"Eat Your Veggies"
is at the Heart of Memory Preservation Nutrition®
Continuing our series on Consumer Guidelines for a Brain Healthy Nutrition, this month's feature is VEGETABLES. Study after study, using different populations around the world, has concluded that people who eat more vegetables than others in the study, have lower risk of cognitive decline and brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (lead scientists include Amy Graves, Martha Morris, and James Joseph).
A variety of green leafy and brightly colored vegetables, as well as dried beans and peas and low sodium vegetable juice, are essential to brain and body health. Vegetables, beans and peas are major elements of the Mediterranean Diet and the DASH diet. People scoring high on each of these diets have been shown to have lower risk of cognitive decline (see publications by Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD at Columbia School of Medicine, and Heidi J. Wengreen with the Cache County (Utah) Study on Memory, Health and Aging).
Among vegetables, the stars appear to be leafy green vegetables which contain high levels of antioxidants including vitamins A and E, as well as traces of omega 3's, and other brain healthy nutrients. Leafy green vegetables include spinach, broccoli, delicious Swiss chard, kale, collard greens, all the bok choys and their relatives, pea stems/leaves (all the rage in Chinese restaurants) and all the lettuces except iceberg, and many many more. Explore to give your taste buds a treat!
Romaine lettuce, among other leafy vegetables, also contains high levels of S-adenosylmethionine, more well known as SAM or SAMe, which Professor Thomas Shea of the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, discovered to be important to brain health and related metabolic processes in the brain. Our bodies like all living cells make some SAM but usually not enough to meet our needs, and so it is essential to ingest more of it in the food we eat. There are also supplements available, such as Dr. Shea's/U Mass Lowell's patented product licensed and marketed as "Great Mind®" by Nature Made. Which contains SAM, folic acid, B-12, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), and Acetyl L Carnatine.
Aim high, as vegetables are key to brain and body health. 7-10 portions a day of a variety of vegetables is ideal. You can obtain at least one portion's worth by drinking a glass of low sodium vegetable juice a day. Best are the 100% vegetable juices such as low-sodium V-8. Those mixed with fruit juices may taste better to you but you are then drinking less vegetable juice and more fruit juice laden with fructose (a form of sugar).
Most Americans do not eat many or hardly any vegetables. And French fries and ketchup do not really count, though they are better for you than a donut or pastry.
Another solution for people who can't or don't eat enough vegetables and fruits is a supplement with impressive research credentials comprised of dehydrated vegetable/fruit juice in a capsule or delicious chewable form (the tastiest "gummy" you ever experienced) ...salt, sugar is removed so safe for diabetics, and essential nutrients of 17 different fruits and vegetables are included so it is classified as a whole food by the FDA (no sales tax in MA!). Special orders for just the vegetable form is possible. Contact me for more information or check out my website: Nancy's Juice Plus Website
Also check out delicious veggie recipes on my other website: www.healthcareinsights.net
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