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    The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection
    The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection
    The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection
    Ebook185 pages2 hours

    The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection

    By Susan Augustine

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    About this ebook

    The brain gets fed first! That is the important idea for the book, The Hungry Brain’s Nutrition
    Cognition Connection that relates to: mood, mind, memory and behavior. After several
    years of teaching children with attention deficit disorder (ADD and ADHD), learning
    disabilities, and severe behavior problems Dr. Augustine d

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLitFire Publishing
    Release dateOct 18, 2019
    ISBN9781643986036
    The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection
    Author

    Susan Augustine

    "Dr. Susan Augustine has been in the field of education her entire adult life, teaching across the spectrum of pre-kindergarten through graduate students. Establishing her career as a special education teacher she soon realized how nutrition and biochemistry are involved in processes of mood, mind, memory and behavior. Working with children and adults with depression, learning disorders, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, and other health impairments she turned her attention to the brain and specifically what we feed our brains. Dr. Augustine conveys a nutrition and health perspective into all of her work in life and has done so in the United States and in Singapore. The author of: Attention Deficit Disorders; What We Know, What it Means, and What We Can Do, The Hungry Brain's Nutrition/Cognition Connection; Tools for the Cooperative Classroom, and Thinking About Nutrition the New Nutrition Education. Dr. Augustine's classes have assisted people in moving toward a more healthful way of thinking and living. Bringing the viewpoint of mental and physical health, Susan is also a nutrition counselor, public speaker, trainer of teachers, and has appeared as the nutrition expert on television programs in Chicago: Health Town and cable televisions, Food for Life."

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      Book preview

      The Hungry Brain's Nutrition Cognition Connection - Susan Augustine

      cov.jpg

      The Hungry Brain’s Nutrition Cognition Connection

      Copyright © 2019 by Susan Augustine

      ISBN: 978-1-64398-604-3

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

      Printed in the United States of America

      LitFire LLC

      1-800-511-9787

      www.litfirepublishing.com

      order@litfirepublishing.com

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 Where’s the Food?

      Chapter 2 Malnutrition of the Brain

      Chapter 3 Not All Fats Are Bad

      Chapter 4 Sugar

      Chapter 5 Not All Foods Are Good: Food Allergies

      Chapter 6 Exercise and the Brain

      Appendices

      Snacks For Kids

      Glossary of Terms

      APPENDIX A

      BREAKFAST

      APPENDIX B

      BIOCHEMICAL INDIVIDUALITY

      References

      Preface

      Imagine an average child, someone who seems perfectly normal. A child who blends in so well that others believe she is a happy, healthy little girl. Yet, this child feels uncontrollable, uncomfortable depression, a feeling so mystifying, so perplexing, the human intellect seems unable to comprehend or even respond.

      I was that child and that was the first half of my life, consumed with feelings of pain. I believed dying was better than living. In fact, I hoped I would die. I even tried to die. I thought other kids seemed happy and able to handle life, but I felt I could not. Even psychiatric help and a program of various drug therapies did not help. Finally, I tried to end the pain with a suicide attempt.

      My depression lasted 22 years. Then, I met a physician who diagnosed my condition as a biochemical depression. He began to balance my brain chemistry with nutrients. I stopped eating sugary foods, which exacerbated my already delicate chemistry. I took vitamins and minerals and focused on a low sugar diet. Within two weeks I felt different. In fact, I remember the moment I no longer felt depressed. It was a Friday. I felt the normal exhaustion of a working week completed, but for the first time I did not feel melancholy in any way. No sadness! I thought to myself, I think I feel happy. I think this is what happy feels like. It was the first time I did not experience the darkness of not wanting to be alive. Its absence was so noticeable, it was as though a throbbing music had finally stopped. I was 22 years old at the time. Now, well, let’s just say I am no longer in my 20s. But I am happy and well.

      Because of my experience, I have been studying nutrition and its effects on mood, mind, memory, and behavior for more than 20 years. This is why I wrote this book.

      Introduction

      Presented in this book for educators is a new concept that breaks from the traditions in which teachers think about the brain and how children learn. It’s food first this time. It is time to feed the brain, literally! The importance of good nutrition to good health cannot be denied. Yet, we have simply ignored this fact in schools. The brain, even more so than other organs in the body, does not eat with impunity.

      The word diet comes from the Greek word, diatia, which means, a way of life. This applies to all of life’s eating, including brain food or brain nutrition. Unfortunately eating for brain gain is not very well modeled in our schools!

      Since the brain is the busiest organ in the body, working even as we sleep, it requires a vast amount of nutrients flowing through it moment by moment to function optimally. This means that nutrients in the form of amino acids from proteins, vitamins and minerals from plant foods, specific fats from foods, and glucose in the form of blood sugar are needed by this busy brain. Furthermore, there is no room in the brain to store food up for a rainy day. Learners must eat nutritious foods daily for peak brain performance. When the brain fuel supply plummets it’s difficult for people to concentrate and to remember.

      Three Food Groups

      In order to simplify the teaching of nutrition, this author has comprised three food groups. Do not be fooled by the truncated version of the famous Food Pyramid. In this author’s experience of teaching nutrition to teachers and children, it was noted that kids, and even adults, often cannot make sense of the Food Pyramid. Nor did they care to.

      The three food groups are comprehensive and easy enough for children to remember. Truly, all foods do fall into only three classifications: animal foods, plant foods and junk foods, the last category having little or no food value.

      The brain prefers good clean unadulterated foods from the plant and animal groups. If it grows in the ground, or we pick it off of a vine or tree, it’s a plant. If it is walking around on four legs or two legs (fowl), or if it swims in the ocean or lake, it is considered an animal or animal food.

      If it is manufactured in a factory from scraps of food or food artifacts with much added sugar, salt, fat and fake flavors and colors, it’s a junk food and should be avoided as much as humanly possible. Candies, cookies, cakes, fake salty snacks, such as Cheetos, are all considered junk food. Many breakfast cereals contain fake bits of so called food (such as marshmallows) and lots of added sugar. They are most definitely junk foods. These foods can wreak havoc on the brain by robbing it of nutrition in two ways: (1) too much sugar robs the brain and body of chromium, a mineral important for brain functioning; and (2) by crowding out room for the more nutritious foods the brain really needs. When a child is consuming too much junk food there is no room in the stomach for healthier, real food that has nutritional value. Our western world has become so impervious to the glut of junk food that exists that we no longer think it strange or unusual to consume a liter of soda per day instead of water. Moreover, a lunch of cream cheese (fake food) on a bagel, a meal so stripped of nutrients that laboratory rats have literally perished on it is seen as the norm.

      THREE FOOD GROUPS

      Plant Foods

      Nuts (raw and unsalted)

      Berries

      Rice

      Oats

      Wild rice

      Beans

      Sprouts

      Buckwheat

      Vegetables

      Seeds

      Leaves (lettuce)

      Whole wheat

      Millet

      Legumes

      Peas

      Potatoes

      Sea vegetables

      Animal Foods

      Eggs

      Chicken

      Beef

      Lamb

      Buffalo

      Cheese

      Fish

      Turkey

      Pork

      Venison

      Milk

      Sour cream

      Junk Foods

      Candies

      Pies

      Cakes

      Coffee cake

      Corn chips (most, not all)

      Soft drinks

      Cookies

      Ice-cream

      Doughnuts

      Potato chips

      Gum

      Brain Food

      Which foods does the brain require to function optimally? The answer to that question is enclosed in the food groups one and two: plant and animal foods, with plant foods being first. Plant foods contain all the important nutrients for survival, repair, and re-growth. People who choose to consume only plant foods must know how to eat enough of a variety of plant foods to receive enough protein. Proteins are very important for the hungry brain.

      Protein and the Brain

      The word protein is derived from the Greek word prote~in, which means, of first importance. Proteins contain 20 or more amino acids, of which eight are considered essential, meaning that they must be eaten daily. Two are semi-essential for adults but essential for children. Amino acids are the basic units of growth, and are also essential for brain function. Amino acids build proteins.

      Without amino acids from proteins, our brain cannot produce and feel optimistic, calm, enthusiastic, or comforted. The neurotransmitters, which are chemical brain messengers, send out all these positive feelings. We now know that these good feelings affect learning. However, the manufacturing of these very important brain chemicals can be made only by consuming proteins that contain amino acids (more on neurotransmitters later). The more protein the better for the brain, especially in the morning! Most people seem to need about 20 to 30 grams of protein three times per day.

      When we eat proteins, more norepinephrine and dopamine are available than serotonin. That is because tyrosine and phenylalanine, which yield dopamine and norepinephrine, are more plentiful in protein foods than tryptophan. Norepinephrine and dopamine are the alertness neurotransmitters. Serotonin is the mellow, or feel good, neurotransmitter. Norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin are all neurotransmitters; tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine are amino acids.

      Tyrosine, tryptophan, and phenylalanine all compete for delivery to the brain, and tryptophan, being less concentrated, loses out. Even when foods high in the amino acid tryptohpan are eaten, tyrosine and phenylalanine will win for entrance into the brain. (Turkey and dairy products are examples of foods that are high in tryptophan.) Tryptophan will be picked up more readily by the brain when carbohydrate foods are eaten along with the protein.

      Amino acids from proteins also function in other ways that are just as important to brain function as neurotransmitters. They make up the enzymes that regulate neurotransmitters. Enzymes assist in neuronal-receiving, processing, interpreting, and putting out vital information. It might be helpful to think of proteins (containing amino acids) as food for thinking and carbohydrates as food for drowsiness. You will read more about proteins in chapters 1 and 2.

      Vitamins and the Brain

      Vita comes from the Old French word, vital, which means life. Indeed, vitamins promote life in the brain. The vitamins are the co-enzymes, meaning they are essential for the manufacturing of all of the neurotransmitters that are mentioned above. Most of today’s processed food is depleted of these essential vitamins. Fruits, vegetables,

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