Fuel for Your Brain

As with so many nutrition related topics these days, there seems to be confusion as to what our brain needs to function at its best. The MIND diet is a scientifically based plan that not only fuels our brain today, but may help preserve our brain function as we get older. I’m sure you’re like me in that we have watched friends and family go down the heart-breaking road of dementia. If you’d like to improve your odds of not following in those footsteps, read on.

The MIND diet is rich in plant-based foods and is designed to enhance brain function. Research has found that older adults who follow the diet experience slower decline in thinking skills than their peers, and are at lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Take a moment to let that sink in; the foods we eat on a daily basis help us be smarter, every day! And maintain our brain function to the end of our days! Exciting stuff, don’t you agree?

The food choices that fuel our brains in the smartest way include vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, along with beans and nuts. Smart diets can also include small amounts of lean animal proteins. The brain-healthy plan also limits fats and added sugars. They’re naturally lower in sodium and refined grains, and avoid processed foods, including sugary beverages, fast food and fried food.

The MIND diet recommends eating certain foods at certain frequencies as well.

Eat This

• Green leafy vegetables: At least six servings per week
• Other vegetables: At least one serving per day
• Berries: At least two servings per week
• Nuts: At least five servings per week
• Whole grains: At least three servings per day
• Beans: More than three meals per week
• Fish (not fried): At least once per week
• Chicken or turkey (not fried): At least two meals per week
• Wine: One glass per day
• Olive oil as the primary cooking oil

Not That

• Fried food: Less than 1 serving per week
• Fast food: Less than 1 serving per week
• Red meat: Less than every other day
• Butter and margarine: Less than 1 tablespoon daily
• Cheese: Less than 1 serving per week
• Pastries and sweets: Less than 5 servings a week

Practice Makes Perfect

When making lifestyle changes, you’re in charge of how much you want to do at once, but you can gain ground by implementing any of these guidelines you don’t already do. Here are some practical suggestions for putting the MIND diet to work for your brain:

Fill half your dinner plate with veggies. You’ll have plenty to eat and without thinking about it, your plate will have more brain-healthy anti-inflammatory compounds, i.e. vitamins and minerals, and less pro-inflammatory (think saturated fat and added sugar).

Swap out chips for a small handful of nuts as an afternoon snack. Nuts are a good source of Vitamin E and copper that fuel healthy brain cells.

Challenge yourself to have fruit with each meal. Fruits have an abundance of antioxidants including vitamin C and flavonoids and are healthy carbs that your brain runs on.

Add a sprinkle of ground flax. One tablespoon per day ups your fiber and brain-healthy omega-3 intake.

Make spinach and mixed greens your salad staple. Dark, leafy greens are a powerhouse for Vitamins A and C, Vitamin B-2, and lutein. Include them daily and think outside the box; one of my kids wilts them in her oats and has savory oats for breakfast—give it a try! And any entreé you’re having can be served over a bed of greens, so give that a try too.

Cook enough for leftovers. Cook two or three meals in a week, making enough for lunch leftovers, and you can reduce your dependence on fast food, which will also check off your goals of having less fried food, less processed and refined food, less cheese, and less sodium. Wow, that’s a lot less, and think of what you can do with the money saved when reducing fast food meals.

Grill salmon or tuna instead of steak. Keys to grilling fish include ensuring the grill is seasoned first, spray an oil on the grill before starting, cook over a low-medium heat, and only turn the fish once, after it is cooked half-way through. Once the fish flakes easily with a fork, it’s ready to remove from the grill.

Sauté vegetables with a small amount of olive oil rather than butter. Olive oil is high in healthy omega-3 fat and low in unhealthy saturated fat. Butter is the reverse and not brain-healthy.

Ask for brown rice when dining out on Asian food. You’ll up the fiber and zinc content, stay full longer, and go from refined white rice to whole food brown rice—nice!

When serving pasta, make it whole-grain. Leaving the grain intact preserves the fiber, zinc and selenium, and keeps it from being a refined food choice. There are a bunch of different pastas to choose from, including those made with lentils, garbanzos and black beans, which will contribute to the next suggestion too.

Make beans a dietary staple. Beans are an excellent source of plant protein, free of saturated fat and cholesterol that are not good in excess for the brain (as with the heart). Be creative with your bean goal of eating them three times per week; add them to salads, puree them to thicken a sauce, and when having a small sweet, or make up a batch of brownies using this recipe that replaces refined, white flour and adds a bit of fiber to your treat. Note that the recipe analysis is for 1/16 of the tray of brownies. Black Bean Brownie Recipe

Go meatless on Mondays. Here’s a quick and simple recipe to consider. Try it out and let us know what you think. You’ll be meeting almost all of the MIND diet recommendations: you’ll be having leafy greens and other veggies, it’s whole grain, not fried, not fast food, has no meat, no butter, no margarine and no cheese! Pair with a crisp white wine and berries for dessert and you’ve added two more of the guidelines. Double the recipe and you’ll have lunch leftovers!

Soba Noodles with Kimchi

Makes 2 servings.

Per serving: 294 calories, 8 g total fat (1 g saturated fat), 49 g carbohydrate, 10 g protein, 6 g dietary fiber, 327 mg sodium.

• 4 oz. soba noodles, 100% buckwheat
• 2 tsp. roasted sesame oil
• 1 cup chopped steamed spinach
• 1/2 cup chopped kimchi
• 1/3 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
• 2 lemon wedges

Directions

1. Cook soba noodles according to package directions. Pour into colander, then rinse noodles under cold running water. Drain well and divide soba between 2 pasta bowls.
2. Add half sesame oil to each bowl and toss to coat soba. Top noodles with half the spinach, kimchi and broth, tossing to combine them. Sprinkle on sesame seeds and add lemon wedges.

Karen Fisher, MS, RD, LDN, CDE is a dietitian in Reno, Nevada, happily promoting the benefits of healthy foods at her nutrition consulting firm, Nutrition Connection. Find her website at www.NutritionConnectionNV.com

To find a nutrition expert in your area, go to the academy website – Find an Expert https://www.eatright.org/find-an-expert