Brain Friendly Diet

The starting point for tuning up your brain is to follow an optimum nutrition diet and take daily
supplements. Here are the ten golden rules to follow to make sure your diet is maximising your mental health.

1. Eat wholefoods – wholegrains, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, fresh fruit and vegetables – and avoid refined, white and overcooked foods.

2. Avoid any form of sugar – in biscuits, cakes, confectionery and also foods with added sugar in the forms of syrups, dextrose and maltose.

3. Eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily – choose dark green, leafy and root vegetables such as watercress, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, spinach, green beans or peppers, all raw or lightly cooked. Choose fresh fruit such as apples, pears, berries, plums, melon or citrus fruit. Have bananas, grapes and potatoes in moderation only (they contain a lot of natural sugar). Dilute fruit juices and only eat dried fruits infrequently in small quantities, preferably soaked.
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New York (CNN) — Beyond the unhealthy influence that our demand for factory-farmed meat has in the area of food-borne illness and communicable diseases, we could cite many other influences on public health, most obviously the now-widely recognized relationship between the nation’s major killers — heart disease, No. 1; cancer, No. 2; and stroke, No. 3 — and meat consumption.

Or, much less obviously, the distorting influence of the meat industry on the information about nutrition we receive from the government and medical professionals.

What is hard to comprehend is why educators and government have, since the 1950s, allowed the dairy council to become arguably the largest and most important supplier of nutritional-education materials in the nation. Worse, our present federal “nutritional” guidelines come to us from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the very same government department that has worked so hard to make factory farming the norm in America.

The USDA has a monopoly on the most important advertising space in the nation, those little nutritional boxes we find on virtually everything we eat. Founded the same year that the American Dietetic Association opened its offices, the USDA was charged with providing nutritional information to the nation and ultimately with creating guidelines that would serve public health. At the same time, though, the USDA was charged with promoting industry.

The conflict of interest is not subtle: Our nation gets its federally endorsed nutritional information from an agency that must support the food industry, which today means supporting factory farms. The details of misinformation that dribble into our lives (like fears about “enough protein”) follow naturally from this fact and have been reflected upon in detail by writers like Marion Nestle.

Read more by going to this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/10/30/eating.meat.jonathan.foer/

http://www.foodrevolution.org/grassfedbeef.htm

Just read this.

I want you to be informed of how certain foods affect the environment, your health, the farmers, and the animals.  Once you have the information you are free to make up your own mind as to what you want to do. I completely respect your decision and your right to choose what you eat as long as you are fully informed on the matter. I am just here to provide information.  I will not criticize you for your decision and I know that you will not criticize me for being a vegetarian (not that you would because that would be silly). Anyway, just read this… (more…)

Appropriate Planned Vegetarian Diets Are Healthful, May Help in Disease Prevention and Treatment, Says American Dietetic Association

FOR RELEASE JULY 1, 2009

Media contact: Jennifer Starkey
800/877-1600, ext. 4802 (more…)

So my doctor says I should eat fish 3 times a week so I can get my Omega 3’s, an essential fatty acid (EFA), popular for helping to improve cholesterol levels, prevent blood clots, and good for your joints and the brain.  But let’s take a closer look at what this is all about… (more…)

Yup, it’s true… organically grown food is healthier for You, the Farmer, and the Planet.  You’ll get more vitamins and minerals in organic foods, no toxic pesticides (that harm you, the farmer and the planet), and no GMO’s.  Buy Organic!!!

Here’s a link to a site where you can look up what non-organic food you’re about to eat/buy and how many pesticides you will also be eating… (more…)

Red Meat and Dairy Products Significantly Increase Risk of Pancreatic Cancer

According to a new study, fat from red meat and dairy products is associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer. As part of the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, researchers followed and analyzed the diets of more than 525,000 participants to determine whether there is an association between dietary fat and pancreatic cancer. This same study found no association between plant-food fat and pancreatic cancer.

Thiébaut ACM, Jia L, Silverman DT, et al. Dietary fatty acids and pancreatic cancer in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. J Natl Cancer Inst.

The X-rays generated by mammograms have always been
controversial.  How can you best protect yourself from Breast Cancer?

What you should know:  Eat Foods that Help Prevent Disease!
Cruciferous vegetables powerfully prevent breast cancer (Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, collard greens, chard, etc.)
Vitamin D powerfully protects against breast cancer. (You get vitamin D from the sun.  Morning sun is best.) (more…)

This is a HUGE topic.  But I like to keep things simple, so let’s break it down…

There are 3 categories of soy foods.

A:  they are good for you without negative health effects:

• Miso paste (the refrigerated kind please), Tempeh, Natto

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