CHAPTER TEN

LET’S TALK ABOUT DIET

Let’s get one thing straight right from the beginning. The Swank Diet is not some fad diet. The Swank Diet is not a dangerous diet. The only problem with the Swank Diet is that it was developed almost 40 years ago, long before the medical establishment in this country began to think in terms of diet as a very important factor in the well being of the American people. Dr. Swank as so far ahead of his time in dietary recommendations, that he was ridiculed when he made them. Now that what he advocated has come into medical vogue, he has been long since forgotten!

Even a casual reading of the Swank Diet shows that it is in every way compatible with the current dietary recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. Those same guidelines that have been recently embraced bye the American Medical Association (AMA). It should be noted that the recommendations of the American Heart Association for dietary measures to reduce the chances of heart attack are almost identical in every respect to the Swank diet.

The only difference in the way I use the diet and how the average (non-MS) person would use it, is the strictness with which I must follow it in order to obtain the desired results.

There were probably many things that led Dr. Swank to believe that diet is a factor in the development of Multiple Sclerosis. Statistical evidence shows that the incidence of contracting MS is much more prevalent in northern climates (60 cases per 100,000 population in Minnesota), than it is in southern climates (less than 6 percent per 100,000 population in Louisiana). Studying all aspects of the lifestyles of the populations in the two states, diet seems to be one of the most significant differences. In cold climates where the body temperature must be maintained in spite of the cold weather, people are prone to eat may more of their daily calories as fat. Fat provides more calories per gram of food intake than any other food source and those extra calories to burn help to maintain body temperature.

Another significant statistic is that the people of Holland, who historically have one of the higher incidences of MS in the world, suddenly showed a marked decrease in new cases of the disease during the World War II Nazi occupation. One of the most significant changes in the overall lifestyle of the Dutch people during those was years was a change from one of the highest intakes of calories from fats in the world to a very low intake of calories from fat because the war caused shortages of meat and butter fats (milk products). Yet at the same time their stress level was undeniably higher than ever before. Did the lowered fat intake allow them to endure the stress without MS attacks being triggered by the stress?

These were only two facts among many that led dr. Swank to study the people of Norway, another country whose population has a statistically high incidence of MS. He found that Norwegians living near the coast and getting significant amounts of their dietary calories from seafood (Omega 3 fish fats) had a much lower incidence of MS than did their fellow countrymen living inland and depending on dairy products and read meat for the necessary calories to survive the cold weather. (Hence the insistence on cod liver oil as a part of the diet.)

The occurrence of MS also seemed to correlate with the “western diet,” in which much of the fat intake was modern man-made fats. So-called, hydrogenated fats. Statistically, Westerners (Europeans, North Americans, etc.) have much higher MS rates than do Asians, Orientals, Africans, South Americans, etc.

The statistics began to mount. The more “hard fat” (red meat, dairy fat and man-made fat) in the diet, the higher the statistical rate of MS. By this time Dr. Swank was working in Montreal, Canada and it was there, I think, that he first proposed the theory that MS is a disease in which diet plays a major role. He began asking MS patients to modify their diets, curtailing their calorie intake of “hard-fats” in favor of calorie intakes fro other sources.

The results of these experiments were given in Chapter 7 and seem very convincing to me.

The basis of the MS program I use is the acceptance of Dr. Swank’s belief that multiple sclerosis is, in fact, a dietary-related disease. Diabetes and some types of heart disease are acknowledged as dietary disease. Why should MS be ruled out without more proof that is now available? Knowing and accepting this, I have been able to change my eating habits as necessary without feeling that I am being cheated or that I am weird.

In a world of sugar and sweet-eaters, a diabetic must come to terms with himself and his disease. He must give up heavy amounts of sugar and some types of carbohydrates forever. And along with his new diet, he must be prepared to take pills and/or shots for the rest of his life. If he won’t, his disease worsens and complications set in. The final result is that he will become more and more debilitated and probably will die before his time.

We, as MS’ers, must be prepared to avoid “hard fats” with an equal determination. Along with this new eating habit, we must be prepared to swallow a number of pills. If we cannot, or will not, then we must accept a life of steadily deteriorating physical powers.

The biggest problem that many MS’ers seem to have is enough faith in an MS diet to stick with it until they get results, particularly since the medical establishment does not officially sanction such diets.

But there is no halfway! The choice is really a very simple one. We can continue to eat and drink in the way which, I believe, causes, or at least, encourages the MS and continue the steady decline in our physical abilities, or we can change the way we think and eat so that our body is able to stop further damage and either repair or find pathways around some of the existing damage and then begin to get better.

It sounds so simple and it really is. Yet many MS patients exposed to the diet and supplement program have, for one reason or another, turned their backs on it and have continued their slow decline. By contrast those few (and they are all too few) whom I know to have followed both the Swank diet and the same or a very similar supplement program to the one I use, strictly, without any cheating, have either stabilized with no further deterioration or have actually improved physically.

The most difficult thing to get across to other patients is that this is not some “magic” program that we do for a little while and then everything will be alright and we will be “normal” again. This is a new way of life and though it offers hope for a better future for us, it does so only so long as we follow the rules of the program.

We can never get tired of our new diet and splurge on the things that are forbidden. If we do, it is like trying to walk uphill on ice – for every step up we take, we slide back two. And when we slide backward, it is no laughing matter! We don’t just land in a comical heap on our backside. We have another MS attack or as the doctors like to call it, an exacerbation and we begin our deterioration again.

We must be strong enough to be able to look great Aunt Minnie right in the eye and say that even though she is our favorite aunt, we cannot eat the meal that she has planned for a week and spent two days preparing. If we don’t have that kind of courage and that much willpower, then we are lost before we start.

We also need to understand that we can’t expect immediate improvement in our physical condition. We didn’t get sick with MS in a few months and we won’t improve our situation in a few months, either. The amount of time involved varies with each person. The quickest beginning of improvement I have seen so far is seven months and the longest has taken over two years before any change was noticed. However, if you still continue to have any severe or new attacks after following the diet correctly for six months, then look for other food allergies. Such allergies can and usually will compound the problem and keep improvement from happening.

By improvement, I am not talking about being able to participate in the Boston Marathon. I’m talking about taking the first major step on the road back to good health. This may be as simple as getting over the exhaustion and general tiredness that all MS’ers seem to feel most of the time and starting to feel like participating in the life around us. Or it might be as dramatic as being able to control our bladder for the first time in years, or perhaps regaining normal vision. Maybe it will be our speech pattern clearing so that we don’t sound as if we had taken several belts in the local pub or it could be losing the numbness in some part of our body. But some positive first improvement step should be reached within the time frame of seven months to two years.

As a patient living from day to day with your disabilities, you will know when the first improvement happens. It may not be as dramatic as a bolt of lightening from the sky, but you will suddenly find yourself saying something like, “Gee, I couldn’t do this before, now it’s no problem!” further improvements should follow much faster and with regularity.

My own case, as you have already read, went from typical MS functional blindness, numbness of the left side extremities, slurring of speech, can and leg braces, plus lack of bladder control, to feeling normal enough to play tennis and be able to return to a job as a radio announcer over a period of about six years.

Another patient I worked with has gone from a wheelchair and approximately the same other symptoms that I had – to being able to walk with only minimal support from her husband and being able to care for her house, in about twelve years. Let me assure you that Betty, like me, does not give in to food craving or forget to take her supplements. She has worked too hard and too long and she enjoys walking too much to blow it now.

One man I first met in 1969 was using leg braces and Canadian canes to help himself walk. It was shortly after I bought my first store and I had not yet really started to improve, except for my vision. He had heard about me and wanted to know what I was doing. When I explained about the strict diet, but could not point to any real improvement, he decided he would rather take his chances with the disease than give up the foods he liked. The next time I saw him, about a year and a half later, my speech was normal again and I had regained my bladder control, while he had deteriorated to the point of being in a wheelchair most of the time. After he compared our respective changes in abilities, he decided he would quit his foolishness about foods and get on with the program.

He was as determined as I about the diet once he started it and stayed in weekly contact. He went from a wheelchair to being able to hold a full time job as a carpenter/cabinet maker in about six years. We got to be pretty close friends. His son even worked for me in the store for a while. When he finally felt well enough, he left this area and returned home to the rest of his family in the northeastern part of the country.

Let me repeat: This is a change of lifestyle and eating habit that lasts for the rest of our lives!

THE SWANK DIET

With that much background, what is the diet all about? I follow a diet designed by Roy Swank, MD, who until his retirement a few years ago was head of the department of Neurology at the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland, Oregon.

He has written a book entitled, The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book. You may get a copy through your local health food store or bookstore or by sending a check for $29.95 plus $2.03 book rate postage (Florida residents add $2.10 tax) to:

Swank Book

c/o John Pageler

6200 102nd Terrace North

Pinellas Park, FL 33782

This book will give you an insight into the disease in a scientific manner. It also gives you the full story and the “do’s and don’ts” of the diet and the Swank theories of why it is successful in changing the course of multiple sclerosis.

Just so you don’t think you are going to starve to death, the book contains hundreds of recipes on everything from apple pie to Italian zucchini. Although most of us lose a few pounds on the diet, weight loss is not the primary goal. Rather, it teaches us a new way of food preparation with emphasis on reducing animal and man-made fat (“hard fat”) intake.

The diet severely restricts “hard fats”. By that we mean highly saturated fats such as meat fat, butterfat and man-made fats such as margarine and hydrogenated vegetable cooking fat. Most of us just don’t realize how much of this fat we really get in our diet. For instance just two ounces of completely trimmed red meat (all visible fat, even the marbleizing removed) equals one teaspoon of “hard fat”.

While the vast majority of people have no problems in eating this type of fat in moderation, it is Dr. Swank’s theory that such fats are one of the main culprits in our development of and our continuing problems with MS.

During the first year on the Swank Diet, MS patients should avoid all red meat in favor of white fish and chicken. After the first year, red meat can be reintroduced in moderation.

The basic diet, in a nutshell, allows MS’ers to have a total of only six teaspoons of “hard fat” per day from all sources. It also calls for the addition to the diet of extra oil or “soft fat”.

The protein foods in the diet, fish, foul, eggs and meat will account for almost all 6 teaspoons. But it is not just the main course you have to watch out for. Everything you put in your mouth must be examined for its type of fat content and everything we can’t count in the protein foods avoided.

Some of the key words we must watch for on labels include: hardened or partially hardened, hydrogenated, fractionated palm kernel oil, coconut oil, or any mention of natural meat or chicken flavoring on a packaged dry product. All these are just fancy terms for “hard fats”. If you see these words or others that might mean the presence of this type of fat, do not use that product!

Commercially baked products are a big problem area. Most bakeries use hydrogenated vegetable fats in crusts and dough. If you want something baked, use Dr. Swank’s recipes, substituting liquid vegetable oil for the hardened fat.

Meats, fish and fowl are also restricted as to the type and amount that can be consumed. Generally the darker the color of the flesh, the more natural “hard fat” there is in it. Red meats, dark meat of the chicken and dark fish, like salmon must be carefully weighed and prepared. The diet only allows six teaspoons of “hard” or saturated fat per day and each two ounces of dark flesh completely trimmed before cooing, translates to approximately one teaspoon of “hard fat”.

All of the luncheon meats and sausages of every type are loaded with so much fat that they should be avoided altogether. Their protein to fat ratio is bad.

Never fry flesh: that adds more saturated fat to the already concentrated amounts of “hard fat” which it contains naturally.

But meat and potatoes lovers take heart. Even though we need to restrict the dark meats severely, we can be more lenient and have up to three times as much of the white meats, such as white fish or breast of chicken (the skin removed before cooking).

The real dietary changes are required in things such as gravies, sauces, casseroles and potato toppings. Most are totally out because they are fat-based and do not provide suitable nutrition per calorie of gram of fat.

I’ve never figured out how to make gravy without some kind of fat such as meat drippings, or pizza without cheese, or creamed chicken without milk. Since I have not figured out how to prepare any of these foods without fat and for me fat is as bad as arsenic, these foods simply do not exist.

All milk products, including butter and cheese are to be avoided. The only exception is skim milk. Not 1 percent or 2 percent milk. Skim!

(To me skim milk is like blue water, so I just don’t use any milk at all.)

We can’t even have peanut butter, unless we use the old fashioned kind, without the hydrogenated fat added – the kind normally found in health food stores and in which the oil separates when it sits for a few days.

Perhaps the restriction on restaurants is the most difficult thing to get used to. But modern-day restaurants use so many prepared mixes that are laced with fats of unknown origin that we must avoid them. A good rule of thumb is, if you don’t fix it yourself, or if you don’t know the person who did fix it well enough to ask about the exact amount of “hard fat” that is in each dish, leave it alone.

I know this is tough, but so is multiple sclerosis. We have to be tougher than the disease or there is no hope for us to ever get better – only worse.

After all these years, sometimes I wish I could join in with the rest of the family for traditional Sunday feasts. I almost cry when it comes Thanksgiving and Christmas time. I can just taste that roast turkey leg and giblet gravy. But after I carve for the rest of the family, I have my skinned breast out of the broiler, a dry baked potato, maybe some fresh green peas cooked just in water with some herbs to flavor them and a big salad with oil and vinegar dressing. (I use mostly sunflower oil because of the reported success with MS in Europe using a sunflower emulsion.)

No matter how much I want to kick over the traces and just go for the really good stuff, I can’t help thinking how much more fun it is to chase balls on the tennis court than it was to be stomping around with those leg braces and with the cane in my hand to keep my balance. I know that I can never cheat on the diet if I expect to stay healthy. Not even once. Never!

What your situation is, I have no way of knowing, but I do know that if you

really want to go back to living something like a more normal life – YOU can. But there is no quick way, no easy way, not “magic bullet” that will get you off the hook. It takes a lot of dedication and work to lick MS. Not just today, not just tomorrow or next week or even next year, but for as long as you live.

If you don’t have the courage and willpower to do it right and do if forever, with no wavering, no backward looks, no slipping back tow steps, then don’t get your hopes up or waste your time, effort, or money. You might just as well do as your doctor suggests and accept our fate. He can’t help you and neither can anyone else. Your future is your own responsibility. All I can do is to try to help point the way.

MY TYPICAL MENUS

BREAKFAST:

I know the old adage: breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper, but I guess I’m too typically American for that. So breakfast for me is usually pretty light. I do love my coffee, even though I had to learn to take it black; there are NO CREAM OR CREAM SUBSTITUTES that can be used.

I like toast in the morning. Seven-grain bread, from Breads For Life, or my wife’s homemade bread is what I use. Just jam or jelly on it. NO SPREAD. There is no spread that can be used, with the possible exception of old-fashioned peanut butter. Three or four days a week I have an egg: poached, soft or hard-boiled are the choices here. Remember, one egg is one teaspoon of “hard fat” out of your daily allowance of six teaspoons.

The rest of the week I have a cereal that we make up with a good granola as the base. To that we add miller’s bran or wheat germ and one of the cereals like Rice Chex, shredded wheat or bran flakes, along with dried fruit and sliced nuts to taste. You can really be creative if you make up your own cereal. Be creative with your liquids, also. You can use skimmed milk on it if you wish, but I prefer plain apple juice, or apple/strawberry, pineapple, apple/banana or sometimes papaya juice.

LUNCH:

Ninety percent of the time lunch is some type of salad. I use lettuce and homegrown sprouts as the base and then any raw vegetable is fair game. On the non-egg days I have some meat or fish on the salad, a la a chef’s salad. This can be water-packed, light tuna, shredded home-cooked chicken breast, water-packed or fresh shrimp or crab or even, once in a while, sliced home-roasted, but extra lean beef or fresh ham. (Remember to keep track of the “hard fat” in your lunch, too!

There are really lots of choices for variety. But remember, no milk products means no cheese and the salad dressing must usually be oil and vinegar or lemon juice with herbs to your taste. There are just not many bottled dressings that we can have that I know of.

Once in a while, I will have soup and a sandwich for lunch. The only soup I ever have is homemade. And my wife chills it and skims off all the fat before she reheats it and serves it to me. The sandwich has to be made without the usual spreads. Even mayonnaise, unless it’s homemade, is out. (Swank gives a recipe for homemade mayonnaise.) Thank goodness, I like mustard; most of the prepared ones are okay and I use quite a bit of pickle relish that helps to moisten the sandwich, along with a slice of tomato. Favorite sandwiches are very lean, home-cooked ham, tuna, chicken, home-roasted beef, even egg.

Supper is the American standby. I usually get my other four or five teaspoons of had fat here. Remember, two ounces of red meat, or dark fish, or fowl, trimmed before cooking, equate to one teaspoon of “hard fat”. No flesh, or anything else, may be fired. It must always be boiled, roasted, baked, or broiled and always cooked on a rack so the hidden fat that still cooks out can be avoided. (Obviously, when boiling meat, it must be cooked and skimmed before being reheated and used.)

Along with the meat dish, I have another salad – same requirement for dressing – a cooked vegetable and potato, rice or noodles. In preparing vegetables, don’t just steam them all the time. You can get lots of variety by baking or cooking them in tomato sauce.

One of my favorites is acorn squash. Take a half a raw acorn squash, scoop out the seeds and ladle in two tablespoons of oil and two tablespoons of packed brown sugar. Wrap in foil and bake. Now that’s good eating.

Another favorite is Italian Zucchini. In a saucepan, put one small can of tomato sauce, chop half an onion, a quarter of a green pepper and slice one medium-sized zucchini squash and add Italian herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Cook slowly in the tomato sauce for about 30 minutes. Mmmm, good.

Many times, we fix a dish with fresh carrots, celery, onions, green pepper and mushrooms, sliced and washed, then removed from the water, but not drained. Put them all in a covered Corning Ware dish and a little soy sauce, a tablespoon of sunflower or safflower oil. Then salt, pepper and herbs to taste and put it in the oven at about 350 degrees for 20 minutes to a half hour, depending on how crisp you like your vegetables. When if comes out, it makes a great side dish, or a topping for a baked potato.

Speaking of baked potato, you cannot use any topping except something such as I just described or a tablespoon of oil and some seasoning. Before you turn up you nose at the thought of oil on your baked potato, stop for a moment and think. If you put butter or margarine on a hot baked potato, what happens? That’s right! It melts and it looks and tastes just like the oil.

Don’t forget the bread along with the meal. I’ve gotten very fond of garlic toast. We use seven-grain bread with a teaspoon of oil spread on it and either some garlic powder or fresh crushed garlic. Just pop it under the broiler for about two minutes.

There are thousands of things to eat; it just takes a little imagination. Just remember to get as little of the “hard fat” as possible, using no more than twelve ounces of well-trimmed dark flesh in a 24-hour period and nothing fired. I also get up to four tablespoons of oil per day. The oil capsule vitamins will give you one to two, depending on whether or not you use lecithin capsules or granules and whether or not you use primrose oil capsules. The point is, don’t be afraid to use some oil in your cooking and just don’t go overboard.

DESSERT:

Dr. Swank’s book gives lots of recipes for dessert, just be sure you follow them and don’t try and buy any prepared desserts. In today’s market place, I don’t know of one single commercially prepared dessert that does not contain an undetermined amount of “hard fat”.

Notice that we have left out many of the American standby foods. No bacon or sausage for breakfast. No cheese at any time. And no ice cream or even iced milk on the dessert menu.

One last rule of thumb. If it contains fat, such as butter, vegetable shortening or spreads, etc., remember that if it is not liquid at room temperature, it has too much “hard fat” to use.

How much weight will you lose? Usually in the first year, between five and twenty pounds depending on your size and weight in the beginning. But as you settle into a routine and your body gets used to the diet, you will probably put it back on at about two or three pounds per year.

After all these years I weigh about 225. I started out on the diet at about 210, dropped to around 190 and then slowly started back up. Of course, when I started I had an athletic body, with lots of chest and shoulder muscle. Now everything has gone a little soft and shifted south, so I have a paunch. Oh well, I guess we all get older!