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The value of a good diet

Rita Greer

Open Door - May 2006 page 5

Under my stairs are a lot of cardboard boxes filled with little books. My newest publication has arrived - MS Diet Notebooks One and Two, written, illustrated and published by me. They came about for several reasons, as I will explain.

My husband Alan was diagnosed with MS in 1970 and latterly he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Having been married to this lovely man for over 40 years has given me an insight into what MS involves, physically, emotionally and financially.

Together, on our roller coaster ride through MS life, we have experienced several false dawns in the media regarding 'cures' and 'treatments' - however, diet, exercise and a change in lifestyle were the only 'treatments' we could afford, or from which Alan ever had benefit.

I gave up my career in teaching when Alan needed to be looked after at home so I turned to writing. It was a real slog and although it didn't make us rich, it did keep the wolf from the door and meant we didn't have to live off the state. My books were for coeliacs, people with allergies and people who wanted to eat in a healthier way.

After I retired four years ago, with over 30 books behind me, I was going to enjoy the peace. But no, there was still another book waiting to emerge, and I put the idea of a book about food for MS to a couple of publishers. One of them said 85,000 people with MS was not a viable market and the other said they would publish the book only if I could guarantee the sale of 100,000 copies in the first year. How ridiculous! I was angry and decided to publish the book myself.

And so I began the MS Diet Notebooks, little books to pass on my gleanings from a lifetime of looking after my husband. I intended to steer away from anything that looked remotely like science because I felt it was practical help that was wanted, not lists of published papers on MS and medications that couldn't be prescribed. I began to make notes that grew ever more encompassing until I had a broad view - a short history on what had been going on in the nutrition world for MS for the last 50 years with outlines of actual diets; a look at the problems that can arise from eating such as indigestion, swallowing, choking, constipation, overweight, malnutrition etc; and an underlying theme that while we are patiently waiting for science to come up with the cause and cure for MS, perhaps we should think about eating and living in a more healthy way.

Food and diet are such small words for a big subject. I crammed the book with so much I had to make it twice as long as I originally intended and ultimately the recipes went into a booklet on their own. There's nothing faddy about them - merely ordinary recipes made very much healthier. So that's why the project has ended up as a set of two notebooks instead of one book. My printer had no end of patience with me as one thing after another went wrong and we all decided the book had a jinx. In the end it all came right, hence the storage problem under my stairs!

When I was writing the notebooks I asked my husband to describe in a single sentence how it feels to have MS. He replied, "Everything is on the blink." I hope what I have written will encourage people to a healthier diet and enjoy a better quality of life - perhaps less on the blink than before?

Copies of the booklets can be obtained from Rita Greer on 01730 892609

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