Nutrition: Food and your mood

0:00For now, they're very excited to have our weekly chat with nutritionist Kimmeri. We're talking about food and your mood and your brain and your health, your mental health. Kimmeri, good morning to you. Good morning. Okay, this is an interesting one, right? Because everyone always says you are what you eat and you think about the physical bits of it. But thinking about the mood, right? Is there such a thing as a food that can pick you up or sort of our like foods that will bring you down? I guess the first question is, how does the food we eat actually support brain health in general before we get to the bits and bobs of mental health? Well, I guess you want to maybe think of your brain like a house. The food provides the building blocks and the tools that are needed to build and maintain your brain. So if you're missing important nutrients, brain function could be effective. So giving your brain a variety of nutritious foods, like making sure it's like making sure your construction site has all the right materials and tools to keep everything working properly. I love that. Okay, great. But we, I'm sure a lot of people have noticed that sometimes what you're eating affects how you feel.

1:05You know, I'm thinking about, I always used to laugh about this when we were younger. One of my, like there were there's two different types of girlfriends that I had. One after a breakup was not eat a single thing and then the other one would overdose on ice cream. Right? So there is, there seems to be a connection with food and mood. Has that been looked at or is that just something we're saying we're feeling? Oh, no, no, no, that's been looked at. There's even a whole new field coming up in nutrition, which is called nutritional psychiatry. So nutrition, like, psychiatry. Yeah, it's really being looked at more and more. And we've got some interesting research, especially concerning ultra-process foods. So they are linked to poor mental health outcomes. There's even one great Canadian study that looked at high school students and followed them over time. And the researchers found that the more they ate fruits and vegetables, they had better psychological will-being while the greater consumption of sugar, sweetened beverages was associated with more depression and anxiety symptoms.

2:07Oh, and they're already so vulnerable, right? Teenagers to that, to depression because, you know, that's that the brain is still growing. Okay, so they looked at it that for teens. What do we know about adults now? Well, we have the same kind of information applying to adults. There's an Australian study that looked at people who experienced depressive episodes and whose diets were considered poor in quality. And then they had those participants working with dietitians for 12 weeks. And the goal was to improve the quality of their diet. So, you know, they were eating more whole grain and vegetables and fruits and more lentils and chickpeas and that kind of thing. And then some fish and lean meats and, you know, just more healthy ordinary food like we would and always tell people to eat. And they cut back on things like sweets and fast food and fried foods and processed meats. And after 12 weeks, the researchers found that the participants reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Really? So it's all, you know, it's all that

3:08junk that we're putting in the foods as well, right? That it's so, I guess we're not, we weren't, our bodies weren't made for that. Our minds weren't made for that. So, I guess the big question then, Kim is what food should we be eating to support our brain, to support our mood? Do we have a list of things that we know about for sure? You mean, you just mentioned like a bunch of healthy things. But specifically, what are you looking for? So, one of the things we're looking for is we need to have omega-3 in our diet because omega-3 fats, you know, 60% of our brain is made up of fat. And over half of that fat is from omega-3 fatty acids. And omega-3s are considered essential, which means your brain doesn't make them or your body doesn't make them. So, you have to get them from food. So your brain is going to use omega-3 to build brain cells and nerve cells. So you have to, well, you have to. You want to find them from fatty fish. And that's our acronym SMASH, right? Yes. I'm in macro-hearing sardines, anchovies, trout, pepper. Yes.

4:09Or I know I got them in the wrong order. It's early in the morning. Samen trout, macro-hearing, and sardines. Yes, yes. Yeah. And other sources are vegetable sources like that, since soy and edamame and pumpkin seeds, flax seeds. But it's also important to include protein at each meal because protein is another building block. Protein provides amino acids, which your body is going to use to make neurotransmitters. So, those are the chemical messengers that help your brain self-communicate. So now you're looking at having meat or fish or dairy products, plant-based sources like lentils, chickpeas, eggs, even. Eggs also contain colin, which is another nutrient that plays an important part in brain function. Colin, you said colin, okay? Yeah. And B vitamins, you're saying right? Vitamin, super important for brain function. They help your brain to produce neurotransmitters in energies. And of course, we need to have all the different minerals and plant compounds, because those minerals and vitamins can be used to push those chemical reactions along

5:14that make the neurotransmitters. Yeah, I guess it's all like a little dance, everyone working together. I can't let you go, Kim, without asking you about the... So that's the what, right? We talked about B vitamins, protein, omega-3, which I'm realizing now I'm not eating enough of. But you also say how and where we eat, explain that. Yeah, well, it's not just about the nutrients on your place, right? The environment you eating matters too. So we've got, again, another beautiful study from Canada where children and teenagers, especially, they were getting a better emotional well-being and life satisfaction when they ate their meals with their family. And they had family dinners. Yeah. So important. I think... That's different, important. Yeah, so many people. I know in our house that's one of the biggest priorities we have. We love to sit together and eat and talk and catch up. And also, it slows down how you're eating, too. Like, you know, you're not shoving all the food down her throat. This is so interesting, Kim. I think, you know what, as you were talking about sugar and how bad it is, I think we should really do a whole segment on sugar soon because that is key, especially with

6:20younger people. Kim, Mary nutrition is where you can give her a follow. She's got all the sorts of great content online. Kim, it's always so interesting to chat. We'll have a great weekend. And we will chat again next Saturday. All right, have a great week. And more, all your decade defining favorites all in one place. Hi, it's Katie Kate. Hey, it's Bruno Mars. This is Keshat. I'm 2010's the decade on the Free I Heart Radio app. Preceptization. So it's always one tab away.