Brain health - food: Core foods list

The foods that should form the fundamentals of your "healthy brain" diet

We know enough about nutrition and foods now to shop and eat rather wisely. If you start with world-class ingredients, you're off to the best of starts. The foods on this list are the first you should consider.

Introduction - what is a "core food"?

Certain foods are especially valuable to us - they are nutrient powerhouses. A number of thoughtful and authoritative individuals have compiled lists of foods they consider to be "best", and these lists can have great value to us.

In general, these foods are are rich in one or more valuable nutrients - "nutrient dense". The macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats) are not generally difficult to come by. More rare are foods contain the best forms of the macronutrients with an abundance of one or more of the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, protective phytonutrients, etc.). It is from these latter foods that this list is assembled.

A first draft of the core foods list - the "Superfoods"

While this list will soon be augmented by material from some other lists of great value, a great starting point is the fourteen "superfoods" which Pratt and Matthews [1] have documented beautifully in their book of the same title. Their book is a top priority item for people who take their eating seriously.

Here are "the fourteen known nutritional powerhouse foods" [2] on their list. After each food is the amount that they recommend you eat (sometimes daily, sometimes less often), in square brackets. (See discussion of serving sizes, below.)

Note that most of these foods are, in fact, the leader of a list of related foods, each of which have similar, although often somewhat less, benefit. These related foods Pratt and Matthews refer to as "sidekicks".

All foods on the core foods list will have notes collected for them on the food notes page.

• beans - including pintos, lentils garbanzos, etc., and green beans, peas, etc. [four 1/2 cup servings per week, minimum]
• blueberries - and purple grapes, cranberries, blackberries, boysenberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, etc., fresh or frozen [1-2 cups (5.1 oz per cup) daily)
• broccoli - and brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, turnips, cauliflower, collards greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard, bok choy [1/2 to 1 cup daily]
• oats - and brown rice, barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, millet, bulgar, amaranth, quinoa, triticale, kamut, yellow corn, wild rice, spelt, coucous (whole wheat) [5 - 7 servings daily]; wheat germ & ground flaxseed are especially powerful members of this group.
• oranges - []
• pumpkin - []
• wild salmon - []
• soy - []
• spinach - []
• tea - [1 or more cups daily (4 cups a day appears to be best - see Green tea)]
• tomatoes - []
• turkey (skinless breast) - []
• walnuts - []
• yogurt - []

Serving sizes

"Serving" is a troublesome word. Pratt & Matthews (2004) [3] try to clarify the concept, and it takes them 3 pages! Generally, a "serving" is less, sometimes considerably less, than we tend to think. Restaurant serving sizes, most certainly, are far too large.

• For the denser fruits, vegetables, cooked beans and grains, it's about 1/2 cup - about what you might hold easily in the palm of your hand.
• For leafy greens, it's about four large leaves (but these excellent foods are only good for you - so indulge).
• For nuts, nut butters, and dried fruits, it's about 1/8 cup (half of a quarter cup). Obviously, these foods are calorie-dense, so we eat less of them.
• For milk and yogurt, it's about a cup, but for vegetable and fruit juices it's 1/2 cup.

Notes

[1] See Pratt & Matthews (2004).

[2] Pratt & Matthews (2004), p. 2.

[3] Pratt & Matthews (2004), pp. 28-31,

References

Pratt, S., & Matthews, K. (2004). Superfoods: Fourteen foods that will change your life. New York: Morrow.