Eat smart

If it is possible to boost your mental performance through diet, it must definitely be worth a try.

It should not come as a surprise that what you eat has an effect on how well you think. If it is possible to boost your mind's performance through diet, it must definitely be worth a try. So, what is the supreme food for thought?

Six ways to improve your brain power through diet

It should not come as a surprise that what you have for breakfast, lunch or dinner has an effect on how well you think. After all, your brain is very particular about food requirements. If it is possible to boost your mind performance through diet, it must definitely be worth a try. So, what is the smart food plan?

Any eating plan aiming to high mental performance should include the following:

Steady Supply of Glucose and this means first, do not skip breakfast; second, eat at regular intervals, and grab a snack when needed to keep glucose levels steady. People who skip breakfast perform worse at workl or school. and, while any kind of breakfast is better than no breakfast, fizzy drinks and sugary snacks will not pave the way to peak mental state.

High fiber as beans, pulses, wholegrain cereals, vegetables and fruit. High fiber diets have been linked to better learning and reasoning.

B Vitamins, whose brain boosting powers have been demonstrated –meat, eggs, dairy, yeast extracts and vegetables.

Antioxidants, including beta carotene, vitamins C and E, for protection against free radicals; found in vegetables and fruits. Antioxidants not only protect your cognitive skills but also may reduce the risk of heart disease and protect against certain forms of cancer. Another good reason to increase your vegetable intake.

Nutrients Required to Produce Neurotransmitters, for instance, eggs are rich in choline, a nutrient that helps to stave off memory loss due to ageing. Yogurt and turkey are rich in tyrosine, precursors of other important neurotransmitters. Tyrosine becomes depleted when we are under stress. We do not need to learn the whole list if we ensure our diet is varied enough. A varied diet guarantees an adequate supply of micro-nutrients without having to perform complicate calculations. When a food group is excluded, either for health reasons or preference, it is necessary to check if we need to supplement of certain nutrients.

The Right Fat, because our brain is mostly fat and the latest evidence suggests that trans-fatty acids congest the system while omega-3 fatty acids keep it working. And where can you find omega-3 fatty acids? The best source is oily fish, packed not only with omega-3 but also many other brain friendly minerals and nutrients, not present in other vegetable sources of this fatty acids, like flax. Fish is indeed brain food.

How do we put all these together? It might seem an impossible task; relax it can be achieved. Feel free to modify these suggestions to suit your taste and seasonal food availability.

	Menu 1	Menu 2
Breakfast	Baked beans on wholegrain toast.	Yogurt with blueberries. Oats.
Light Meal	Curried egg salad with plenty of lettuce, shredded carrots, tomatoes, scallions, a few scattered nuts and an olive oil dressing. Yogurt.	Three bean salad with tuna, tomatoes and onions. Orange juice.
Snack	Dark chocolate	Nut butter on wholegrain bread
Main Meal	Wild salmon steak with asparagus and brown rice. Finish with strawberries.	Curried turkey, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. Traditional banana and egg custard as dessert

One point to remember is that one can have too much of a good thing. For instance, eating mango for breakfast, carrots for lunch and sweet potatoes for dinner daily, beta carotene levels will be very high, in fact, too high; and keeping this sort of diet for long will produce an unhealthy yellowish skin color. There is not need either to eat fish or eggs every single day, as there are other foods with equally high nutrition value.

Design your own menus aiming for variety, balance, and portion size control.