"BRAIN FOODS"
I’m a big advocate for “feel-good” food, so much so that it’s the title of my latest cookbook! For me, this is food that not only tastes delicious, it’s food that nourishes our bodies, food that’s grown with the seasons and with respect for the people who grow it. It’s food to be enjoyed and shared, and it’s food that is used to its full wholesome, nourishing potential with nothing wasted.
Big caveat alert - I’m not a nutritionist or brain expert! But I’ve done lots of reading around food and mental health and one of my biggest takeaways from this reading is the acronym BRAIN FOODS which was coined by Dr Uma Naidoo, a nutritional psychiatrist, brain expert and faculty member at Harvard Medical School. As many of us now know, the relationship between our gut and our brain is fascinating, not to mention complex. Food is just one of the many factors that contributes to a healthy gut and a healthy brain; others include stress, sleep and exercise. Experts refer to the gut-brain axis, which I think of as a super highway of information going from the gut to the brain and vice versa.
When I first read about the acronym below I immediately saved it in the notes section of my phone to refer to when out and about shopping. I know it off by heart now and shopping with BRAIN FOODS in mind has become second nature. So without further ado, here is the acronym and recipes linked in purple…
