Like the rest of the human body, our brain depends on good nutrition. In fact, it’s where everything starts and from where everything flows. Lack of certain vitamins can lead to drops of mood, cognitive ability and physical functionality. For these reasons, when getting a psychiatric evaluation it makes sense to call a nutrition intervention to make sure slumps in vitamin and nutrition levels aren’t the cause of common mental diagnoses such as depression and anxiety.
Drew Ramsey, MD and author of Eat Complete and co-author of 50 Shades of Kale, wants to make sure people know about the links between wellbeing and nutrition. A well-balanced diet is firmly linked to a person’s wellbeing. Without enough iron, as he points out, a person will feel sluggish, cloudy, and at the bottom of their game.
Most of us don’t consider every vitamin when we think up our meals. We may know that fish is a good source of protein, but we’ll stick to what we know, choosing to get our protein from steak or poultry of tofu. What a person might overlook is that fish such as salmon and tuna, and especially the smaller, oilier, and more sustainable fish like sardines and anchovies, are not just good sources of protein, but also a major haul of omega-3 fatty acids that are a critical brain booster. Omega-3 are long-chained acids, and a type called DHA is actually what brain cells are made of. So raise a sardine on toast in the air and say cheers to a more robust brain.
In Drew Ramsey’s clinical practice, checking to make sure people are getting all the vitamins and nutrients they need doesn’t necessarily require expensive and expansive testing – sometimes it just requires a few questions, such as do you eat fish, mussels, clams? How about cashews?
That’s what Ramsey considered while he was writing his book Eat Complete, and designing the assessment practice in it. Ramsay is on a mission to translate nutrients that are hard to quantify into more practical food categories, to help people know what they’re missing and how they can fill in their nutritional gaps. Eat Complete looks at phytonutrients, and how to recognize them. As Ramsey describes, phytonutrients are often leafy greens and colorful fruits and vegetables with nutritional benefits beyond their widely known antioxidants. Ramsey reminds us what we should instinctively know: when looking down at a plate, if you see a wide variety of colors (natural ones, not M&Ms), you’re doing it right. From red tomatoes to green kale and orange carrots to purple cabbage, each color literally represents a nutrient content that is shared in other vegetables of its color. So mix it up to reach far and wide across the nutrient spectrum.
Armed with more workable knowledge of which foods will do what, your wellbeing could improve across all facets. You’ll feel more energetic, have more cognitive clarity, your blood quality will be smoother (yes smoother, it prevents vascular disease and helps oxygen get delivered efficiently around the body), and your gut health, which is being increasingly linked to mental health, will also rocket upwards. Interestingly, self-congratulatory pats on the back have also been known to increase.
Drew Ramsey’s book is Eat Complete.
