,) or follow the natural way (which tells things to do, even if a product is not approved by the FDA.) I felt that my doctor wasn't loyal to helping me do the best thing, but loyal to research and to the FDA. (Research will certainly continue, but according to researchers, I'm just someone with the MS disease, not a person. I could live my entire life without a "cure" being found, and that's not good enough for me because I'm alive; I have a life; I'm not a number.)

Many studies occur but aren't considered "proven" because they aren't approved by the FDA. I think the reason things don't get approved by the FDA is because of money. The FDA has requirements and if they aren't met, the thing (study) won't be approved. Big pharmaceutical companies can afford what the little guy can't so their drugs get approved while things that actually help people, don't get approved for many reasons. One of the reasons is that the FDA doesn't approve herbal remedies. The FDA only approves drugs (which have side affects.) If a person wants to take natural things into their body, they most likely won't be approved by the FDA.

In the late 1980's Herbalife got sued because distributors claimed their products "cured" things like cancer, heart disease, etc. Lawyers told Herbalife they couldn't use the word "cure" because although their things helped people, those people still had the diseases that might return when the people stopped taking their products. Natural health companies (like Herbalife) want to help people feel better. I believe that just because a product isn't approved by the FDA doesn't mean it's bad.

I'm getting off on a tangent again, back to the low fat diet...

Dr. Swank theorized that people with MS have a sensitivity to fat. There's no way to know who's sensitive to fat until a person gets sick, so the recommendation is for everyone to be thin and eat healthy foods so they don't get sick.

As I put the puzzle pieces together, I see that perhaps my dad also had a sensitivity to fat because he received a diagnosis for CIPD; a rare disease similar to MS. He loved food and he loved fat. (Whenever we had pork chops, he cut the fat from our (the kids) meat.) Now that I think about it, we are very similar (except for the meat :) I know I inherited some things from him, but if MS is one of them...I'll never know. All I can do is help myself. I think this diet may help me and it's something I'm willing to try.