Without peeing-off the chip shop staff to an unreasonable degree (which would mean I couldn’t go there anymore anyway), I can never get answers to detailed questions about what, exactly, is in their sausage and chips. However nicely I try to put it, interrogating them about ingredients will sound like a complaint (or as if I’m an inspector for Trading Standards!) There’s no suggestion at all they are at fault, or that any of the ingredients are sub-standard, and I wouldn’t like them to get the impression I think otherwise. It just seems to be one of those unfortunate things that something in it is affecting me somehow - but the problem is almost certainly with me and the damn MS, not with what they are serving per se.
I’m quite sure they don’t use premium, handmade, butcher’s sausages - no chip shop would! But I quite often buy supermarket “value” sausages. I know they will contain bits of the animal that wouldn’t be marketable otherwise - but the same could be said of burgers, pasties, whatever - none are going to be made of the choicest cuts. As long as I don’t let myself dwell too much on what could be in them, I’ve never had a problem with sausages - even the “basics” range. So I doubt the chip shop have managed to find a unique formula I’ve never eaten anywhere else. So why a problem only with theirs?
I do wonder whether it is partly or mainly the vinegar, as I’m sure it can be metabolised into neurotransmitters, but I don’t know what those neurotransmitters do. Several online self-help guides suggest vinegar as a possible home remedy for cramps, not a potential cause. But our wiring is pretty screwed, so who knows…
There is more than mere scepticism on here, when discussions of diet come up… but the literature showing studies on nutrition and MS occurrence and progression is enough for anyone afflicted to grab onto and go on a plant based whole food diet…which definitely does not include sausage and chips. Nutrition is highly complex with 100’s of 1000’s of chemical interactions taking place with everything you eat. Strip it back to the essentials that we as a species ate and evolved with…the balance of which came from gathering for millions of years… couldn’t go and buy fried food and processed meat for 5.999999999999999M of them.
Its no coincidence that the explosion of MS is a recent thing, following the creep of affluence in the west and the diets that have come with it.
‘They’ may not understand what it is in diet that has the negative effects, but it’s more than convincing that the people who avoid all processed food, dairy, meat etc… do considerably better than those that do not…
It seems that those who dismiss it as quackery do so from various view points… It is a billion dollar industry selling the cacophony of drugs required to treat MS symptoms…fancy if all but the worst cases didn’t need them just because people ate plants.
The patients who dismiss would hope that diet plays no part, because they are to weak to take the plunge and make that lifestyle change… it is a big change and takes serious conviction to stick to it.
why am I writing this today?..
i have followed a plant based diet for 14 months since an episode that initially was thought to be MS or at least TM…the MRI’s found nothing…I have pains and discomfort every few weeks, but nothing of real significance… I don’t know what it is…it may be the onset of MS and it will in time be apparent…Today I succumbed to fish and chips for the first time in those 14 months…and now I feel like a fraud and regret it to the point that I want to stick my fingers down my neck and undo it… hopefully I will not have any symptoms come from it…
You say, “Its no coincidence that the explosion of MS is a recent thing”.
Lidwina of Schiedam
Lidwina’s disease began soon after a fall. From that time onward, she developed walking difficulties, headaches and violent pains in her teeth. By the age of 19, both her legs were paralysed and her vision was disturbed. Her symptoms are recognised as sharing many characteristics with multiple sclerosis, such as the age of onset, duration, and course of disease.
Over the next 34 years, Lidwina’s condition slowly deteriorated, although with apparent periods of remission, until her death at the age of 53. Together these factors suggest that a posthumous diagnosis of multiple sclerosis may be plausible, therefore dating the disease back to the 14th century.
It has no doubt been about for as you suggest …centuries… but as I said… it is the increase in occurrence, particularly more so in areas where previously almost non existent, that cannot be denied, even when factoring in greater detection and a wider awareness than in decades or even centuries past.
I would imagine in time, that the pathways and links that are discovered, will highlight that the pathogen responsible will in some way be affected, either directly or indirectly with what we use as the source of energy for our bodies. Many chronic diseases have symptoms that are exasperated by what we choose to eat, but can be more directly attributed.
It is now common knowledge that processed meats are classed as a carcinogen on par with cigarettes…but as it involves what people decide to stuff down their gullets on a daily basis, do we have labels on packs of spam that says ‘spam kills’… of course we don’t as the food industry and all it produces is it at the very fabric of our society… people’s social lives are planned on going out to eat…having people over to eat…
i just find the arrogance of those that dismiss the links because it hasn’t been outright proven with double blind trials and studies are not 100% conclusive, quite astounding… we are all different so when dealing with creating an atmosphere within our bodies that is conducive to better health, there will be no method, regime or diet that fixes all…
I would suggest a read of ‘The China Study’ would be beneficial to anyone who suffers from a chronic illness…or even more accessible watch ‘forks over knives’ on you tube…
i know that this is not a forum particularly for this… but I had no interest in it until the events of last year pushed me down this route…and I’m glad that it did.
A year or so ago, the neuro said Imaging was clear, but said ‘something has caused the symptoms…it’s all quite unpredictable’ so called it a monophasic episode of inflammation of the cns. Suggested that 90% of people that have this initial outcome have no more problems…I’m hoping I fall into that 90… I seem to have regular bouts of symptoms which I think would suggest not having MS… who knows… but something isn’t right…the way I look at it is you have to give yourself the best chance even without knowing.
I can only have chippy chips about twice a year. I can’t manage the bulk anymore and it does hurt my body. I wonder about the cooking, if you are sensitive but not allergic, if the chip shop cooks the battered fish in the oil then there will be amount of gluton left in the oil I guess unless he uses fresh oil every day (which I don’t think many do). Also, the only way to really try it out is to cook chips at home somehow in the same amount as the chip shop serving to see if it is the bulk that hurts not the chips.
If I do go down the road to the chip shop I have to plan very carefully not to go out the next day as my tummy will be most upset. The chip man is very understanding, he serves me up the smallest version which is the child’s portion and half the price, just as yummy, not quite the same as a lovely amount of chips etc but still satisfying. This I can just about manage with a previous dose of buscopan the day before.
I have a friend who has the full portion of fish and chips with extras but she drives to the local chip shop which cooks everything separate for gluton-free people, this way she can guarantee that the chips/fish are prepared and cooked in the small fryer not in the one used daily for everything. Might be worth a try if you have one near you to compare?
Oh cripes, it is 4.55 a.m. and I’m thinking about the chip shop!
