Today is really going to be a introduction to the mind diet. I know, Megan, for the past couple of weeks or months, we've just been talking about like different aspects of the mind diet and different lifestyle interventions in order to help promote brain health. But today I just wanted to provide probably the most rudimentary foundational session in regards to the mind diet, actually knowing what it is and why it's important.
This is actually the exact presentation that I'll be providing during week one of this current track that we're in. So this is just a taste of some of the things that we talk about here at CEP. So I just wanted to just kind of introduce the topic today like that and also let you know that today is like that foundational class, because it's never a bad idea to revisit what we have already been talking about and to really just kind of.
re-engage in that just so that we can make sure that we're all on the same page with knowing what the mind diet is and what it's good for. So what is the best diet, right? We always kind of ask ourselves that question.
Does this even exist? Is this a concept that's completely mythical or is there actual fact behind the perfect diet or the best diet? There's a lot of belief behind superfoods.
Right. What are what is a superfood? Do they exist?
All these different complex nutritional questions that we always ask. And sometimes we have to sit back and really assess if these are really good questions. The right diet. And again, there are countless debates. Right.
We have people that have tried the keto diet, whether they're vegan, vegetarian, paleo, pescatarian, gluten free, low carb, low sugar, whatever. the name of the diet is, it really does depend on individuality. That's something that's extremely important to know, that it depends on you specifically.
Now, what we know when it comes to certain things, right? You have fact and opinion. Whenever you're looking online and you're reading like a very flashy headline regarding some very, I don't know. popular nutrition claims something that sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true, right? There's fact and then there's opinion.
There's evidence that how you feel your body can help protect your brain. This is absolutely, absolutely something that's true and very published out there for us all to see and all to know. Nutrition and lifestyle drive down or up major chronic conditions or diseases, right? If we're looking at our overall state of health, one of the biggest questions we have to always ask is what are we eating?
What is our diet like? During any kind of assessment, if you're being prescribed medication and drugs without having the opportunity to explain or for the practitioner to understand what the dietary piece looks like, that's something that raises a red flag. OK, because nutrition is extremely important.
in all facets of our health and chronic disease management. Now, when it comes to ways of eating, you know, there's lifestyle factors that come into play. There's cultural factors and barriers.
There are certain things, religion, that plays a role into how we eat and what we eat. There are certain conditions. There are certain symptoms, right?
There are certain predispositions that we may have that may affect our overall intake. And what we eat every day and how we eat how our body responds ultimately influences our entire physiology. This includes our brain.
All right. Whatever we do each and every single day, it impacts every single aspect of our life, including our brain. And I'm stressing the brain because that's why we're here today. So the mind diet, what is the mind diet?
Well, the mind diet is a mix actually between two diets. You have the Mediterranean diet and you have the Mediterranean diet, sorry, and you have the DASH diet. These two diets come together to form what we know as the MIND diet.
And that's kind of where the acronym comes from, a combination between Mediterranean and DASH coming together to create the MIND diet. It contains components of both Mediterranean and the DASH diet to come together to... basically provide foods that are recommended to support brain health. So when we're looking at the Mediterranean diet, there are certain components to look at right now.
If we want like a very long explanation of what it is and what it's not, of course, there are certain places that we can go to see that. But if we're just providing a high level overview of what the Mediterranean diet, this is a diet that is based out of the Mediterranean, specifically certain countries out of the Mediterranean that this diet is based off of. And it consists of.
a lot of healthy fats like olive oil, nuts, seeds. It consists of fatty fish like salmon, sardines, anchovies. It consists of limited red meat. It also includes the component of red wine in moderate consumption because there's a chemical, and I don't want to say chemical like a bad thing, but there's a property, a compound called resveratrol, which is an antioxidant inside of that red wine or inside of grapes that can promote. overall health.
Now, as far as, you know, I'm not going to sit here and just recommend that you drink wine all day, every single day, but according to the Mediterranean diet, it is one of the foods that is listed because of the components of that resveratrol in those grapes. You have your healthy grains, your whole grains, you have your fruits, your vegetables. It's low in processed foods and low in added sugars in general. This right here is like a screenshot of what the Mediterranean diet is and some of the benefits.
of the Mediterranean diet. As you can see, you see a nice balance of foods. It doesn't seem like it's overly restrictive. It doesn't seem like it's kind of, you're missing out on a lot, even though it's saying limit certain things and include certain things in more quantities.
It's not necessarily extremely restrictive. That's the Mediterranean diet. Now the DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, DASH. Looks a little bit like this. It's not as complex as the Mediterranean, but it focuses more so on increasing your fluids, your fruit and vegetables.
And by fluids, I mean like your water, decreasing your sodium. And these are just some of the things that are very that are staples about the DASH diet, if we're really looking at it. Also, too, with the DASH diet, the increasing in fruits and vegetables can be associated with like increases. of potassium because potassium and sodium, they kind of work against one another.
If we increase our potassium, this is one way that we can help influence our overall heart health. So that's why it's kind of a part of the DASH diet here. It doesn't say potassium specifically, but the fruits and vegetables there indicate potassium.
Also increased fiber. You see lower sodium, as I said earlier. So again, that's the component.
These are the components of the DASH diet. that can promote our overall heart health in this case. Differences, right? Mediterranean diet is a lifestyle that increases the healthy fats. It kind of focuses more on community meals, you know, low stress, which kind of delves into other factors as well, we'll discuss.
Participate in enjoyment. So again, the fact that it's not overly restrictive and that it's still a pretty wide range of foods that we can still eat and also getting adequate sleep. So outside of just the what to eat component, there are other factors to consider when it comes to the Mediterranean diet here.
And as you can see, this chart here, this kind of provides a pyramid of the recommended foods in the Mediterranean diet pattern and also in the quantities in which to enjoy these foods. At the bottom of this pyramid, we see that the biggest component is the protein. It's going to consist of our fruits, our vegetables, and our whole grains. As you can see, mainly our plant-based products. That's what that bottom section is going to consist of, which is the foundational piece regarding the food aspect of the Mediterranean diet.
But under that, which is like the real foundation, we see family time, family meals. We see movement. We see togetherness.
We see exercise. So again, other foundational pieces to the Mediterranean diet from a lifestyle perspective outside of just the what we eat. And as we move up the pyramid, we see the next section is our fish and our seafood.
Then we move up to some of the poultry, eggs, cheese, yogurt. Then we move up to some of our meats, like our red meats and our sweets, to have those in limited amounts in comparison with everything else. Did you know that the brain is the organ in the body that consumes most of the energy from our food, right? Up to 20% of our daily calories are being utilized by our brain. That is why, for example, if you skip a meal or if someone doesn't eat for a long time, it's like they can't think straight, right?
It's because the brain thrives off of the food that we eat. This is very important to understand today. All right.
It's preferred source of energy of fuel is going to be from carbohydrates. All right. So that's why whenever we as dietitians, we recommend whole grains, we recommend fruits, we recommend some of those starchy vegetables. That's because our bodies need those carbohydrates, specifically our brain. in order for us to be provided with the energy that we need to function.
Antioxidants like vitamin E, vitamin C, you know, these are very important to the brain as well. It can actually help stimulate brain function, right? So vitamin E is pretty well researched and its effect on overall cognitive function. So it's one of those things that we want to incorporate as much as possible within our meals and within our foods. in our lifestyles in general.
So the rest of the brain is made up of fat slash water. So fats are also important when it comes to helping our brain to function, right? So that's why in the Mediterranean diet, when we are saying fatty fish like salmon, or even like olive oil, which is primarily a fat, these are the types of like neuroprotective fats that can really help the overall brain function. As a matter of fact, in fetal development, when a child is being developed, it's very important to have healthy fats to kind of help that brain develop. I know a lot of people are afraid of like seafood, for example, or fish during pregnancy because of the fact of the high mercury contact.
But on the flip side, those healthy fats can help with overall brain development. Same concept here. us in older years in our lives can benefit from those healthy fats that come from certain foods to promote our overall brain health. DHA, which is an omega-3 fat, is the most metabolically active fat.
And that's the fat that will come from your fatty fish mainly, your fish oils, things like that contain that DHA that's really important. Also, it's important for hormone production, which is not really listed here, but a lot of the hormones that we need to survive and thrive in this life really get produced in a much more efficient rate in the presence of dietary fats. So again, those dietary fats are very important, not only for our overall health, but our brain health too. Then we have this funny word, antioxidants. We have different types of antioxidants.
If I were to describe what an antioxidant is, I would just say that it is an anti-aging component. A lot of us don't really know what an antioxidant is. Just think anti-aging.
So if you take lemon juice, which has a lot of vitamin C in it, and you pour that over an apple that's left in room temperature, without the lemon juice, the apple will most likely go through some type of browning because of its exposure to oxygen. there you find the word antioxidant. So oxygen is aging us, right? So, you know, you take an antioxidant like lemon juice or some kind of acid, you pour it over it and it can delay the aging of that.
So same concept. There are chemicals and compounds in foods that give us anti-oxidizing properties, not only for our overall bodies, but our brains as well. They help neutralize and remove those free radicals. They will help to preserve.
Basically, that's what that means. They help to preserve, keep us young, keep us functional and keep us youthful as well. So the mind diet, right?
Again, it's a healthy evidence-based way to eat that is designed to prevent Alzheimer's disease and delay cognitive decline. A selection of most brain healthy foods is what the mind diet consists of, and one smart diet from two healthy ones. Basically, if we really want to sum it up and put it in layman's terms, it's one smart diet from two healthy ones. the Mediterranean, and as well as the dash that come together to create the mind. Different components of the mind diet.
We want to emphasize our leafy greens. Why? Because they have a ton of antioxidants, anti-aging properties in them.
We want to include nuts and seeds. Why? Because they have some of those healthy fats inside of them. We want to increase our berries. Why?
Because they have antioxidants in them. Our beans, we want to include. Why?
Because not only do they have antioxidants in them, but they also have good dietary fiber. Remember when we were looking at the DASH diet and how that was a component of the DASH diet to increase your fiber? Well, there you go. Beans kind of give us the benefit of that, as well as some healthy proteins as well, which can support our overall bodies.
Olive oil as our main cooking oil, because there are... what we call polyphenols components inside of olive oil that can really help to preserve brain function and to limit foods that aren't good for the brain. So here with the mind diet components, you can already see the Mediterranean and DASH diet components at work, promoting some of the most healthy foods for the brain.
The mind diet is a little less demanding. It doesn't necessarily have a specific fruit recommendation, but it does emphasize berries. And, you know, it does, it focuses on berries specifically, but not necessarily like you, these are the certain fruits to include.
And these are the certain fruits to exclude. The mind diet doesn't do that. There's no emphasis on dairy in the mind diet. The mind diet emphasizes antioxidant rich and anti-inflammatory foods, which again, are foods that protect. the brain and make it harder for plaques to form.
So the whole concept of antioxidant here in the brain is for the prevention of these beta amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Okay. So if you ever hear of tangles or plaques in the brain, basically where there's an obstruction of blood flow of nutrients to the brain, these foods that are in the mind diet kind of help to slow that down. or to kind of prevent that or delay that as much as possible, which is very important to know in this.
So there's a study in 2015 in Alzheimer's and dementia. It was a multi-year study that showed that the mind diet had the largest benefit when it comes to overall cognitive decline. Even moderately following this mind diet can have an impact. And in this study, it was, again, a multi-year study where there was 923 people between the ages of 58 and 98 at Rush University's Memory and Aging Project. So they were tested a couple of times to ensure that the Alzheimer's disease at the start of the study was present.
And over the course of four years, now, different diets were tested here. Over the course of four years. So 144 new cases were diagnosed and the MIND diet showed to be superior above some of these other diets that were tested in this sense.
In this case, the Mediterranean and the DASH. Now, again, Mediterranean and the DASH come together to form the MIND diet. This in general, you know, you may say like, OK, this was a lot of of cases of Alzheimer's developed. But again, remember, this was the span of a couple of different years.
And not only that, but this was also this was over a span of a good amount of years, one. And also with a group that's highly susceptible for, you know, mild cognitive impairment or overall decline in brain function. Right.
So that 144 that you see doesn't necessarily represent a very high rate of new cases developed. Again, showing that the mind diet specifically had the most benefit in this case. So why follow the mind diet, right? What kind of things, you know, of course, we know that it's going to help protect against cognitive decline.
Of course, we know that it's going to help in a lot of different ways. But from a practical standpoint, it's simple. It's not restrictive.
There's no calorie counting, right? There's no like putting food into a tracking app. And it's spitting back out at you saying that, you know, you missed the mark because you didn't have X amount of of this or whatnot.
It's just giving you a list of foods to include more and more of to experience a better benefit for your overall brain. It's everyday eating. Right. It's foods that we can naturally enjoy in many different forms.
You know, whether that's a hot dish, a cold dish, whether it's for breakfast, lunch or dinner, there's. There are ways that we can be mindful here. No pun intended.
There's ways that we can be mindful to kind of incorporate some of these foods to promote our overall health and our brain health as well. And again, it emphasizes on the foods that will protect the brain. So here are 10 basic brain foods that I want you to take a look at. Okay. We have our whole grains.
We have our... leafy greens. We have other vegetables as well as, you know, maybe some of those non-leafy green vegetables, some starchy vegetables as well. We have our nuts and our seeds. We have our beans and our lentils, our berries, our chicken, fish.
We have wine. And according to the Mind Diet, four to six ounces per day is the upper limit. And again, that's not something that I'm saying that you should do every single day, but it's just providing a basic recommendation in this sense. And four to six ounces is really not much at all.
That's about half a cup to 75% of a cup, right? Not really that much. And then of course, using olive oil.
So just take a look at these foods right here. This is just a basic list, like I said. Let's take a look at those. And I just want you to ask yourself, as it stands right now, what which ones of these are you incorporating pretty well enough into your diet as it stands?
And which one of these can you incorporate more of? And while you're asking yourself this question, think about the reason or the you know, the why behind why certain one of these. can be more challenging to incorporate, right? If I'm looking at this list right now and I see something that's hard for me to incorporate into my diet and for me to get a little bit more of, I'm going to ask myself, what makes me not want or what makes the consumption of this particular item pretty low in my life or in my diet? Is it perhaps a bad experience that I had with it in the past?
Is it access to it that I don't have? Maybe funds or maybe I don't know where to find it. Is it the fact that I don't like how it tastes a certain way, right? Maybe the answer to that one is to try different ways of preparing it.
Maybe try different types of seasonings. Maybe try different types of meals. Maybe think of what you really like to eat. and try to incorporate something like this into it, right? There's so many different ways, my point here, to incorporate different types of foods.
And I just want you to just kind of have a moment to reflect there. What can you do to incorporate some more of these into your diet? And my challenge...
like after a class, we would basically leave someone with or leave the class with a takeaway, something that I would want them to focus on. And that's what I want to do with you all today. So again, picking a food from one of one of those foods from that previous list and just finding a way to incorporate it into a meal. Right. My encouragement to you is just findings, findings, a way to incorporate this into a meal.
And a lot of times when it comes to overall changes in our overall eating patterns, we think that we have to make a 100% the first time, right? We think of perfection. And if we are not perfect, we are reluctant to try. And I just want to let you know, it doesn't have to be like that, right?
It doesn't have to be like that. What I find about health, or something interesting that I find, is that one habit can lead into something else. So if I'm being more mindful and more intentional about trying to incorporate something into my diet, that can most likely feed into something else.
And maybe as I'm trying to incorporate more berries into my meals, I'm saying to myself, you know what, maybe I should incorporate more water. And then I'm saying, you know what, maybe I can incorporate more of this, right? So always start with one thing and see where that one thing can take you. It doesn't have to be all at once.
And again, just 10 basic brain foods that can help you in your overall mind diet journey.