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By Dr. Art Hister
March is Nutrition Month, so there’s no better time to get started on healthier eating for a healthier brain!
Healthy food choices not only improve your general health, they are also beneficial to brain health. Good studies have indicated that long-term healthy dietary choices can help maintain brain function, slow memory decline and may even help reduce your risk for dementia.
The Alzheimer Society of B.C. has a Healthy Brain program to guide you in making a plan for better brain health including the setting of nutrition goals. The program can help you make healthier food choices that can lead to better brain health, and it should start with putting a rainbow of colours on your plate.
So, here are some foods that you may want to add to your next shopping list:
Fruit, nuts, and vegetables. An important antioxidant, quercetin, is essential for maintaining a good memory and it’s found in the skin of apples and berries, especially blueberries and cranberries. For best results, you should eat two or three helpings of these fruits each day, or drink two eight-ounce glasses of apple juice every day.
Green leafy vegetables, bananas, and oranges are rich in the essential B vitamin, folic acid, which has been found to help maintain cognitive functions.
Foods rich in Omega 3 fats such as soy products, coldwater fish, flax seed oil, and walnuts are not only good for overall health, especially perhaps for heart health, but they also support good mental fitness. After all, what’s good for the heart is probably just as good for the brain!
Proteins found in meat, fish and soy products are rich in B vitamins, such as vitamins B6 and B12, which are essential in keeping our hearts, circulation systems, and brains healthy.
