S6E24 Webinar Highlights: The Overcoming MS diet: healthy eating at home with Sam Josephs

Sam Josephs  00:00

And there’s another group of fats, the mono unsaturated fats, that includes the nuts and the seeds and the olives and the extra virgin olive oil and avocados. And these are called the mono unsaturated fats, and they, too have a very anti degenerative effect in the body. They don’t appear to affect inflammation, and that’s why we like to recommend them in moderation.

Overcoming MS  00:22

Welcome to Living well with MS. This show comes to you from Overcoming MS, the world’s leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, which helps people live a full and healthy life through the Overcoming MS program. We interview a range of experts and people with multiple sclerosis, please remember all opinions expressed are their own. Help others discover Living Well with MS. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And now let’s meet our guest. Today’s webinar features highlights from the Overcoming MS Diet, Healthy Eating at Home with Sam Joseph’s webinar recorded live in front of our global audience as part of the Refresh with OMS Webinar Series. This was one of the first Overcoming MS webinars. We apologize for the intermittent presentation sound effects. To join us live for the next webinar or to watch the original presentation, head to our website, overcoming ms.org,

Sam Josephs  01:26

Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us. We’re going to be focusing on the OMS diet, with a specific focus on healthy eating at home. So just to introduce myself, my name is Sam Josephs, and I’m a registered nutritional therapist. I’ve been practicing nutritional therapy for 12 years now, but 17 years ago, my husband Danny, was diagnosed with MS. So I’ve been living with MS for for a very long time. A large proportion of my clients in my practice of people with MS, and I also work as a part time lecturer for some of the nutritional therapy colleges in London, lecturing on diet and multiple sclerosis as well as being a very privileged OMS facilitator. Just to kind of set the stage, I wanted to share with you this quote that I’ve taken from the World Health Organization this week, they really recognize that eating a healthy diet is very important. “What we eat and drink affects our body’s ability to prevent infections and to fight and recover from infections.” So I’m going to start with a quick refresh of the OMS program, and here are all the seven steps laid out. All of these steps work best when they’re all done together as part of a program, and each one as important as the next. But diet is often thought of as cornerstone of the OMS program, probably because it’s something that we’re thinking about at least three times a day. It’s also very important to get plenty of sunshine as well as vitamin D, either in supplement form or directly from the sun, exercise movement also a key feature of the OMS program, as is meditation and mindfulness and those de stressing, anti inflammatory techniques that we have available. The OMS program wholly supports the use of medication, and we also aim to educate people on the OMS program and their families to help prevent MS in family members. And the final step of the OMS program is recognizing that this is a program for life. Unfortunately, MS is a chronic condition. There is no cure for MS, but being on the program and changing your life for life can really help you have a very positive outcome with your MS. So just to kind of a bit more refresh. But the OMS diet, sort of in a nutshell, is a low saturated fat diet that is 100% dairy free, plant focused, rich in whole foods with seafood like oily fish, white fish and shellfish, as well as flaxseed oil in an additional supplement of 20 to 40 millimeters a day. So it’s very important to limit the amount of saturated fat in the diet, but also those fats that may be damaged through cooking processes or through commercial processing of foods that hydrogenated trans fats and saturated fat has a very pro inflammatory effect on the body. It has a very pro degenerative effect on the body. Two key features of MS disease is inflammation and progression. So saturated fat and those damaged fats can really enhance those mechanisms. OMS, and I just want to say a quick word about dairy as well, because dairy, it’s recommended that you go 100% dairy free, and that’s to do a lot with the saturated fat. But it’s true, some dairy products can be very low in saturated fat, but there’s a specific protein in dairy which is very similar in its structure to a protein that’s in myelin. And if your T cells, your immune cells have been programmed or sensitized through the autoimmune process of multiple sclerosis to attack the myelin. When you consume dairy and you consume those proteins that are very similar in structure to myelin, you’re actually triggering those immune cells to go and attack the myelin as well. So that’s the reason why there’s an emphasis on being dairy free. The poly unsaturated fats have a very powerful anti inflammatory effect on the body, a very powerful anti degenerative effect on the body, particularly the Omega three superfood group from oily fish. So I use the acronym smashed, which is a quick and easy way help remember those fish that are considered oily. And the OMS program recommends consuming oily fish in addition to white fish and seafood three times a week. Flax seeds and walnuts are the best plant sources of Omega three, and this is one of the reasons we recommend an additional boost of Omega three through a flaxseed oil supplementation as well. And there’s another group of fats, the monounsaturated fats, that includes the nuts and the seeds and the olives and the extra virgin olive oil and avocados. And these are called the mono unsaturated fats, and they, too, have a very anti degenerative effect in the body. They don’t appear to affect inflammation, and that’s why we like to recommend them in moderation. So there’s a lot of information on the overcoming ms website, and if you want to get in depth information that you feel like you need, there’s a great resource to use to go and find information there. But what I want to focus on at this point is how you can feel reassured that those key elements of the OMS diet are also supporting your health. The OMS diet has a number of features, like a high nutrient status, rich in antioxidants, anti inflammatory focus that are really going to help balance the immune system and provide resilience for you. So when you slice an apple, it will brown and degenerate. But if you use lemon juice, which is very rich in vitamin C, and vitamin C is a very powerful and antioxidant, it will actually protect the cells from degenerating. I mentioned that OMS diet is packed full of nutrients, and the nutrients that are necessary for correct function of the immune system include a number of vitamins. And if you’re following the OMS program, your diet will be very abundant in all of these and you’ll see omega three fatty acids comes up there as being vital for function of the immune system. Sulfur can be a very antiviral compound. So sulfur is very rich in onions and garlic and asparagus, but also in those brassica group, broccoli and cauliflower, kohlrabi, turnips, they’re also very rich in sulfur. And so when I say plant focus, of course, you can have a rainbow amongst other foods, the whole grains. Can have red quinoa, white quinoa, yellow corn, but also beans and pulses, as well the different colored beans and pulses. All these plant foods are a very good source of fiber. Fiber is very important for MS because it can help to keep your bowels regular. And by keeping your bowels regular, you’re getting rid of toxins on a regular basis, which can support the immune system. But fiber is also a very important food or nourishment for the microbiome. So the term microbiome means the friendly bacteria and the other microbes that live within our gut, and these bacteria, microbes, they help to keep keep us healthy in a number of ways. They can produce vitamins, some version of vitamin A, which is a powerful immune support, particularly for the respiratory tract. It’s powerful antioxidant. They also produce substances that can dampen the immune system, control inflammation and actually increase the sense of well being and affect our mood. And some of the ways that we nourish the microbiome could be directly giving probiotics or consuming the bacteria themselves. So I’m not really talking about the supplements. I’m talking about the food. So the foods that are fermented foods like sauerkraut or some of the Japanese foods like miso or kombucha, those foods contain within them actual bacteria that can populate the gut. It’s very easy to feed your gut garden and to it’s quite helpful analogy to think of it as a garden by eating lots of different types of fibers, because fiber passes through the digestive system, actually the food that nourishes your friendly bacteria.  If there’s a diverse range of bacteria systemically in protecting the immune system. So if we’re looking after our digestive system and looking after our guts, we’re also indirectly looking after our immune system.

Overcoming MS  10:36

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Sam Josephs  10:54

So there’s an emphasis on whole foods in the OMS program, so this means using brown flour and brown bread over the white refined versions, because this increases the nutrient content that you’ll be getting. You’ll be getting fiber, as I mentioned, is very important, but also other minerals that are contained within those whole grains, like zinc and iron that can directly nourish the immune system when we consume foods that are rich in sugars, we actually use up our own stores of valuable nutrients to digest those foods and turn them into energy. So when we eat foods that contain those vitamins and substances as well, then we’re actually providing all the nutrients that we need to generate that energy from food, this whole food diet, lots of plant foods actually improve your mental well being can actually help you lift your mood. And by reducing sugars and refined carbohydrates, you may actually be able to ramp up the activity of your first line defender, white blood cells against possible viruses that may attack because sugar, it was shown in a study a number of years ago, but still holds good sway today, that sugar may actually paralyze elements of the immune system.  Oh, one of the sort of guiding principles of the OMS program is to have a very anti inflammatory approach to foods. But it’s not just what we eat. It’s also the way we cook our foods, so by not deep frying and spoiling and using harmful and damaged fats, which are pro inflammatory, and by controlling the temperature of the oven, we’re also reducing inflammation from cooking methods. It doesn’t matter if it’s fresh fruit and vegetables or frozen fruit or vegetables, they all count. And a nice thing to do as well in order to increase variety, would be, try and include one new food a week. So it could be, maybe you could choose red cabbage or red onions instead of brown onions and green cabbage. When you’re shopping for foods, preparing vegetables and getting sort of stuck in a rut with sort of the same meals we’re all spending. Seems to be a lot more time in the kitchen cooking three meals a day for a full family household, jazzing up the way you prepare salads might help to keep things interesting. You could try spiralizing or grating. We’re blessed with some fabulous weather at the moment. Barbecuing is another nice way to to eat different vegetables, but try adding fresh herbs to make your usual salad taste a bit different and zingy. Mint is great in summer salads, or basil for a Mediterranean flavor. Or you could use fresh herbs in the dressing for the salad. Something like mustard and tarragon work very well together. Leafy greens are a great food to include in the diet because they are so potent in a wide variety of nutrients, but not always gratefully received by the family. So it’s it’s very easy to do if you finally shred your greens and you can just stir them into pasta sauces, or you can just stir them into risottos or stews or lentil shepherd’s pie, those kind of meals, they wilt into almost nothing, and yet the nutritional value is still there in the food. By introducing various colored root veggies we can get some of those lovely oranges into the diet. So taking a tin of beans and blitzing it up, maybe with some sort of sun dried tomatoes, chickpeas, a bit of basil, there’s a kind of go to dip or spread for lunchtime, something like a tin of salmon mixed up with a the tin of butter beans and some dill and sort of loosened with a little bit of soy yogurt as another way to kind of make quick and easy and interesting foods that are just kind of hand to mouth ready, I guess, in the fridge. And we’re used to the idea of snacking on nuts, but use nuts and seeds to also incorporate texture into salads or into stir fries, to sort of jazz up the same sort of dishes that you might be certain habit of repeating if you’re going to be doing some home baking. And there are lots of amazing recipes on the OMS website and lots of other places that are OMS friendly, maybe don’t think about using a white flour and sugary base. Think about using ground almonds or ground walnuts, maybe tahini, which is sesame paste. And there’s some great recipes for incorporating a tin of black beans into a brownie recipe, for example. And so these kind of baked goods don’t need to be such a sugar hit, which I mentioned before, is at risk of paralyzing these white blood cells. And if you are snacking, then it’s quite handy to think of protein and produce as a good way to build a healthy snack. So by that, I would mean something like almond butter spread on Apple, or soy yogurt with a handful of colored berries, or maybe some hummus with some fresh pepper sticks or some nuts with some dried fruit. Because we got more time at home, we see it might be a good idea to think about batch cooking. So tonight I’ve made a lovely pasta sauce, and I doubled up. I made twice as much, and that’s it. One night next week, we’ll have dinner ready made. And also, menu planning is another great way to save money and also to save food. And I noticed that Overcoming MS have got a great menu planning tool on their website this week, which you can help, which you can use to kind of plot your week’s foods, and any veggies that are kind of past their prime starting to wilt in the bottom of the fridge, just boil them up into stocks or into soups, and you can freeze them if you make stocks out of them. You can use them to sort a foods in just by keeping them in ice cube trays. Used to be that we thought maybe just the sort of constantly grazing throughout the day was a good practice. But now actually, we realize that having just three solid meals a day and allowing a rest time for the digestion in between is actually more beneficial, and another good way to kind of kind of cut down on that evenings on the sofa, Netflix snacking time, maybe an extra glass of wine you didn’t really need would be considering time restricted eating or an overnight fast. Of course, you can drink water and herbal tea during that time, just not consuming any calories. And that’s been shown really beneficial in a number of ways, to kind of balance cholesterol levels, balance insulin levels, and again, help the microbiome actually flourish. And it’s a good idea to make sure that you are drinking sufficient water, between one and a half two liters a day.  And then I’ve I’ve mentioned something called beta glucans, because this is an interesting area. It’s a polysaccharide or a carbohydrate that foods like mushrooms, oats and barleys, and also a nutritional yeast. And we do recommend using nutritional yeast on the OMS program, because it’s a good source. It’s one of the only plant sources of vitamin B 12, and it’s also a nice substitute for for cheesy flavor in foods and sources. And these foods are rich in these beta glucans, which are being studied at the moment for their effects on improving how our bodies respond to infection. So tea, particularly green tea, is probably the most immune busting tea, but black tea as well, have antioxidant effects. It seems even just two cups of green tea could be helpful in protecting you from catching Covid-19 in the first place, and honey, which is a lovely analgesic to help soothe sore throats, if you eat it raw, it also has antiviral and antibacterial properties as well. If you are following the OMS program without the seafood element, and you’ve taken a completely vegan approach, then remember, you’ll need to take a B 12 supplement as well, and if you’ve been identified as deficient, so if you know your you have iron deficiency anemia, or your folate levels are low, then definitely be taking supplements to correct that you can actually only absorb about 250 milligrams of vitamin C from the gut at one time. So taking something like five 100 milligrams a couple of times a day will be absolutely sufficient. And some people like to take a zinc supplement, because zinc has powerful effects on the formation of immune elements and also the expression of the immune system. And I would say, look for a zinc colonate supplement, because that’s the one that is most readily absorbed.

Overcoming MS  20:26

Thank you for listening to this episode of living well with Ms. Please check out this episode’s show notes at overcoming ms.org/podcast you’ll find useful links and bonus information there. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode, and please rate and review the show to help others find us. This show is made possible by the overcoming ms community. Our theme music is by Claire and Nev Dean. Our host is Geoff Allix. Our videos are edited by Lorna Greenwood and I’m the producer Regina Beach. Have questions or ideas to share, email us at podcast, at overcoming ms.org We’d love to hear from you. The Living Well with M Podcast is for private, non commercial use and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional.

21:24

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