foreign 's address a family holiday as a child the name of that lady you see at work every day memory is our ability to recall information from the recent or distant past but can what we eat affect how well it works [Music] we have three types of memory short term working memory and long term our short-term memory can only hold information for you guessed it a short time you'd use it to dial a phone number that someone has just told you without writing it down we use our working memory for thinking in action tasks like having a conversation it helps us to remember what the person has just said understand its meaning connect it to the earlier conversation and then share our own thoughts our long-term memory helps us to recall information from days or years in the past memories here have been shifted from our short-term memory in a process called consolidation and what we eat it turns out can have an impact on how well our memory works in a study of elderly adults with memory problems 500 milliliters of purple grape juice per day for 12 weeks allowed them to learn more words compared to a placebo group in studies with children eating 240 grams of fresh blueberries allowed them to remember more words and to recall them more accurately two hours later so are purple grapes and blueberries special well sort of both are rich sources of anthocyanins a type of plant chemical called polyphenols that gives them their deep color these polyphenol compounds are also found in other berries when metabolized in the body they improve the flexibility of blood vessels and the flow of blood to our brains this in turn provides more energy nutrients and oxygen improving our cognitive performance and it's not just berries long-term consumption of green tea has also been linked to enhanced short-term memory working memory attention and reduced risk of cognitive decline and it's good news for chocolate lovers too because Coco improves brain blood flow although it must be dark chocolate containing over 70 cocoa solids for you to reap the benefits the general rule is that the healthier the diet one that is rich in fruits vegetables whole grains beans and oily fish the larger the brain's Memory Center and the better the memory performance so berries and green tea are good for our memories are there any foods that aren't Decades of animal studies and an increasing number of human trials show that a diet that is high in refined Foods has a detrimental effect on learning and memory in one study 110 healthy people who typically ate a nutritious diet were asked to eat a diet high in refined foods for just one week to give you the details on the menu was two Belgian waffles for breakfast on four of the days and two takeaway meals at any point during that week within days the highly refined diet led to impaired learning memory and poorer appetite control a diet high in refined foods and sugars and low in fruits vegetables and fiber is also associated with an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's the research tells us that taking small steps to move our diets in a more nutritious Direction an extra piece of fruit with breakfast an extra serving of veg with dinner can help to improve our memories today and help to protect them for the future