VEGGIES FOR THE NOODLER

WRITER: KIM BADEN-KRISTENSEN, BRAIN +

Are you ready to learn the fundamentals of a brainhealthy diet? We’ll be getting down to the basic building blocks of your body and thus, the building blocks of your brain. The higher quality materials you use for building and maintaining your body and brain, the higher quality the final product will be.

Your diet choices affect your brain health both directly and indirectly. It has a direct impact because your brain needs raw materials to fuel it and to build new cells like any other part of your body. Your diet indirectly affects your brain because it greatly affects the overall health of your body. A healthy diet can lower the rate of cognitive decline from aging and can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

So, let’s get into the bread and butter of a good diet, or rather into the veggies and nuts.

Mediterranean Mash Up

This technique combines well-known elements from a Mediterranean diet with a few modifications and additions based on recent dietary and neuroscientific research.

The Mediterranean diet is central because it’s one of the best known “one size fits all” diets for good health. On top of this there is good evidence that sticking with the Mediterranean diet reduces cognitive decline as a result of aging as well as the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

The Mediterranean base...

• Eat primarily plant-based foods.

• Eat lots of vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and some fruits.

• Use plant-based oils, such as olive oil, canola oil or flaxseed oil.

• Use herbs and spices instead of salt to flavor foods.

• Limit red meat as much as possible and eat fish several times a week.

The mash-up modifications...

• Fill your plate with as much as 50 percent veggies.

• Cut back on carbohydrates so they only make up 25 percent of your total plate.

• Emphasize whole-grain varieties of carbohydrates.

• In general, the less processed the food is, the better it is for your brain and body.

• Processing the food removes many of the essential vitamins and nutrients your body needs.

• Eat fruits, but don’t overdo it. And try to stick with the less sweet ones.

• Avoid sugar. (Ouch!) That may be the toughest one for most of us. This includes sweet and dried fruit, soda, chocolate, jams, most cereals and again, many processed foods.

• Avoid heating plant-based oils, as it damages the otherwise healthy fats and makes them unhealthy. Cook the food first, then apply oils, or use the oils directly on salad or veggies.

• For frying, use coconut oil. This type of fat is the least prone to developing damaging compounds during the frying process. The second best choice is olive oil.

Next time you sit down for dinner with your family or friends, tell them as much as you can remember about the Mediterranean Mash Up, so you’ll learn it by heart. Explain the connection between the diet, the body and the brain.

And, that’s it. The next entry in the series will look at how toxins affect your brain health, but until then… Bon Appétit!