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Eat Your Veggies!
By
Nancy Emerson
Lombardo |
 Continuing
our series on Consumer Guidelines for a Brain Healthy
Nutrition, this month’s feature is on vegetables. Study
after study, using different populations around the world,
has concluded that people who eat more vegetables than the
average person in the study, have lower risk of brain
diseases, cognitive decline and brain diseases such as
Alzheimer’s disease.
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.
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. These 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 key to brain
health and key related metabolic processes in the brain. Our
bodies like all living cells make some SAM but often not
enough to meet our needs, and so it is essential to ingest
more of it in the food we eat (or supplements such as Dr.
Shea’s/U Mass Lowell’s patented product” licensed and
marketed as “Great Mind®” by Nature Made).
Aim high, as vegetables are key to brain and body health.
Seven to ten portions a day 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 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 it is safe for diabetics, and contains essential
nutrients of 17 different fruits and vegetables, so it is
classified as a whole food by the FDA (no sales tax in MA!).
Special orders for just the vegetable form are possible.
Contact me for more information or check out my website:
http:// www.juiceplus.com/+ne31058. Also check out delicious
veggie recipes on my other website:
www.healthcareinsights.net
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About The Author
Nancy Emerson Lombardo, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized
researcher and lecturer on brain healthy lifestyles. She is
President of HealthCare Insights, LLC and developer of the
Memory Preservation Nutrition® program of brain healthy
foods, the Brain Health and Wellness Center® as well as
Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Boston University School
of Medicine. She is available for consultation to
individuals and companies, including group meal services.
She can be reached by email at nemerson@healthcareinsights.net,
or by telephone at (978) 621-1926.
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