Best Bet Diet COOKBOOK Recipes and strategies to help those affected by Multiple Sclerosis achieve better health Compiled by Joan Embry Published by Direct-MS 1 125 GLUTEN-FREE AND DAIRY-FREE RECIPES INCLUDED Best Bet Diet Cookbook Recipes and strategies to help those affected by Multiple Sclerosis achieve better health Compiled by Joan Embry Published by Direct-MS To learn more about our charity for Multiple Sclerosis, the Best Bet Diet and MS Hope visit: www.direct-ms.org www.mshope.com 2 Copyright © 2019 by Direct-MS Published by Direct-MS www.direct-ms.org Registered Charity Number: 868267568RR0001 Illustrations: Brianna Schretlen Photography: Krista Webb Design: Kim Embry ISBN: 978-1-9992610-0-9 Printed in Canada Friesens Corporation Altona, Manitoba, Canada As a non-profit registered charity, Direct-MS encourages you to share the recipes in this book with anyone affected by Multiple Sclerosis or those who are interested in improving their overall health. The described approaches and suggested therapies in this book are meant to complement, not replace, professional medical advice and treatment. You are encouraged to seek advice from your doctor on matters related to Multiple Sclerosis. DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This cookbook is dedicated to Roy Swank, Roger MacDougall and Judy Graham, the pioneers of the use of nutritional strategies for helping to keep Multiple Sclerosis well controlled. Their concepts and practical suggestions for nutritional changes to combat MS were published in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and are still valid today. This book is simply an extension of their monumental and selfless efforts to help persons with MS. We would also like to dedicate this book to all the persons affected by MS and their families who have incorporated the Best Bet Diet into their lives and provided a great deal of feedback over the past 24 years. It has been inspiring and most gratifying to hear their success stories and their suggestions for improving the Best Bet Diet. Above all, I have to offer my sincere thanks to my daughter-in-law, Kim Embry, who handled the design and layout of this book, took some of the photographs, and shepherded the book through the printing process. This cookbook would not have happened without her selfless, volunteer efforts and her unwavering attention to detail. I would also like to thank my husband, Ashton Embry, for contributing the science section, my son, Duncan, for contributing numerous recipes and providing helpful suggestions for improvement, and my son, Matt, who inspired the need for the cookbook in the first place. Thanks are also due to Krista Webb, who volunteered her time to take the many photographs in the book, to Brianna Schretlen who created the illustrations, to the individuals who shared their testimonials in the Living Proof section, and to the congenial staff at Friesens Printing who produced this book. This book would have not been possible without the support of various groups of people. These include the enthusiastic cooks who provided their recipes, all the people who have generously contributed to Direct-MS and the Direct-MS Board which encouraged and financially-backed this project since its inception. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Andrew Watson of Scotland who 20 years ago came up the with name Best Bet Diet for the proposed nutritional strategies for MS. 5 CONTENTS Forward 7 Introduction 8 Scientific Concepts, Strategies, Best Bet Diet Basics, Frequently Asked Questions Living Proof 24 Best Bet Diet Success Stories Meal Strategies 36 Getting Started, Food Substitutes, Meal Plans, Shopping List, Recommendations Breakfast 63 Soup 69 Salad 83 Fish 101 Chicken 125 Beef, Pork, Lamb 143 Vegetables 161 Slow Cooking 179 Instant Pot 193 Special Occasions 209 Dessert 233 Conclusion 246 Recommended Reading and Final Thoughts 7 FORWARD Sailing to Better Health When our son received the devastating diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 1995, it felt like we had been thrown into the middle of a stormy sea. Having been a research scientist for 30 years, my husband Ashton plunged into the scientific literature for MS to determine the most likely factors which cause MS and to use this information to develop an effective therapy for our son. In our research, we discovered abundant scientific evidence that indicates that various nutritional factors potentially play major roles in the onset and progression of MS. Strangely, this information was not being made available to persons with MS by doctors, nor by established MS charities. Notably, many people are having great success in halting or greatly slowing MS with nutritional strategies; many testimonials are available. We are pleased to report that our son remains in excellent health. He has now started his own website, www.mshope.com, that explains the strategies he has used in order to stay healthy for the past 24 years. My husband and I, with a group of others dealing with MS, decided to make this information freely available and established a federally registered charity which we called DIRECT-MS, short for DIet REsearch into the Cause and Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. Our charity is dedicated to providing reliable, science-based information on the role that nutritional factors play in MS to allow those affected by MS to make an informed decision on whether or not to use nutritional strategies for managing the disease and preventing it from occurring in loved ones. We hope you enjoy and benefit from the information and these recipes. – Joan Embry Forward 7 Introduction 9 About This Cookbook This cook book has been prepared to help persons with Multiple Sclerosis implement the nutritional strategies which are recommended by our charity, Direct-MS and MS Hope. The following strategies are often referred to as the “Best Bet Diet” within the cookbook. We would like to note that although we developed this diet as an effective strategy specifically to help people with MS, our research and some testimonials suggest it could be beneficial for persons with other autoimmune diseases, as well as anyone searching for better health. We begin with a summary of the scientific concepts that link various nutritional factors to the MS disease process. To us, it is important to understand the basic scientific rationale for why various nutritional factors are a key part of the initiation and ongoing progression of MS. We then discuss the various foods which either contribute to the MS disease process and the foods which help to suppress and halt the disease process. Clearly, it is essential to eliminate the pro-MS foods and to significantly increase the consumption of foods and supplements which counter MS. Thus, we have sections on foods to eliminate, foods to reduce, and foods to increase, as well as a list of supplements. We realize it is often very difficult to give up foods which you have enjoyed over a lifetime; such as dairy and gluten-containing products. To help you accomplish this, we discuss acceptable substitutes for common foods which are very problematic for MS. We have also provided suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. At the heart of this book are the recipes which we have gleaned from many sources and we ourselves have used over the past 24 years. We have ensured that each recipe follows the recommended nutritional strategies and that it can be prepared with relative ease. We would also encourage you to develop your own recipes and adapt ones you discover by using the basic principles of the Best Bet Diet. The list of food substitutes should help ensure that any recipe does not contain foods to avoid. We value your feedback on this book. Please feel free to send your comments to [email protected] Introduction 9 Scientific Concepts for the Best Bet Diet for MS The Best Bet Diet is a nutritional strategy for managing MS that was developed by Dr. Ashton Embry in the 1990s. He formulated this diet after his son was diagnosed with MS by reading numerous scientific papers on multiple sclerosis and nutrition. A large volume of that research is available on our website www.direct-ms.org MS is classified as an autoimmune disease. The basic disease process of an autoimmune disease, such as MS, is that a person’s own immune system attacks specific parts of the body, which, for MS, is the central nervous system. The specific tissue that is the main target of the immune attack is myelin, a fatty substance that wraps around and insulates the nerve axons of the central nervous system. With the loss of myelin, the nerve axons themselves eventually are damaged and destroyed. The axons deliver instructions from the brain to all the parts of the body and their loss causes such messages to be delayed and blocked. This translates into the multiple disabilities that characterize MS. Studies suggest that the MS disease process begins in childhood and that it is often 20–30 years before it becomes clinically apparent in young adulthood. Such a long lag time between the start of the disease process and its recognition characterizes many chronic diseases including cancer and heart disease. It is now firmly established that genes play a significant role in the onset of MS and that only people who carry specific genes are susceptible to contracting MS. Studies have shown that many genes are involved in MS susceptibility with numerous genes related to the immune system being very important. It appears that less than 2 percent of people are genetically susceptible to MS. Most importantly, it is also known that environmental factors also play a major role in MS onset and progression. Such environmental factors are those which result in one’s own immune system attacking and destroying myelin in the central nervous system.