Diet for Multiple Sclerosis: Simple Food Medicine Guide (5 rules)

The simple rules I follow to live well with MS

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All the MS Diets

There are several MS diets.

Swank. Wahls. Jelinek’s OMS. Embry’s Best Bet. McDougall.

If you read enough of them, you’ll start to feel like you need a spreadsheet just to make lunch.

They all promise something slightly different. They all have strong advocates. And they all share one problem:

They’re very hard to follow.

That’s where most people get stuck. That’s where I got stuck, too.

What they’re all trying to do

If you strip it back, most MS diets are trying to do two things:

• Reduce inflammation
• Stop immune confusion

When I understood that, things got simpler.

The shift that changed everything

Food stopped being:

• calories
• fat and sugar
• good vs bad

And became:

• a spectrum

On one side, there is calm. On the other end, there is inflammation. That’s the root problem with MS — inflammation of our myelin.

The Food as Medicine Guide

I wanted to understand why I could climb the great wall of China after 20+ years with MS when other people with the same illness were in wheelchairs.

I knew a diet had to be simple and sustainable. I didn’t take medications at the time. I trusted my food.

I called it my food medicine. Like Hippocrates of Kos, the Father of Medicine, said, let food be thy medicine.

I started digging into the National Library of Medicine and translating the complex findings into practical actions.

The Five Simple Rules

1. Cut the Dairy

There’s a protein in dairy called butyrophilin.

It looks strikingly similar to myelin — the protective coating around your nerves.

In MS, where the immune system already struggles with mistaken identity, that matters.

This is known as molecular mimicry.

The immune system sees something familiar… and reacts. It sees that butyrophilin as a threat.

For me, removing dairy wasn’t subtle.

I stopped having MS attacks for a decade.

2. Eat Plants (but do what works for you)

I was a vegetarian when I was diagnosed with MS. Later, I became vegan. I still am, but I have a family now, and everyone else eats meat.

Let me be clear: the evidence consistently leans towards eating plant-rich diet for MS health. And for human health.

But perfection isn’t required. Like many Australians, I don’t like being told what to do. So I say do what works for you.

A simple shift works:

• Better quality meat
• Smaller portions
• Less often
• More family-friendly, meat-free meals

Plant protein comes with fibre, antioxidants, and compounds that support the gut and immune system.

If fibre was a drug, it would be everywhere.

Animal protein doesn’t come with that same packaging. It comes with saturated fat, inflammation, and higher risks of several types of cancers.

That’s the huge, huge difference.

Also, your gut microbes love fibre. It’s their favourite food. It helps them make serotonin and other hormones, and switch genes on and off.

Considering the carnivore diet? There’s no fibre in meat.

3. Use Only Olive Oil

‘Vegetable oil’ sounds healthy.

It’s called propaganda.

Vegetable oil could be made from canola, ricebran, corn, soybean (a bad one), grapeseed, rapeseed, or any oil from any seed or plant.

They’re industrial oils and cheap to produce. To extract the oil from the seed, a chemical solvent called hexane is usually used. Hexane is colourless and odorless. I

Hexane is also a neurotoxin, meaning a poisonous substance that can destroy, damage, or impair the function of the nervous system, including brain and nerve tissue. (

A 2017 study examined forty common brands of vegetable oils and found traces of hexane in 36 of them. It was just trace, but if you eat a lot of vegetable oil, that trace will build up.

Most vegetable oils (which could be anything) are high in omega-6 fatty acids, which can drive inflammation when they dominate the diet.

Yes, we need some omega-6. Humans previously ate about an equal ratio of omega-3 and omega-6. Not anymore. The modern (western) diet can be skewed as much as 20:1 pro-inflammatory.

Olive oil is different.

It’s stable. Anti-inflammatory. Well-studied.

So instead of overthinking it:

Buy and use only olive oil. Leave out the rest.

4. Eat Real Food

Real food has one ingredient. For example:

A tomato.
An apple.
A handful of nuts.

You can combine single ingredients to make anything.

But once food comes in packets, sachets, or long ingredient lists — it’s no longer food.

It’s a product.

And your body treats it differently. Look at the ingredients, not the packaging. If you see any numbers, it’s not a food, it’s a chemical.

5. Cook From Scratch

This isn’t about being a chef.

It’s about control.

When you cook:

• you know what’s in your food
• you avoid hidden sugars, chemicals, and industrial oils
• it’s easy to customise it for any other tastes or preferences
• you reduce additives like salt and preservatives
• and it tastes better

Simple meals are enough.

In fact, simple is better.

Everyone knows the Mediterranean diet is the best, but only if it’s traditional Mediterranean.

Avoid obvious unhealthy additions, like copious amounts of cheese.

Several countries around the world have low numbers of MS. They tend to have solid food traditions. Go on a food safari.

Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian, South American, Indian, Nepalese, Indonesian, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Turkish, Uruguayan, Moroccan, and others.

The secret to the world’s best cooking is fresh ingredients with herbs and spices.

Why these rules work

When you look across MS research — and across the major MS diets — the same patterns keep showing up.

These five rules aren’t random. They map closely to three key systems:

👉 inflammation
👉 gut health
👉 energy and metabolic stability

1. Inflammation: calming an overactive system

MS is an inflammatory condition affecting the central nervous system.

Diet can influence inflammation through:

• the types of fats we eat
• overall diet quality
• levels of processed food

For example:

• Diets high in saturated fat and ultra-processed foods are associated with increased inflammatory markers
• Diets rich in whole plant foods and healthy fats (like olive oil) are associated with lower inflammation

Some of the earliest MS diet research (such as the Swank studies) observed links between lower saturated fat intake and better long-term outcomes.

More recent research continues to support the broader idea that diet quality matters.

👉Less processed food + better fats = a calmer internal environment
Source: MS Australia – Nutrition and MS
https://www.msaustralia.org.au/news/nutrition-and-ms/

2. Gut health: supporting the microbiome

This is one of the most important emerging areas in MS research.

Your gut microbiome:

• helps regulate the immune system
• produces important metabolites (like short-chain fatty acids)
• is strongly influenced by what you eat

Research has shown that people with MS often have:

• differences in gut bacteria composition
• reduced diversity in beneficial microbes

Diet plays a direct role here.

• Fibre-rich plant foods (vegetables, legumes, whole grains) feed beneficial bacteria
• Ultra-processed foods may negatively impact microbiome diversity

👉 A plant-forward, whole-food diet supports a more diverse and resilient gut ecosystem — which may help regulate immune responses
Source: Frontiers in Immunology (2021) – Gut microbiota in multiple sclerosis
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.652935/full

3. Energy and metabolic health: reducing the drivers of fatigue

Fatigue is one of the most common and frustrating symptoms of MS.

Diet can influence energy through:

• blood sugar stability
• nutrient density
• overall metabolic health

For example:

• Highly processed foods can lead to energy spikes and crashes
• Whole foods provide slower, more stable energy release
• Nutrient-dense foods support overall cellular function

There is also emerging evidence that:
👉 Better overall diet quality is associated with lower fatigue and improved quality of life in people with MS
Importance of Diet and Nutrition in MS

Tips for Getting Started

Get your bloodwork done.

Your blood work will give you a baseline. We need to make sure there’s no hidden problem lurking that could be easily addressed.

Are you deficient in anything?

For people with MS, vitamin D is often too low. If so, take a D3 supplement.

As a vegetarian, B12 can also be a problem. If low, take a B12 supplement.

If iron, cholesterol, blood sugar, magnesium, zinc, or B vitamins are a problem, we may be able to correct them through food as medicine. In other words, eating a wide variety of nutritious real food. But get personal advice that’s right for you.

Ask your doctor or nurse for a blood test to check the levels of vitamins and minerals in your blood.

Your doctor will explain the results and you can often request a printed copy for your records.

A note on ‘vegan’ food

Vegan does not mean ‘healthy.’

So many vegan cookbooks are basically desserts only. There’s plenty of dairy and sugar and very little fibre or nutrition.

Beware of ‘realistic’ meat substitutes. A lot of chemical engineering goes into meat-free food production. That’s not a good thing. Ultra-processed vegan food is still ultra-processed.

They’re designed for shelf life, not your microbiome.

Come back to basics.

Sugar and fatigue

Sugar doesn’t just affect weight.

It affects energy.

For me:

More sugar → more fatigue
Less sugar → more stability

It’s not about elimination.

It’s about awareness.

For me, it was the difference between chronic fatigue and a demanding high-thinking job with 16-hour days.

Seriously, a short run in the morning and I powered through the day and half the night.

Your gut responds quickly

The gut microbiome adapts fast.

Feed it fibre-rich, whole foods — it supports you.

Feed it sugar and ultra-processed food — different microbes take over, including those that can weaken the gut lining and promote inflammation.

The good news?

It can shift back.

Start where you are

Don’t do everything at once.

Pick one change.

Try it.

Listen to your body.

If it’s all too hard:

Try one:

• Remove dairy for 30 days
• Replace processed snacks with real food
• Cook at home 3–5 nights this week
• Swap to olive oil
• Reduce added sugar and notice energy

No pressure.

Just information.

If you would like to buy it, it’s available here and takes 90 minutes to watch in full.

If you’re a paid subscriber to Substack Best Life with MS, the video course is free of charge.

The evidence

Please be aware that this is my experience. It shouldn’t replace medical or professional advice that considers your unique needs. Consider this as a springboard. Do your own research and seek advice that’s right for you.