Here are some of the highlights and main takeaways I got from the book. I share these in hope that they may help you too!
What can food do?
* Moderate our responses to stress, anger, anxiety, sadness, and so on.
* Reduce and induce inflammation in the body and brain
* Long-term eating patterns can set us up for long-term well-being
A Healthy relationship with food
* Includes pleasure, and how and what we eat.
* Is sustainable long-term.
* Is not just about how many calories and nutrients a person eats in a day.
* Includes a regular eating pattern.
* Knows that everyone are different, and that if several people eat and exercised the exact same every day, they would still not look the same.
* It's a journey.
Food ↭ Emotions
* Emotions impacts what and how we eat, and what and how we eat impacts our emotions. When we feel down or distressed we are more likely to make food choices that are bad for our mood, and further enhance the circle. However, the idea of neuroplasticity includes that our eating habits\patterns can change and start working more in our favore if we change to foods that better support us and our moods. Which comes first (food or emotions) is hard to say, but they impact each other both ways.
* Mood impacts how we experience food and factors like the intensity of taste and flavor, and more. The same goes for the color of the food, how it is served and the texture of the food. Food may taste sweeter if you're happy, while they may taste more bitter if your favorite sports team just lost their game. Depression may cause a preferance for sugar and enhance sweet and bitter flavors. Anxiety is directly related to our perception of taste (based on altered serotonin and noradrenaline levels in our body).
* How the food is presented impacts our experience of sweetness. Coffee tastes better in a white cup than a blue. Desserts taste sweeter on a round plate than a square plate, on a white plate than a black plate. We expect food and drinks with stronger colors to taste more intensely.
* How we eat matters. Eating with people and using mealtime as a mean of strenghtening community helps. Verbalizing how we feels makes the emotions less intense, as well as strenghten our sense of belonging. Eating alone and being lonely negatively affects our health. The risk for heart disease increases.
* Planning, buying groceries and cooking for ourselves and other people are all healthy habits. They may create good feelings as we associate each action with people we like, taking care of loved ones, being selective about which produce we get, making us feel like we're picking especially good ingredients.
* Your body may need more of certain nutrients when it is experiencing certain emotional states. For example, if you're often stressed you may eat more magnesium-rich foods, or if you're sad, zinc.
* Hanger is your body telling you you're hungry, but also activating this as a negative feeling. Chronic stress can change the hangry neurons and result in inflammation. When you're hungry, eat properly. The agRP activity in your gut will not be properly reduced or turned off until next time if you only drink a diet coke to 'curbe your hunger.'
* Trauma can change your gut microbiome. Yet, there is not one "perfect" gut microbiome nor a perfect way to eat. We are all unique and need to make changes after our needs. Our gut microbiome changes every single day around what we eat, medication, exercise, age, if we have pets, if you gardened, who you're around, your sex, emotions and genes. As well will the microbiome of someone with anxiety look different from someone without it.
* Often we may anticipate a food more than the pleasure we get when we eat it. This may be especially true for fat and sugar-rich foods, f.ex. sweets, ultraprocessed foods, and fast foods which our brains crave as easy energy. However, the same foods may increase inflammation in our body and starve the bacterias in our gut for nutrients to keep us healthy. The more frequent we eat these foods, the more we will take notice of access to these foods around us, yet recieving less pleasure from actually eating them.
Food, mood, and inflammation - the gut
Helpful nutritional and food facts from the book
* A person needs 14grams per 1,000 kcals to properly feed the fiber-loving bacteria in our stomach. If the bacteria does not get the fiber it needs, it may begin eating on our stomach lining, which can cause issues over time. The book recommends that women get 25grams and men 38 grams a day.
* 5 fruits and vegetables a day (2 fruits, 3 vegetables?).
* Eat probiotics and prebiotics every day. Prebiotics feeds the good bacteria in our gut, probiotics can reduce inflammation.
* Eating foods\drinks with active strains of Bifidobacterium longum reduces stress in participants while doing traditionally stressfull tasks. Fx. yoghurt, fermented foods (not pickled, fermented without vinegar. You want the lactic acid bacteria alive), kombucha, fermented cottage cheese, kefir, miso paste.
* Prebiotics are high in onion and garlic, oats, apples, banana, black beans, kidney beans, avocado, broccoli.
* Omega-3-Fatty Acids (esp. DHA, EPA) is one of the best researched nutrient in support of mental health. It promotes sleep, decreases anxiety, allivates depression and is an "essential fat" in our diet. It can be retrived from fatty fish, seaweed and algae, or be added to other products like milk. Omega-3 ALA can be found in walnuts, flaxseeds and leafy greens, and can be transformed in the body to DHA\EPA. However, ineffectively. Most people do not eat enough omega-3.
* Omega-6 is to find in soybeans and corn, thus making it a nutrient we tend to have too much off due to them being common in ultraprocessed foods.
* Eating fermented foods and a higher intake of magnesium regularly may reduce social anxiety.
* Serotonin in the gut is created by getting enough of the amino acid, tryptophan (oats, nuts, cheese, turkey), and vitamin B6. However, tryptophan may also lead to inflammation if we do not have enough of the good gut bacteria and our body cannot process it well.
* If you're nervous\afraid a lot and adrenaline is pumped into your blood, you usually have a higher need for vitamin C. Humans cannot make vitamin C on its own. Food suggestions: citrus fruits, yellow peppers, kale, broccoli, brussel sprouts, strawberries.
* If you're angry\mad a lot it may cause stress, brain fog and memory issues. Suggested foods: tuna, salmon, anchoves, pumpkin seeds, beans, lentils. Foods with calm scents like rosemary and lavendel.
* Foods that support sadness are: dark chocolate (with cocoa butter), hot peppers, eggs, turmeric.
* Foods for when you're happy: oysters, leafy greens, nuts.
* Anti-inflammatory foods: beans, legumes, tomatos, nuts, olive oil, leafy greens, fatty fish, turmeric, oregano. Black tea, green tea, whole grains, cinnamon,
* Music can impact our eating speed. Fast music speeds it up, slow music speeds it down.
* Having a food ritual - saying thanks, eating with people - may make us take better food choices within a week.
* Exercise frequently to reduce chance of inflammation in your body. All types of exercise counts!
Strategies to eat more diversly
* 30 plants a week -> Eat all types of plants. Includes fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs, spices, berries, nuts and seeds.
* Eat the rainbow -> different color of the fruit may benefit different parts of your body
* The NOVA scale -> how to avoid the worst of ultra processed foods
* PING -> pleasure, inflammation, nutrients, gut microbiome.
How foods have changed over the last century
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