Eating Well and MS

03:45 Overview of the Overcoming MS diet

04:18 What you can enjoy eating on the Overcoming MS diet

06:24 Jack McNulty’s introduction and diet philosophy for those who are new to the Program

18:10 Practical tips for cooking and consuming healthy fat

30:08 Melody Landwehr’s experience of starting on the Overcoming MS diet

31:32 Finding something that works for you

33:49 Introduction to Nutritional Therapist Jenna Cox

40:37 Quick go-to evening meal ideas

44:48 The research behind saturated fats and how to measure your intake

48:49 Spraying olive oil over vegetables

51:32 How to take flaxseed oil

54:20 Ideas for gaining weight

57:00 Snacks

01:00:00 Our next webinar and the Overcoming MS retreat 2025

Jack McNulty

Jack McNulty has been involved in food and cooking most of his life. He’s walked many paths during his culinary journey, transforming himself from an interested home cook to a professional chef with classical training working in high-end restaurants in Switzerland, Italy, and France. Jack operated his own catering business and cooking school for 15 years, while also finding time to write about cooking. Jack’s current activities include operating myfreshattitude.com – a website dedicated to providing healthy vegan recipes and useful vegan cooking instruction and techniques.

He also writes and distributes a weekly international newsletter – VeganWeekly – to inspire people to cook healthy vegan food. Jack has followed the Overcoming MS lifestyle since 2009 and has worked on providing recipes and information to the Overcoming MS website. He was the contributing editor to the Overcoming MS Cookbook, and authored the ‘Eat Well’ chapter in the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook.

Karen Lee

Karen is a retired intensive care nurse, nutritionist, advocate for plant-based eating, author and recipe developer. She was diagnosed with MS in March 2016 after several bouts of severe optic neuritis. She feels very fortunate to have been aware of Overcoming MS through a work colleague and adopted the Program straight away. Already eating a whole-food plant-based diet, she soon learnt the importance of the other six pillars in managing her health and is very happy that she remains well and active. Karen has created and run her own courses in whole-food plant-based eating and loves teaching people to cook amazingly tasty food that just happens to be good for health.

She published her first book in 2019 and has a second coming out in 2025. Karen is mum to two young adults and lives in rural Mid-Devon with her husband. Keen travellers, they love exploring the UK and Europe in their campervan.

Jenna Cox

Jenna Cox is a registered nutritional therapist specialising in supporting individuals with MS to take greater control of their health journeys and live their best lives. Her holistic approach considers her client’s accompanying health concerns including gut health, cardiovascular diseases, weight management, thyroid diseases, and osteoporosis. Jenna was diagnosed with RRMS in November 2016. The Overcoming MS Program played such an important role in her own experience of MS, and she is now supporting Overcoming MS as one of the Bristol Circle Ambassadors.

She loves walking in the hills and mountains with her partner and hopes that they’ll soon have a doggy companion on their adventures. 

Melody Landwehr

Melody Landwehr is a qualified accountant living in London with her partner and beloved dog. Originally from Minnesota, Melody grew up on a diet rich in dairy and meat and balanced four jobs alongside numerous family and friend obligations, showcasing a remarkable dedication and work ethic. This lifestyle led to a diagnosis of Relapsing Remitting MS in 2013. Within 18 months, Melody suffered a second relapse, resulting in mental health issues, balance problems, brain fog, and the need to walk with a walking stick.  Shortly after she moved to London to be with her partner and learned about the Overcoming MS Lifestyle.

Having had great success with the Overcoming MS (OMS) lifestyle, Melody has become an advocate for Overcoming MS. She draws from her own experiences and tries to help others adopt the lifestyle by sharing her insights into managing multiple sclerosis through mindful eating, exercise, mindfulness, and a balanced lifestyle. Melody also tells people about the Overcoming MS lifestyle every chance she gets, as it’s useful for all people in living a health life and aging well.

Outside of her professional career and Overcoming MS advocacy, Melody enjoys hiking, running, swimming, tennis, and yoga. She also loves to travel, read, and spend quality time with family and friends. Guided by the motto “Be brave and be kind,” Melody strives to use her talents to help others, inspiring those around her to live well and stay positive.

Karen Lee  00:06

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Living Well with MS webinar series season five, we’re so pleased to be introducing our new panel style webinars this year where we’ll be bringing to life the Overcoming MS Handbook, the Road Map to good health, with the help of expert guest speakers and members of the Overcoming MS community. My name is Karen Lee. I’m a facilitator for Overcoming MS and also a nutritional therapist, and I’m joining you tonight from mid Devon, and which is in the South West of England. So in today’s webinar, we’re going to be exploring the diet and nutrition pillar of the overcoming MS program, and we’re going to be welcoming plant based chef Jack McNulty and Overcoming MS community members, Melody Landwehr and Jenna Cox to the virtual stage for a panel discussion. We’re going to be hearing about their experiences, and we’re going to be sharing our top tips, as well as in answering some of your burning questions. So before we get started, I just want to run through a little bit of housekeeping to keep this webinar running as smoothly as possible for you. So you’ll notice that the sessions being recorded, and you’ll receive a link to access the recording so you can watch this all over again. And because this is a Zoom webinar, you’ll only be able to see the guest speakers, but it is still an interactive session as because you’re going to be able to ask questions using the Q and A tab on your screen and do, please do submit some your questions, and we’ll hopefully be able to answer them when we get to the Q and A section later on. So please note that all of our speakers can’t comment or revise on any individual circumstances. So trying to keep your questions generalized so that everybody can benefit from the answers. Now, hopefully you won’t have any technical issues, but if you do try exiting out of your browser and then re entering using the link that was sent in the email, we recommend using the Chrome browser to access the webinar, because it just seems to work better, and the session is as accessible as we can make it so when we’re using subtitles, so you may see these at the bottom of your screen. You can turn them on and off just by clicking the CC live transcript option. And when you leave the webinar, but just about an hour’s time, you’ll there, a short survey will pop up on the screen, and we’d really appreciate a moment of your time just to fill that in, as though this feedback helps us to shape future webinars and events going forward. So as mentioned today, as mentioned today’s webinar, we’re going to be focusing on the Overcoming MS diet, and we, and our speakers, we’re going to just sort of share their perspective on it. But before we do that, I’m just going to give you a very quick recap on the diet pillar. Now I’m going to try and make this work. Going to just show a couple of slides. Hold on a second. So where are we? Hopefully this will work. From the beginning, okay, good, hopefully you can see that. Okay, okay, so in just a little summary, the Overcoming MS diet, in a nutshell, if you like, it consists of eating a low saturated fat diet. So it’s not low fat way of eating, it’s low in saturated fats, and it’s dairy free and full of lovely whole foods, which are plant based. And also you can have fish and seafood if you if you like, if you desire, that’s oily fish, and then other fish and other types of seafood. And then we also supplement with 20 to 40 ml of cold pressed flax seed oil every day, that gives us a lovely boost of omega three fatty acids. And then, if you’re wondering, well, what does that mean? I can eat, well, all sorts of beautiful and tasty foods, so a huge range of fresh fruits and vegetables. These especially thinking about all the different colors that you can have, because they all give different benefits, like special phytonutrients and things, then grains, preferably whole grains. But if you choose to go be gluten free, there’s still quite a lot of grains and psuedo-grains in there. So we’re looking. For complex fiber, which is really good for for gut health. So that means that you can have all types of pasta and noodles and rice and most breads. Obviously, there’s some some breads have a lot of saturated fat in it, or butter enriched breads, which need to be avoided. Then there’s lots of different types of plant proteins, which you can get from beans and lentils. Also got lots of fiber in there as well tofu and tempeh. And you can create all sorts of delicious meals with these. Then on the oily fish side of things, this is a sometimes can help you remember which ones that you can have. So this stands for sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon, herring and trout. So these are all good quality oily fish. And also do try to have the eat fish on the smaller end of the scale. So slightly smaller fish, the larger fish have a build up of other toxins, then all sorts of white fish and shellfish, lots of nuts. So any nuts, except for peanuts, which I know is not a nut, but peanuts are not included. But otherwise, there’s a lovely selection of nuts and seeds that can be included in dishes. And then there’s all the lovely things which which bring out the flavors, like pickles and capers and fermented food, particularly good for gut health, if this is something that you are really interested in. Then there was a great podcast last out last week with Jack. And then they were discussing Jack and Geoff were discussing everything to do with fermented foods. Then on the drink side of things, and there’s teas and coffees. We know that a small amount of alcohols also is good for people with MS. And then on the chocolatey side of things, cacao and cocoa powder, which can be used in baking and drinks and things like that, but I’m afraid chocolate we do need to avoid because of the saturated fats. So like I say, that’s just a very quick run through of what the diet pillar includes, and so I’m going to stop talking. And without further ado, I’d like to welcome our first guest speaker, Jack McNulty, to the stage. Hi Jack, how are you?

 

Jack McNulty  07:31

Hi Karen. Hi everybody. Lovely to be here. I’m coming to you directly from Zurich, Switzerland today, which is where I live, for those that don’t know, I’ve been following the OMS lifestyle since the end of 2009 My goodness, that seems like a while now, which was about three months after my diagnosis, and I currently spend most of my time writing about food these days and exploring new ways to remain healthy, not doing too much of the cheffy sort of things anymore, and just spending time, yeah, exploring ways, especially new ways to to eat well and healthy. So that’s what I’m kind of up to. Appreciate the opportunity. And usually when I like to talk about food, I like to try to create images in people’s minds. I think that those are good little hooks to to remember things by. And if you’re new to OMS and OMS diet, maybe we can just begin by just imagining you’re starting a journey on a highway, and there are multiple lanes to choose from, and clear guard rails on each side to keep you safe and various rest stops along the way. And this is exactly how I think we can consider the OMS diet. It’s really it’s a journey, and it’s a journey towards better health with clear boundaries and certainly enough built in flexibility for real life situations. I think food is one of those things that probably creates the most conversation for people when they just first start out on the OMS world. It’s something, you know, when you really think about it, something that we have to deal with multiple times, every day and every day. It’s really kind of an opportunity to make good choices and to choose for yourself. Am I going to do something to promote health or, you know, am I not? And that’s kind of the basis of OMS. It’s really our choices that we make on a daily basis. So my goal today is to kind of. Help demystify maybe some of the food portion of the OMS lifestyle and show how it can work in sort of practical terms in life. I want to probably spend a little bit more time on discussing fats, which is what most people seem to navigate to really rapidly, and much of what I want to discuss is kind of based on the chapter I wrote in the OMS handbook, which I encourage everyone to read. I think it’s a fabulous work that came out before. I’m diving really into the how of what makes OMS work. Let’s just review for a second. Karen just went over the pillars of OMS. But I think even before there, I think that there’s a really important question that we can ask ourselves every day, and it’s something I’ve been doing for a long time, especially if I get stuck in situations or feel frustrated that things aren’t going necessarily as well as I want. And I just keep reminding myself, what’s, what’s my objective? You know? What? What is the objective that I’m trying to to reach, with respect to OMS, and with respect to food, is that in alignment with what OMS is, is saying. And for, I think for most part, for the most part, for most people, it’s really trying to get to quality of life. That’s the ultimate goal, you know, to get to get a sense of my life means something, and there’s some quality here, and I think that that aligns perfectly with the OMS objective. You know, I hear a lot of times when people are sometimes critical of OMS and especially the diet. They say, Oh, it’s too restrictive or it’s too difficult. So let’s explore that. And perhaps one way of doing that is to maybe create another little visual if we, if we can. And let’s, let’s just think for a minute that our bodies are sort of like a car engine, and your blood is like the oil running through it, and just as a car needs the right type and quality of oil to run smoothly. I think that your body also needs the right type of fats in your blood to function. Well, that just makes perfect sense to me. And if you put thick, heavy oil in your car engine, it creates friction, runs hotter. Parts start to stick together. And over time, this, of course, leads to engine damage, and this is similar to what happens when we consume too much saturated fat, the cells in our blood and throughout our body become stickier, and it creates inflammation, making it harder for our body systems to work properly. Now imagine changing to a high quality, clean running premium oil for your car. The engine runs cooler, the parts move more freely, and everything works more efficiently. And this is sort of like shifting to the healthy fats emphasized in the OMS program, especially omega threes, they help our blood flow more smoothly and reduce that that inflammation is what we want. And just as you wouldn’t necessarily put the wrong oil in your car and expect it to run well, we can’t put that the wrong fats in our body and expect optimal health. It reminds me I had a conversation one time in Italy with a producer of olive oil, and he he used this exact analogy, just probably why I’m using it today. He said that people, you know, just spend so much time and energy making sure to take care of their car and put the right oil in their car, but we spend very, very little time thinking about the oils that we put into our own body, which is probably the same with with foods, we just take it for granted, and we think that everything that we’re going to eat that we can trust that is good, and that’s not necessarily the case. And just like in the car analogy, you know, you don’t necessarily have to wait for the next oil change to start benefiting. You know, it’s really a situation with, with every meal you get the opportunity to to improve on what we’re putting into our body. So I think that that’s a good place to start. And from there, you know, just continuing a little bit with the with the metaphor, and we can dive a little bit deeper into OMS and take a look at some of the aspects of the diet and this whole idea that, Oh, it’s restrictive, and these sorts of things. And it’s, if you look. And this is what I wrote in the chapter in the handbook. I used the metaphor of a highway. And I’m just thinking about the OMS diet as as being a sort of wide road. And on each side of the road there are these guard rails that are keeping us on the road. And within within the road. There are a number of different lanes that we can travel within, so let’s just explore those. There’s, there’s one lane that, if you choose to drive that’s very strict. It’s, it’s a whole food plant based diet. There’s no nuts involved. There’s no avocados. It’s the strictest of strict when it comes to these kinds of health diets. It’s kind of kind of the forks over knives approach to to heart health, if you will. And then there’s a step above that. There’s a sort of more moderate lane to drive in which is going to be the same, but it’s going to allow for using nuts and avocados and these sorts of things. But there’s some cautions there. You know, if you choose to drive in that lane, you have to be aware that nuts and avocados themselves are are quite fat rich. So you have to be a little bit careful on how much you consume you can eat them, but just be cautious with that. And if you jump over another lane, it’s a little bit more flexible still. And this is, again, the same basic diet, but this time is the inclusion of healthy oils. And that term healthy oils always makes me cringe just slightly, because that always gets to the point of define healthy, and which we’ll try to do in a few minutes. And just right next to that particular one is the diet that Karen was just talking about, the OMS diet, and the OMS approach, which is the inclusion of fish and actually egg whites. Although that’s not really talked about much more, but I think that that’s still acceptable and of course, there’s plenty of room on this road if you choose to create another lane and want to eat gluten free, no one says you have to, but you can and live within the guardrails or live within the recommendations of the OMS plan. So this, it’s very flexible, and it’s it fits to individual needs quite nicely, and it’s extremely broad, when you think about it, the inclusion of so many different foods there and so many different opportunities to eat extremely well and and quite happily. So let’s, let’s dive into one of the most contentious points of the diet, which is the fats and oils. Is the thing that probably comes up the most in any discussion that I’m going to have, or I have had, with people about the diet. It’s a complicated topic. It’s, I’m not going to be able to cover everything in just a few minutes. It’s something I could probably easily spend 45 minutes, 100 more and having that discussion. But I think that we can. We can frame it this way. The first point, maybe, is asking the question, what’s the role of fats and cooking? Have you? Have you ever considered that? Why is it that fats and oils appear in so many different recipes? Is it even necessary? You know? And I looked into this quite extensively, and I’ve discovered that really, over time, it’s so prevalent because the main function of fats and oils in most cooking is purely human pleasure. And when you put it in that context, it becomes very easy to look at it and say, Is it really necessary, and what you’re making, it may be, but is it all the time? Maybe not, the human pleasure involves. You know, it creates moistness in the food. There’s a flavor element there, and there’s texture elements. Fats transfer heat really effectively. And so when you apply heat to something that has fat in it, especially on the surface, it’s going to caramelize sugars and proteins and give you that sort of crispy texture, such as on bread that we all sort of crave. It can also emulsify liquids and proteins. Think mayonnaise or ice cream as two examples of how fats might work. There and in baking, it does literally shorten gluten strands. That’s why fats and oils are often called shortening, and that’s going to yield a different texture, a sort of cake, like texture, or for those that are familiar, shortbread, which is exactly why it’s called shortbread, it’s been shortened and. Um, so that’s that’s the first thing to kind of think about, is what’s the role of fat in the first place? And I think that you’ll find that in most cases, the fat itself can be eliminated, for most recipes without any negative effect whatsoever. On the other hand, there’s plenty of room to use it, but you have to use them effectively. And before you even get there, you have to decide, well, what kind of fat Am I getting? And we all know on the OMS website, there’s a list of what fats that you should have and what fats you shouldn’t have. That’s only telling part of the story, because even if it’s a fat like an extra virgin olive oil that you buy doesn’t necessarily guarantee that that fat is going to be good, because fats degrade over time. There’s air, light, heat and time all degrade fat or oils over you know, any particular time. So how long has that oil been sitting on the shelf? That’s a That’s a good question to ask. Is it really been stored safe? Has it been made well? All of these things can have a direct effect on the quality the oil, which is the quality that you’re putting into yourself. So that’s why it is really important, and it is up to everybody to do their own research and to figure out what facts they’re purchasing, and asking that serious question, is this something that you know worth it, or am I buying something that’s not going to be really promoting health in my particular situation? The other thing to look at is the cooking methods. They really matter. Really matter in terms of how fats play within food. The first thing I think, that I always like to say is when you think about cooking, which is applying heat to something that the cooking temperature and the food temperature are not the same. And I think that’s just really, really important to understand and to understand the various kinds of cooking methods and how fat sort of Interplay there. So the first method to maybe think about is moist methods. So that’s things like boiling, steaming, even microwave cooking is considered a moist method. That is really important to understand. That just physics will tell you that if water is involved, it can only go to unless there’s certain other pressure elements, it’s only going to go to 100 degrees centigrade, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s going to reach the boiling point and no more. Fats begin to break down at around 120 degrees centigrade. So there’s plenty of room there, and that’s going to maintain the integrity of the fat if you’re using moist methods, that’s why things like cooking an onion in in a saute pan with a little bit of water is going to protect the integrity of the of the oil. It’s not going to rise above 100 degrees. So that’s one method, direct or dry heat method is different because there are two different kinds. There’s direct and indirect. So direct is going to be something directly on fire or directly on the stove, like on a on a saute pan. You heat up a saute pan and it’s going to rise immediately to 180-200 degrees, rather rapidly. And that’s usually what you’re going to be cooking out if you’re using like medium high heat, medium high to high heat, well, that’s going to affect the oil rather rapidly, unless there’s moisture in there. Indirect heat is a little bit different, and that’s oven as an example. And that’s going to rely on the air circulating the heat around to cook whatever you’re putting into the particular oven. So just to see how that works, the cooking temperature might be 100 degrees. That’s that’s boiling water. If you put your finger in boiling water, chances are you’re not going to keep your finger in that water very long. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt fairly quickly. I’m not encouraging you to go out and try that. You can take my word for that one. But if you put your arm in 100 degree oven, just with a convection or non convection, and just leave it in there, obviously with the door open, you can keep your arm in there quite long before it starts to get too hot or too uncomfortable or possibly even slightly burning, but that would be quite a long time. So that’s how heat transfer works, you know, and that’s really important to understand in terms of cooking temperature. You’re in food temperature. And that’s why, if someone says, Well, if you read a recipe and says, Well, cook it at 210 degrees centigrade, its chances are that’s going to be perfectly safe. And you don’t have to necessarily stick to the 180 degrees that is often quoted. It’s it’s because the heat’s going to take a long time to actually get inside that product that you’re cooking to affect any oils that are in there. So anyway, that’s a practical way of how fats work within cooking. How I’ll give you an idea of how I, for instance, cook an onion. For me, I rely on on and I’ve played with many different ways over the years. I will slice up an onion, I will put that slice in the small bowl, I add a pinch of salt to the onion, and I kind of rub it with my hands to work it. And that creates what’s called the osmosis, and that’s going to draw a little bit of the natural water out of the onion and into the bowl, if I choose. I sometimes add one or two spoonfuls of oil into the onion at the same time, which will, because of the osmosis, drive the oil into the into the internal portion of the onion. It creates a little bit more flavor that way, then I will just simply cook that over medium heat, medium low heat, without doing anything else. I just allow the onions to just slowly cook that way. The moisture that’s been drawn out from the onion is going to protect the oil that’s in there if I choose to use it. And so that’s how I would particularly cook an onion and use the fats, and how that can just affect on a on a real world situation. So just to think a little bit more about practical strategies in the real world, I think that there’s sometimes an expectation that we have to cook every meal using organic ingredients from the garden that we have outside, or from the farm that’s two kilometers down the road. Well, I think that’s nice, but it’s certainly impractical. You don’t even have to actually cook every meal, but, you know, that’s just something to try, to strive for, to try to do the best you can, but it sets you up for defeat. You know, perfect adherence isn’t necessarily the goal, the goal is consistency, and consistency over time. There’s going to be situations that come up for everybody where compromises will be necessary, and every compromise yields just a little bit of of control. It takes a little control away from what we’re able to put into our mouth. But we have to be comfortable with that, and we have to only worry about what’s in our control in that particular moment. And, you know, be happy with those situations when they come up. Don’t try to micromanage everything. So I don’t know how much time I’ve used but I can probably talk more and more on this as necessary. But just to wrap up quickly, for those that are maybe new or want to think about OMS in a different way, think it’s just really important to choose your lane based on your current situation and just stay within the guardrail, stay within the framework of what OMS lays out. Focus on progress, not perfection. That’s the most important thing, I think, to to keep in mind and to take away it’s it’s all about the long term and progress, and every meal is just an opportunity for positive change. And if what I had to say is sort of inspired you, I hope that you take the opportunity, you know, get a hold of the OMS handbook, if you haven’t, and read the chapters. There’s just a treasure of information in that book for people, from people written by people with just a ton of of experience in offering excellent and practical advice.

 

Karen Lee  29:23

Thanks, Jack. Some real great wise words and some really, really great practical tips for us there. So thank you so much. We’ll let you have a have a break for a second, and if I can ask Jenna Cox and Melody Landwehr to join me on the virtual stage. Lovely to have both of you here as well. So first of all, Melody, let, come to you. You, you’re both members of the Overcoming MS community. But Melody can you just tell us a little bit about your story and your experience of the this, this way of eating?

 

Melody Landwehr  30:07

Thank you. Hello everyone. I’m Melody, and I’m joining from London. I was diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS about 11 years ago while living in Minnesota on a Midwestern diet, high in dairy and meat and processed foods and a high stress lifestyle of four jobs and family movements. When I was diagnosed, I was feeling pretty well, but I did decide to increase my exercise and eat a healthier diet, which, in hindsight, wasn’t incredibly healthy. I moved to London in 2016 shortly after another relapse that resulted in a walking stick. And shortly after, I found OMS and I’ve not turned back. Within a year, I was sleeping better. I no longer needed my walking stick. I have more energy, less mental health issues, and not once during that first year, did I count and I still don’t. Did I count my calories or track my macros or worry about, you know, am I having too much fat? I just, I listened to my body, I only, I started eating only when I was hungry. Being a foodie that can be difficult, because I’m always thinking about food and just eating mindfully and enjoying the things that I get to eat, not worrying about the things that I no longer get to eat, but I no longer want to. When it comes to adopting the OMS lifestyle, you really, you really need to follow something that works for you. For me, it was baby steps. If I was going to make it a lifestyle, I had to go slow and take it one meal at a time. I started with dairy, and I don’t think I cut out meat completely until about 18 months ago. And on my journey, I’ve just learned that you need to be kind to yourself and lean on others. The Live Well Hub is there for you to use and reach out to us. And I’ve come a long way in the last eight years. Instead of thinking about what I can’t have, I am happy about the things that I can have, and I’m continually looking for new things to try and like, for example, I still struggle with tofu, so I try to find ways to build it into my diet in ways that I like, or sardines, mackerel and anchovies. I still struggle with those, but I try to throw them in recipes where people suggest throwing them in. I like to cook, but I’m not very good at building things on my own, so I start with the recipe. And so I just look for recipes that sound good, or that people on the Live Well, Hub or friends suggest, and I go from there. I think the biggest change is the perspective of being on a diet. It’s a lifestyle we all eat, so we’re all on a diet, and it’s not what I don’t get to eat, it’s it’s what I get to eat, and it’s how that food makes me feel. And if I eat something, I try to pay attention to how I’m feeling. And if it’s not incredibly delicious and I don’t feel good after eating it, then I avoid it.

 

Karen Lee  33:09

That’s fabulous. Thank you, Melody. That’s brilliant. And that’s a really great a way of looking at what, what we’re what we’re eating. Because, as you say that the what often the problem is the word diet, isn’t it, which does literally mean what we eat, but it’s got so many connotations. And if you think it’s going to be limited, but it’s really, it’s lovely to hear how you’ve been exploring it and discovering new things. And yeah, work on the tofu. You’ll get there in the end. That’s brilliant. So lovely, Jenna, let’s, let’s come to you, if you can introduce yourself and then share a little bit about your experience of of eating the OMS way.

 

Jenna Cox  33:49

Great. Yeah, thank you. Yes. My name is Jenna. I’m a nutritional therapist, and I support people with MS and other health conditions, but I also have MS myself, and I was diagnosed in 2016 very shortly, actually, after having symptoms. So I was quite lucky that I went through that process quite quickly. And straight away, I started googling what else I could do to improve my health outcomes. And I came across Overcoming MS, read the book, devoured the book, I think quite a lot of people go through that, that process quite quickly, and it really aligned with what I already knew about health, longevity and then some. And it really inspired me to really get into it. And I It motivated me to do all those things that I loved. I loved dancing, and I love walking in the mountains. And it was remembering those things that I really want to be able to do years from now. And although some of the ways of eating. I thought, Oh, God, that’s going to be quite tricky. My motivation’s to continue with, you know, looking after myself were those, and staying independent, and doing everything that was within, within my power, really. And I started thinking about health as playing the long game. So I’d already got, MS, I didn’t want to have anything else. I don’t want to have any other illnesses. So we also saw it as a way of looking after myself as, you know, a whole picture, not just general with MS, but, you know, look at myself, looking after myself as I as I get older. And I actually did go cold turkey with it, and at the time, that actually really gave me quite a lot of hope. And it was something that I needed to do to be really proactive and do something. And I actually found it quite exciting making all those changes. But I do understand that different people have different scenarios and different situations in their life. At the time, I was single, I was living alone, that’s actually a lot easy, a lot easier than if you’ve got a family, you know, if you’re cooking for other people. So I really do appreciate that. But what I did do is I cut out a lot of foods. And really what I would advise other people to do is really work on what you’re going to bring in before you start cutting everything out. Because I was left thinking some days like, what am I going to eat? I have no go tos anymore, and so, yeah, it’s more about bringing everything in to crowd out those maybe less health health foods and dairy was one of my big things, but love cheese, love cream, love butter, love all of it. And I slowly started seeing in supermarkets that the vegan options were not going to be an option. Really. They’re full of saturated fats, coconut oils. So it was like, What am I going to make myself that maybe will not going to mimic all of the qualities of cheese and things, but things that I’m going to start to enjoy? So I got really into making my own cheeses with, like, cashew nuts, blended cashew nuts cream cheese with garlic and herbs and chives and things like that. And silken tofu is also being really useful to start making creamy sauces. And I use it in things like dhals and curries instead of using coconut milk. And, you know, can blend it with with nutritional yeast miso to give a bit of a tangy flavor, some lemon. I think it’s a really, really versatile ingredient. And I slowly started getting all of these ideas together. And I’ve got a book on my website. So it’s Jennacox.co.uk, if you want to have a look at that, it’s just a free download. It’s got about 10 recipes, I think of my favorite, dairy free alternatives that are really my go to a lot, and you got some sweet things in there, some savory things in there. And slowly, those have become the things I’ve been able to replace in my diet. I thought, at the beginning, I thought that was going to be really tricky. But also going out for dinner, I know that we, we’ve touched, you know, Jack’s touched on that already going out for dinner is tricky, and I think over time you become a bit more comfortable with it. So there are certain types of cuisine which I think lend themselves a lot more and more easily. Is that Italian food, it’s more vegetable focused. Maybe seafood and fish takes a bit of a role there. Japanese if you eat fish, sushi is great. You can get vegan sushi, vegetarian sushi as well, different options, Vietnamese food as well. I think is a really great option with the summer rolls instead of spring rolls. So like un fried options. But I always make sure that I look at I always look at menus online beforehand. You can’t really surprise me in a restaurant these days, I’ve always chosen what I’m going to eat, and I will look to see that. Yeah, the different options, and if there aren’t, might phone ahead. If ever I’m going with a group and I don’t have much control over the restaurant, might phone ahead to see what they can do for me. I know OMS has those great chef cards as well on the website. So if you really did want to make sure that there was something available for you, and that made you feel comfortable sending over a chef card just to explain what the diet involves, that can also be be helpful. But then, once I’m there, I think, you know, you made the best decisions out of the what’s available. If it’s not perfect, it’s not perfect. I think the most important thing is just enjoying yourself, enjoying your friends, your family, laughing. Those are all wonderful things for your for your health and well being, and not panicking too much that you know you’ve already made the best options you can, and at that point have fun life. Life’s for living.

 

Karen Lee  39:21

It is. That’s really, really great advice, Jenna, and I think it’s interesting, Jack, if you’d like to rejoin us, I think it’s interesting, you know that we’ve all got a kind of a slightly different journey, but all also quite similar there as well. And and what you were just saying there, Jenna really goes in with what Jack was saying about, you know, every time we eat, we get this opportunity to to have an impact in on on our bodies. So it’s one meal out of three in a day. So, you know, it’s not just just that much. If everything else that we’re doing that that has that impact and and I think going at a pace that works for each of us, you know, because it often is a real steep learning curve. You know, when I started following the Overcoming MS program, I was already focusing on a whole food, plant based diet. Turns out as eating too much coconut, you know, but there was other elements in there as well. So, you know, it’s, it’s changing and experimenting. And it doesn’t have to be complex, does it? So before we go to the questions, I just thought, if, if so, on a weekday, what is your let’s just share our like, kind of go to quick evening meal. Melody, do you want to go first?

 

Melody Landwehr  40:55

I was at an OMS circle, I think. And I asked someone for some ideas for quick meals, because I love sandwiches and I don’t eat meats anymore. And they told me about this thing called smoked tofu. My mind was blown. So my quick evening meals, because I often work evenings, is a smoked tofu sandwich with chicory and mustard. And then I always have frozen veg in my freezer, so I warm up some frozen veg to go with it, and often have, like, a side of kimchi with it, because I love kimchi.

 

Karen Lee  41:34

Oh, wow, that sounds fabulous, right? Thank you. And Jenna, how about you? What’s your what’s your quick gate evening meal?

 

Jenna Cox  41:41

I’m going to cheat and say that my really, really quick one is getting out something from the freezer that I’ve made the week before, because I’m a really big fan of batch cooking. And I do a batch of something each week, and then I can, you know, mix and match in the freezer. But if I’m not allowed to cheat, then using just fresh ingredients from my fridge. Tray bakes. I love a tray bake vegetables as well that you don’t have to chop up, like flat mushrooms, asparagus, tender stems, you know, got a tin of legumes, you know, whatever one what you want to put in, garlic, balsamic vinegar, mix it up. But you can, you know, get really creative in what you put in that tray bake. And, yeah, so those are really quick, I think,

 

Karen Lee  42:19

Yeah, perfect. And Jack. How about you? What does a chef have for a quick meal?

 

Jack McNulty  42:25

I think I’m going to have to be a little bit unfair on that. For me, the quickest meal is whatever I happen to be writing about, because that’s usually left over, and so that’s usually what I’m going to be eating. But in all seriousness, I think that, you know, there are times, a lot of times, actually, when you know we’re both, my wife and I are both working long hours and, oh, go ahead, what are we going to make? Well, probably our pasta always comes to mind because I lived in Italy, so I make a lot of pasta, and it just depends on the season for whatever sauce that’s going to entail, beans. I think I use beans, or legumes, probably the legumes, including lentils, probably the most, because they’re quick. So if I want something really quick, I’m not against using tinned beans, not a problem. And then, like you guys were saying, you know, you just, there’s so many ways to mix and match and add different things to make that a really hearty meal. I can tell you tonight, I had risotto because that takes 20 minutes to make, and so that was pretty good. Yeah.

 

Karen Lee  43:39

Great, great. Well, my one is, so I’m not a good batch cooker. I’m a real kind of open the fridge and see what happens. So mine’s often the quickest one is, I’ll just do a very quick stir fry. So whatever, there’s always loads of veg. There’s always tofu, because I’m a big tofu fan, that with some rice noodles and some chili and soy sauce, just very quickly done in a pan, and we usually done in about 10 minutes. So, you know, you gotta get a bit of everything. And one of the things that, of all of these things that we’ve been talking about is making my mouth water, because one of the things that changes is when, when you change, kind of having a lot of saturated fat, a lot of salts, a lot of all these processed foods, our taste buds change, don’t they, so that the flavors are suddenly quite a new experience, which is fantastic, right? Well, we’ve only got 15 minutes left, and we’ve had a lot of questions coming in. So I think what we’ll do is we better just dive straight into that. One of the questions that’s been coming in, I think that is really good to answer, is about the amount of saturated fat. So one of the questions was actually the research behind why saturated fat and MS and the cheats answers to that actually, because we haven’t got time to go through that in right now is to have a look at the original Overcoming MS book, but also have a look on the website. But essentially it’s based on research done by Dr Roy Swank, and he looked at he compared two groups of people, one following what he classified as a very low saturated fat way of eating, and another group that wasn’t, and the those who and this went on 34 years. So it’s a huge, long study, and the people who ate less saturated fat or lower saturated fat had a better prognosis, less progression, much less disability, than those who had the highest saturated fat. So that’s where the underlying research comes from. But also that’s been backed up with the HOLISM study, which is looking at elements of the Overcoming MS program in other pillars, as well as the diet, but also other research that knows that saturated fat is boosts chronic inflammation, and obviously we want to reduce and manage our inflammation to stay well, but there’s still saturated fat in in whole foods. So one of the questions, or a couple of the questions that been coming through is about, how should that be measured? How do you know how much saturated fat that you’re eating when you’re eating whole foods? So does anybody want to sort of answer answer that. Jenna, do you want to go there?

 

Jenna Cox  46:44

Yeah, I don’t count my saturated fat. And I don’t advise the clients that I work with either to count saturated fat, because I think if we’re eating a certain way, so if you’re, you know, really going quite hard there. Everyone, your vegetables, your fruit, your nuts, your legumes, you your tofu, all those, all those lovely foods that we’ve been talking about, your saturated fat levels are probably going to be quite low anyway. And I think I feel like it’s important to have really positive relationship with food and to not develop an obsession with counting for me anyway. And what I advise others to not get an obsession with checking everything that you’re eating, because if you are following all of those wonderful plant based foods that we’ve been talking about, you’re going to stay within the realm of what’s the recommended saturated fats, especially if you know, if you were avoiding other processed foods and things like that, you can use there are, there are programs online that you can put in your food that you’ve eaten that day, and you can calculate your saturated fat, might be interesting to do once or twice, just to get a bit of an idea for it. But I certainly don’t recommend doing that daily or very often. You know, got other things to do, better things to do with your life. So, yeah, I would say just, just go, really, go really hard there on all of those wonderful plant based foods that we’ve been talking about.

 

Karen Lee  48:01

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, with regards to, like, nuts and seeds, because obviously, there’s a range of fats in those it’s the same as any guidelines, really, just like a handful, so a palm full of whole nuts, a palm full of seeds, you know, that’s a good guideline to go by, the same as the avocado, sort of like a quarter of a third of an avocado, because you’re not just eating the fats, you’re eating all the other amazing nutrients that are in it. So it’s not like, you know, just one nutrient, it’s a whole bunch of them. And fats are essential. We need fats, you know, they do all sorts of play all sorts of roles in the body. So that’s why I try to emphasize it’s a low saturated fat as opposed to low fat. Okay, so there’s a practical question here about spraying olive oil over vegetables and when roasting or and or when sorting onions. Now, Jack you, you talked about how you cook your onions, but could you just just quickly address the oven?

 

Jack McNulty  49:13

Yeah, sure, sure. First of all, on the the spray throws out a red light to flashing light to me, I would recommend maybe staying away from sprays. I don’t think that you can be sure that those are going to be really beneficial. Fats, just the way that they’re made and the way that they’re stored, they’re probably not going to be the best. So if I’m roasting vegetables, and I do use oil and vegetables when I roast them, but I do kind of the same thing that I would do when I’m cooking the onions, and so I would cut everything up. I throw it all into a bowl. If I’m using oil, I’ll add oil at that point, but I also add salt, because I want that oil to go into the vegetables. I’ll add whatever seasoning I want, usually a lot of oregano or you. Or some oregano, if I’m saying that correctly on the UK basis, just whatever flavor agent I want to put in there. And then I put it all onto a tray and put it in the oven. Now I do roast vegetables at 210 degrees centigrade. I know that’s much higher than what most people are probably used to hearing. But I know also that, and I’ve done the temperature checks on this, that I know that there’s a lot of moisture in the vegetables, it’s going to create steam in the oven, and that steam in the oven is going to keep that oil protected. It’s going to keep the integrity of the product within the limits of what we need to worry about, and it’s actually going to cook the vegetables quicker than if you’re doing it at 180 and time is one of the elements that’s going to break down a fat. And so I sort of compromised with that. I find that the flavor is much better and the texture is much better if you just go ahead and cook it that way, I have no, no problem with that.

 

Karen Lee  51:04

Great. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think also the other thing that is the fact that everybody’s oven is slightly different, yeah, you know, so, so sometimes it says it’s 180 and it could be 160 you know, or, I mean, I’ve got, I’ve got an Auger, so who knows what the temperature is. So it’s just like moving things around, around the oven. But that’s really helpful. Thank you. Melody, I’ve here’s a question for you. First of all, how are you taking flax seed oil? Do you like it? Do you manage it?

 

Melody Landwehr  51:38

Like is a strong work. I get the Flax Farm oil because that’s the one I can stomach, and I’m lucky it’s available here in the UK. But I I am not one that can just drink flax oil. I do have to include it in food. I was on a retreat last month, and someone mentioned putting it in my porridge. And I almost fell out of my chair thinking of it in my porridge, but it makes it, as Jack mentioned, with fats, it makes it creamy. So I add, so I often add it to my porridge with a bit of honey and nuts and and fruits, and you don’t taste it, or I use it instead of butter on my toast, just ways where it matches the food or adds to the food. And I don’t often measure it. I’m not one to measure everything, because I think, you know, life’s too short, and it’s not like I’m pouring a cup of oil, because then you probably would taste it, but I definitely, I have to add it to my food, and it has to be high quality oil, or you can taste it.

 

Karen Lee  52:51

Yeah, yeah. I think I think that’s really good advice, yeah. So the question from someone was, how do I get over my revulsion of flax seed oil? And I think, I think the thing is, with flax seed oil is the fact that it’s really volatile. That’s why, you know, it’s so good for you, basically. So it’s very strong, you know, when it’s gone rancid, because it’s just impossible. Flax farm is, is a great product. And the other thing I would say is, is just, if you find it really hard to tolerate, and sometimes it can just play a little bit, you know, have a little fun bouncing off the top of your stomach. Is just to have a small amount and just build that up as well. Somebody said, Have you ever had them in smoothies? Melody, I’ve not gone there.

 

Melody Landwehr  53:42

Yeah, yep. I’ve added it to smoothies as well. And again, I don’t take it all in one go. So I will add it into several items I may have during throughout the day, a smoothie, my porridge, a piece of toast, a salad, risotto, pasta, those sorts of things, anything that I think I might be able to just maybe pour a little on that way. I’m not taking big amounts at a time, and I know I’m getting is it like 40 ml or something a day?

 

Karen Lee  54:10

Yeah, between 20 and 40? Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. That’s great. Jenna, I’m going to pop over to you. We need to be pretty quick. We’ve only got a few minutes left. There’s a question about gaining weight. Any advice? And we did have another pre submitted question about protein powders, so I don’t know if you can answer the two in one.

 

Jenna Cox  54:31

I’ll try gaining weight. I think that looking at really nutrient dense foods. So just you know, you can have bigger portions as well, with the with the Overcoming MS foods. So, you know, lucky you put really nutrient dense foods in there. So maybe increase your nuts, nut butters you can add to things, you know, if you’re making a curry, you know, put some nut butter in there. Make it even richer, avocados, olives, maybe more oily fish. If you haven’t, oily fish three times. The week. But if you’re, if you’re having it for lunch, maybe you could make a dip with beans. You know, you might add some, some yogurt in there, some some dairy free yogurt, maybe some salmon, so a tin of salmon. So just everything that you’re, you’re, you’re putting on your plate, really those nutrient dense foods, olives, and feel free to chip in with any other really nutrient dense things, but yeah, protein as well. So make sure that you’re having a source of protein with each meal. How much we need really depends on how much physical exercise we’re doing, pregnancy, breastfeeding, all sorts. But it’s around 1.8 to 1.2 grams per kilo of weight. It depends on factors. If you’re unable to meet those protein needs, if you can’t get it in through food, because you’re going to get all those other wonderful minerals, vitamins, fiber, polyphenols, the anti oxidants. So if you can get it through foods, fantastic if you’re finding it difficult. And we all have different cooking abilities, time, maybe physical health as well. That could affect how much time we can do spend with cooking, a protein shake. That could be a really useful thing to use. I’m not against protein shakes at all, if it’s a good quality protein shake to add in there.

 

Karen Lee  56:13

Great. Thank you. That all together quickly enough, absolutely. And I think, I think one of the things is, remember, just eat enough. You know that there are all the energy dense things, foods as well. You know, so when you’re eating more plant based foods, that it’s more nutrient dense rather than calorie dense, which means that you can stuff your face. Yeah?

 

Jenna Cox  56:39

You know, if you want to snack between the meal. If you feel that you need that then, um, go for it. And with the protein, you know, go for maybe protein pastas like lentil pasta, pea, pasture, things like that.

 

Karen Lee  56:52

Absolutely. I’m just aware of the time, um, there’s someone’s asking about snacks, actually. So let’s just quickly say, just just a quick Melody, a suggestion for a snack.

 

Melody Landwehr  57:07

Popcorn.

 

Karen Lee  57:11

Jenna?

 

Jenna Cox  57:13

Any bean dip doesn’t have to be hummus with chickpeas. You know, blend up all your other beans and add different things like tomatoes and Sundried tomato paste and, you know, different things to give it different flavors and different herbs and spices and things. Make a batch of that every week, and you’ve got, you know, snack for a good few days.

 

Karen Lee  57:31

Lovely Jack. How about you quick snack?

 

Jack McNulty  57:34

All of the above, plus an apple.

 

Karen Lee  57:36

The quickest. Yeah. Classic, yeah. Classic. My favorite afternoon snack is I have three dates with with a walnut inside a date. I had three of those today. Yeah,yeah, it’s really delicious. Yeah, beautiful. Just tastes like tastes like fudge, doesn’t it? Okay, right? Okay, really, really, sorry, but we have basically run out of time. I hope you found that all really interesting. Thank you so much to everybody. I mean, the thing is, about the eating, you know, the diet element of the Overcoming MS program is there is just so much to talk about. So we could go on for hours. But if you’ve got any outstanding questions, if you’re not already on the Live Well Hub, do join that and then post your questions in there, because somebody will have the answer. I hope that you found it really helpful. And there’s, you know, people do have a lot of concerns about this way of eating, but I hope you’ve seen from the way the what Jack was talking about, the fats, and then all of these different ideas that we’ve shared with you is the fact that it is a really plentiful and healthful and tasty way of helping our bodies to heal. It does take a little bit of time because our bodies are constantly turning over. But three times a day or more, if we’re snacking, we have this incredible opportunity to to help ourselves be well, and as Jack was saying right at the beginning, improve, have a great quality of life and into enjoy ourselves. So thank you, Jack, Jenna and Melody, for being here tonight and for for giving up your time to join us, just just a couple of bit, just from me. Don’t forget you’ll get the link to the recording that will come through next week. Please do fill out the little feedback questionnaire, or when it pops up when you exit. Don’t forget that the next webinar, and that’s on the fifth of December, and that’s with Brett Drummond from MS Translate. He’s going to be updating the latest research about with MS treatments from this year’s ECTRIMS conference. So I think that would be really, really interesting. So if you haven’t signed up already, then please do. You can find the link to that on the Overcoming MS website, and then find what just one other point is the bookings for the next Overcoming MS retreat, which is in March, is the bookings is open. The places are being filled pretty rapidly. So if you this is something you want to do, and it’s an amazing opportunity to really, sort of get the program embedded in your life. Then please don’t delay, fill in the registration form and grab your place while they’re still going. Okay, I think that’s it. Thank you ever so much, everybody, and we’ll see you another time. Bye, bye.