Foods To Boost Your Memory
from health and fitness
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Of course, in our rush-a-minute world we live in, it's common to sometimes overlook something and blame it on being forgetful. Researchers are discovering that as part of the ageing process, humans do lose a little bit of brain sharpness due to many theories that are still very much hard to pin point to one causative effect.
One area that nutrition researchers are looking at is the diet and whether there are foods that can help slow down the memory depleting effects of ageing of the brain.
Studies do show that when certain nutrients are low in our diet, it does tend to have a negative effect on our memory and brain power skills. Knowing this, it pays to practice prevention as ageing is a natural, progressive path all of us have to go through eventually.
Let's take a closer look at what foods you can include into your daily diet to at least give your brain a "head start" in the fight against memory loss.
Viva la Vegetables
Harvard Medical School did a study based on 13,000 female research subjects spanning 25 years, and they found that those who ate a vegetable-rich diet had less memory loss due to age-related reasons.
The scientists claim that cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens have big effects on brain power. Make sure you include cruciferous and leafy green vegetables are lunch and dinner daily. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, pak choy and brussel sprouts are nutrient power packed cruciferous vegetables that are widely available in our local market. Or you can start hunting for great leafy greens such as sawi, bayam, collard greens, mustard greens, kai Ian and Swiss chard.
Other studies have also found a positive corelation with the phytochemical anthocyanin and quercetin found in fruit and vegetables that actually reversed some memory deficits in laboratory test animals.
Foods high in anthocyanin are fruit and vegetables that are purple or red in colour, such as berries, cherries, blackcurrants, brinjal, red/purple/black grapes, plums, red onions, red apples, purple cabbage and red beets. As for foods high in quercetin, select cherry tomato, brocolli, blackcurrants, kale, leeks and the choices that are high in anthocyanin mentioned above.
Tips:
Latest nutritional recommendation is to consume at least 7 to 9 servings of vegetables and fruit a day. Before you freak out and feel that is way too much to handle, aim to meet this rule of thumb — 7 to 9 servings a day translates to 1 1/2 cups of vegetables for lunch and 1 1/2 cups of vegetables for dinner and 2 servings of fruits somewhere within your whole day. Include vegetables as ingrdients in your cooking to make them more appealling.
- Make light fried noodles or rice with an assortment of vegetables
- Vegetarian popiah is an excellent light meal
- When having economy rice, load up on the vege choices
- If you aren't a fan of vegetables, consider juicing your vegetables or blending them to disguise them in sauces. As an example, you can blend vegetables into your pasta sauce, or blend them to add to your savoury soup dishes. If you're curious to try, look out for recipes or cookbooks for help.
- Have 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices as well to rehydrate and to have an extra nutrient boost. There are many brands in the market that have a blend of fruit and vege juices. Just make sure you select the ones that are 100 percent juice with no added sugar.
Don't be a moron, make sure you get enough boron
Researchers have found that a trace mineral boron affects the electrical activity of the human brain. A diet that is low in boron tends to subdue your mental alertness according to research psychologist James Penland from the US Department of Agriculture's grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Centre.
Tips:
There's no need for you to run off to the pharmacy to buy mega supplements of boron. It is afterall, a trace mineral, so you only need a little of it to meet your requirements. Boron is naturally found in a lot of your common produce — namely nuts, legumes, leafy vegetables, apples, pears, peaches and grapes. You can easily get enough boron by having 2 servings of fruit a day and about 60 grams (about a handful) of nuts a day.
Nutrients from the Sea: Zinc
Some preliminary studies also show that a lack of zinc have an effect on your memory power. Researchers from the University of Texas Medical branch in Galveston did some studies on human subjects and found that women's ability to recall words and visual designs went up by 12 and 17 percent respectively with an appropriate intake of zinc.
In another study, male subjects were put on a low zinc diet and their results in memory test showed that they had a tendency of making more errors when performing memory tests. It's apparent that the area of memory most effected by low zinc levels is short term memory and attention.
Tips:
Foods that are great sources of zinc are seafood, fish, legumes (such as beans and dhal), whole grain cereals and turkey meat. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for zinc is 15 mg per day. Eating about 30 grams of oysters alone will give you about 20 mg of zinc, enough to get your full days' requirement. Aim to include fish and seafood about 3 to 4 times per week. A sensible serving of seafood is 100 grams cooked edible portion. This translates to a piece of fish fillet that is about the size of your computer mouse or 6 to 8 large prawns (shelled).
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