We are entering now into phase 2 of all these discussions, talking about all the nutrients relevant to brain health, its basic needs and how to feed it, the nutritional makeup of the food, focusing on the micronutrients, how they maintain and support the body and we will talk about some micronutrients rich foods.

It will be useful if you are able to do what I call a food diary, where you need to write everything you eat in a day, for at least a week, if not for a month, so you can study your diet, and find ways to improve it. Doesn't matter how much advice I will give, as each diet is individual, and I will touch the general ideas. leaving it up to you to analyze and get better if need it (you may never know, your diet may be already perfect as it is). Doing this, you can look back at your day, and realize that all you ate today is a glass of kefir with a slice of bread, a cup of tea, a chocolate bar, another cup of tea, some cranberries in chocolate, and a soup with 2 slices of bread and butter, and wonder how you survived until now.

Our brain needs oxygen and nutrients (most important being the essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals). Do you remember how our parents or grandparents were talking about fish oil being good for the brain (arghh, not the greatest taste, but they were right on it). This is because fish oil is rich in omega 3, 6, and 9, essential fatty acids - critical for building cell membranes, with important roles in the central nervous system (especially in the fetus stage and for young children). Our brain is developing until we are in our twenties (frontal lobes, responsible for voluntary movement, expressive language, and managing higher-level executive functions, are the last to develop). But even at an older age, essential fatty acids are supporting brain health and cardiac health.

Other important roles are played by the micronutrients. As you know by now, the macronutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Micronutrients are stable chemicals elements if we talk about minerals, which can be further defined as

• macro-minerals, big molecules such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium,
• trace elements such as zinc, copper, iodine, and selenium.

We also have organic compounds, the vitamins, needed daily for optimal growth and development. Even our intestinal flora can manufacture small amounts of vitamins for us. But some of them, we cannot create, so we need them in our diet, in the food. We have fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E) and water-soluble vitamins (the B complex, C, and the rest of them).

If you eat ultra-processed foods, even if the meals are fortified with added micronutrients, you will not get enough of them. Your brain will be vitamin and mineral deficient. If you are a number person, I can tell you that data shows that eating a common western diet, you will lack vitamin D (94% of the cases), E (89%), Magnesium (56%), Calcium (44%), vitamin A (43%) and vitamin C (39%), just to cover the major issues.

How do we fix this problem? The answer is easy, but not that easy. For a healthy brain, you need to eat real food, natural, organic, cooking yourself from scratch kind of food. So you know what you put inside of it, and you adapt it to your individual needs.

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That's all for today, time for me to go to work now. See you around!

George