FOOD TO BOOST YOUR MOOD AND MEMORY
SUPERB RECIPE PULLOUT INSIDE
YOU may think you have a great diet — you’re cutting back on sugar, you’ve switched to wholemeal bread, and you’ve even been spotted sipping the occasional green juice.
But are you getting enough fat? If not, you may be starving the most important organ in your body: your brain. and the consequences could be catastrophic.
My work as a psychologist has led me to research exactly what the brain needs to function at its highest potential, and I am convinced the right diet can have a dramatic influence on memory, mood, stress levels and ability to focus.
When you give your greedy brain the nutrients it needs to function optimally, it sets off a wonderful cascade of benefits, allowing you to improve your learning potential, focus and memory, as well as making you lighter in mood (and weight!) and brighter in outlook.
There’s plenty of research to back up my conviction that you can feed your brain to be happy or sad and help it to learn and remember more efficiently, simply by changing the foods you eat.
This week, I’ll be showing you how. In Saturday’s paper, I explained how everything you eat will be either supporting or sabotaging your brain function — and the important role played by fat. Many people get angry when they realise they’ve been fooled about how critically important fat is to health, especially our mental health. It means millions of us are struggling to function with a brain that is sorely fat-deprived.
You don’t just have to take my word for it. Professor Michael Crawford, director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at London Metropolitan University, has stated: ‘ Brain disorders and mental ill health have now overtaken all other burdens of ill health. The cost of mental ill health in the UK is £ 77 billion greater than heart disease and cancer combined.
‘ The impact on the next generation will be worse unless something is done. Therefore, the most important scientific question today is to reverse the climb in mental ill health and prevent brain disorders. We know that brain fats are a critically important part of the solution.’
Today, I’ll explain exactly what kind of fat — and how much of it — you should be eating to keep those brain cells buzzing.
THE KEY FATS YOU NEED
ON SaTUrdaY, I explained that to function at its best, your brain needs healthy forms of different fats. Your body can happily make most of them. But it can’t make essential fatty acids (EFas), which are found in oily fish, dark, leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and olive oil. They must come from your diet.
If your brain has too much of the wrong fat, or not enough EFas, your brain cells will struggle to communicate with each other, which results in low mood, poor learning capacity and challenges with memory.
If the brain has the right amount of the right fats, these cells will send messages to each other efficiently, learn new things easily and memory will work optimally.
EFas are crucial because they ensure that cell membranes remain supple and flexible. There are two kinds of EFa: omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. The brain needs both omega-3 and omega-6 fats to function optimally. However, most omega-6 fats found in supermarket products are damaged and either toxic or unrecognisable to our cells.
This is because about two-thirds of dietary fats consumed today are omega- 6 fatty acids of vegetable origin (from sunflower, soya or corn oil). Most of these omega-6 fats have been damaged during harsh processing.
This means their structure has changed and they cannot perform their unique functions in our brains. Many products contain these damaged fats, including margarines and fake butters, pastries, pies, sausage rolls, cakes and scones, muesli, granola and protein bars, crisps and crackers, soups, frozen food, baked goods, breakfast cereals, dips and salad dressings, biscuits, sweets and even essential fat supplements.
Omega-3 fatty acids are critical for brain efficiency because they are involved in the construction and functioning of the membrane which encases the brain cells.
They are associated with increased blood flow throughout the brain. This explains the positive impact of omega-3 fats on immune function, blood pressure, hormone function, blood glucose levels, mood, memory and learning.
HOW DO YOU TAKE ACTION?
THE best way is to add a blend of essential fatty acids (EFa) to your diet every day. This means eating more green leafy vegetables, and making nuts and seeds and oily fruit such as olives and avocados a regular part of your diet.
You will also need to replace margarines and other vegetable spreads and oils with organic, unrefined oils such as olive oil, avocado, macadamia nut butter, tahini (sesame seed paste) and real butter.
Buy a variety of fresh nuts and seeds and keep them refrigerated to preserve their nutrients.
In addition, it’s a good idea to grind chia seeds, hemp seeds and flaxseeds just before you’re ready to eat (to preserve nutrients), and scatter them over salads, soups and stews. and if you’re feeling adventurous, why not experiment with making porridge out of chia seeds instead of oats?
as well as boosting your brain power, this re-introduction of healthy fats will mean you could be introducing yourself to a longforgotten taste sensation. One
reason fat can make any food taste so good is because fat and oil molecules have the ability to enhance food’s taste and smell as well as spread around the mouth, where they come into contact with our taste buds.
This is one of the many reasons that diet foods are so often ‘bumped up’ with artificial flavours and sugars — there is no taste sensation without fat.
So get healthy fats back into your diet — your brain will thank you for it, too!
BUT WON’T IT MAKE ME FAT?
AlThough fats are higher in calories than carbohydrates or even proteins, if you eat healthy fats in moderation, you won’t gain weight. This is because adding fat to a meal not only enhances the taste and enjoyment, but it slows your body’s ability to digest your food.
This means sugar is delivered into your blood in a gentle trickle rather than the sudden surge you might experience after a fat-free, high-sugar snack. The slower digestion allows time for your natural appetite hormones to work as they should, switching off hunger and calming cravings, so you stop eating when you feel full — and ultimately eat less.
COOKING WITH THE RIGHT FATS AND OILS
Cooking with the right fats and oils will ensure you glean maximum brain benefits. if you are using a high heat for frying, it’s better to use saturated fats such as coconut oil, palm kernel oil and grass-fed butter because they remain stable and don’t become toxic when heated. if you’re sauteing and stir-frying (moderate heat), you should pick fats that don’t contain EFAs such as olive, almond, hazelnut, peanut and pistachio oils.
indeed, you should keep your EFA-rich fats and oils for baking, drizzling and making sauces, so the low heat doesn’t impair the nutritional benefit. Safflower, sunflower and sesame oils are best.
For salad dressings, pestos, relishes, dips and mayonnaise, use flax, hemp, pumpkin, walnut, sesame seed and sunflower oils — ideally cold-pressed. IS CHOLESTEROL SO BAD AFTER ALL? CholESTErol has received a lot of bad press and most people don’t understand the important role it plays in our well-being. it is found naturally in our brains, nerves, liver, blood and bile.
The liver manufactures about 80 per cent of the body’s cholesterol, so only about 20 per cent comes from our food.
let your cholesterol levels get too low and it could impact your mood.
Cholesterol also helps make the sex hormones progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone and is responsible for the production of vitamin D, which occurs as a result of the sun’s action on the skin and ensures healthy bones and immune system. Don’t be scared of adding cholesterol to your diet, perhaps by enjoying a healthy egg for breakfast (though if you take drugs that lower cholesterol, you should check with your doctor before doing so).
WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT COCONUT OIL?
PlAnT forms of saturated fat (saturated fats are solid at room temperature, such as coconut oil) are different from animal forms, such as bacon fat or lard, in that they are more readily absorbed into the bloodstream, where they can be used very efficiently for energy.
in fact, the fat-specific composition of plant oils are converted into chemicals called ketones by the liver, so that they can be used by the brain when glucose levels run low.