The Curious Case of Multiple Sclerosis Part 2

What is good for you is also a pain in the butt

I ate an orange a couple of weeks ago.  I thought I didn’t like oranges.  But before that day, I was at a friend’s house and her 3 year old offered me a slice of her orange.  It really wasn’t that bad.  My mom mentioned that navel oranges don’t have seeds, and so I bought some oranges.  I also peeled and cut up two sweet potatoes for a crock pot recipe.

Why am I telling you this?  Why should you care?  Is it so you’ll be proud of me for eating healthier things?  Or is it because oranges and sweet potatoes are both orange and orange is the color of MS awareness?

No.  The reason you should care is because while both may be good for me, they were also incredibly difficult for my weak, uncoordinated MS hands to work with.  I can’t remember the last time I peeled an orange and when I tried to peel this one, I had peels everywhere, my fingers reeked and the juicy taste of the orange itself was marred by all the rind that stayed on the fruit when it should have wound up in the trash with the peels.

And the sweet potato?  Let’s just give a clumsy girl with MS a sharp knife to help her take better care of her body.  Or what is left of her body after she collects the chopped limbs.  At least I wasn’t sobbing like I do every time I to chop an onion, something I have never done well.

So here is another contradiction of MS.   So many things that will help your MS, are also difficult.

I have already whined many times here about how my bladder control medication makes me thirsty which makes me drink more water which then makes my bladder overact which negates the effects of the medication.

And I know I have complained about how exercising my achy body makes my body ache more.

Here is what I have learned trying to improve my diet-it ain’t easy.

And not just because it is not as taste bud pleasing as many processed things.

The first part of the problem Is that fruits and veggies get icky quickly.  It is recommended that you shop every other day to keep your produce fresh.  Even non-chronically fatigued people aren’t able to find the energy and the hours in their lives to do that.

Since they were cheaper, I bought a small bag of oranges.  And don’t even get me started on the financial aspect of a healthy diet!

By the time I got down to the last one, the peeling process had gotten easier.  But the taste was slightly bitter, as if the orange had been around too long.  Or maybe I just had a bad orange.  Or a bad apple- sometimes I get confused.

Next, due to pesticides, you need to wash all your produce.  It used to be that just rinsing under the tap was fine.  But no, now tap water is not always safe and just a simple rinsing is not strong enough to kill all the potential toxins.   It is recommended that you buy a special produce brush, clean and replace it regularly and buy or make your own veggie wash solution.  But don’t let it hang around too long or it loses its effectiveness.

Really?  Is all this necessary?   When I was a kid and my mom wanted to shut me up and get something healthy into me, she would grab some grapes in the produce aisle of the grocery store and let me eat them unpaid for and, horrors, unwashed.  And nothing ever happened to me….

Well, there is that MS diagnosis, but nothing else…Hey, researchers, have you tried looking into stolen store produce as a factor in MS?

Recently I learned that it is not enough to find something super healthy you can endure and just consume that.   It is also important to mix it up a bit, get a variety of nutrients into your plan.

Never mind that the nutrients keep changing.  Dairy is good for calcium and vitamin D but dairy from dairy sources is bad.   Wheat is bad but right now whole grains are good.  Which is super confusing because I thought wheat was a good whole grain and that white bread was made from a bad only partial grain.

In order to mix your produce up, you must find recipes, procure fresh veggies, prepare them, and tolerate them. And tolerating them is the crucial word; not just in the taste test but in the being around other people test with all the fiber you need and are getting.  To put it delicately, let’s just say when you pick up all your regular MS RXS, make sure you also pick up an additional pill bottle with the word Beano on it.

Oh sigh, why do we put up with this?  Why in our super convenient era does staying on a “get fit” plan have to be such a pain in the butt?

Because, as I am finding out, a healthy plan does make a difference.  And with each super tiny step by super tiny step, it does get easier.  At least I hope so.

But a little help wouldn’t be a bad thing.

So dear MS research folks, once you find a cure for MS and figure out what causes MS, can you please research how to make a low prep, no wash, no peel, no slice, no dice, mixed long lasting veggie, no dairy, no wheat, no gluten, no carbs, extra fiber,  no gas main meal that tastes like chocolate.

Milk chocolate, not dark.

 

The Curious Case of Multiple Sclerosis is a series (if you can call two blog posts a series) that I write examining one particular aspect of an MS irony in detail.   The first one describes how MS can make you feel like an old lady and a little kid at the same time.  To read it, check out  The Curious Case of Multiple Sclerosis Part 1; MS and the Aging Process.

 

 

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