Leidich - Two Moms in the Raw: simple, clean, irresistible recipes for your familys health

Its true, Ive got MS. And yeah, it kind of sucks. But life happens when youre looking the other way. Id always led a relatively healthy life, exercising daily and putting dinner on the table for my family every night. But when everything changed, it did so seemingly overnight. I was a happily married mother of three living the Rocky Mountain lifestyle I loved. Im not quite sure whyprobably because everyone else was doing itbut I decided to get a flu shot. Little did I know it would be the shot heard round the world... at least my world. Within days, I went from hiking, walking my dogs, nursing my son, and working out to someone who couldnt hold a pen, felt weak on her strongest days, and had trouble focusing on even the smallest tasks and conversations.

Maybe youre holding your son wrong? people would ask, naively thinking it might be causing some sort of nerve damage. But soon after, a neurologist confirmed the diagnosis I am still living with today: multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disorder that made a mockery of my central nervous system, the network of brain and spinal cord functions that ensures the body works the way its supposed to. Imagine a computer without a chip or a car without a well-maintained engine, and you get the idea.

Suddenly, the mysterious affliction of optic neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve) that I suffered in my twentiesplus the fact that I always liked to be in bed by 9:00 p.m.made perfect sense to me. Id had undiagnosed pre-symptoms of MS for fifteen years, but nobody had caught on to them.

Im not known for wasting time, so once the diagnosis was confirmed, I did what I always do when a problem arises: Attack it head-on. On the advice of my doctors, I took the conventional course of action, a cocktail of steroids to ease symptoms of the disease. But rather than help, I believe the steroids destroyed my body. I can still feel the sensation of the drugs whipping through me with the force of a tornado, attacking my left side, which has always been weaker, with extra brutality. One morning I found myself in my daughters room, weeping uncontrollably. How would I take care of my family? How would I take care of myself? How could I recover to the point where I could get myself to the grocery store, my kids schools, the gym? Things I had taken for granted now seemed so far away. It was then that I realized the standard course of treatment wasnt going to work for me.

I needed a more active regimen I could manage and control, and I began searching for a cure, reading every book I could find and seeking out healers who might help me chart a course that traditional medicine was overlooking. I spent countless hours tracking down people whod written books claiming their MS was curedonly to discover that they were still living in wheelchairs. Discouragement doesnt even come close to describing what I was feeling; defeated was more like it. A wheelchair simply wasnt an option for me.

However, there was one persons story that resonated strongly: Roger McDougalls. He was a regular person like me who believed he could manage his MS by eating a Paleolithic, yeast-free diet. Soon after, I met with an herbalist from Boulder, Brigitte Mars, who recommended a completely raw lifestyle. She believed that cooked foods lost much of their nutritional value in the heating process. That made sense to me. Think about how wilted, dehydrated, and weak you feel after a day in the hot sun! With nothing to lose, I decided to follow her advice and undertook a completely raw, gluten-, dairy-, and sugar-free diet for six months.