Many of you may already know that my dear younger brother passed away. He had suffered from Early Onset Alzheimer’s for five and a half years. He didn’t have that cute kind you see in the movies. The kind where you see Bruce Willis with a big smile on his face getting remarried to his young wife. Or, you know, where the family member gets easily mixed up, says adorable crazy things, and makes everyone laugh. Many of these suffers have the disease for years. Although painful to the family it gives everyone some time to adjust as their love one slowly slip away.
Not my bro….his Alzheimer’s came on at breakneck speed like an out of control freight train. It first attacked his speech centers and his ability to understand even the simplest of communications and directions. This was so hard for me. He had been my ‘ride or die’ companion since we were kids. My mother had been very abusive and we had stuck together like glue…
My brother was soooo funny. Living in different states, we spent a couple of hours on the phone every month, freely chatting away, cracking jokes and laughing. We rehashed our childhood a lot, from the vantage place of survivors….. and used humor as a coping mechanism.
When we got together we loved watching “Fixer Upper” with the patron saints of Waco, Texas, Chip and Joanna. This was the last show we watched together before his Alzheimer’s kicked in full blown and he could no longer hide what was happening.
Maybe six months in after his diagnosis quickly everything began to slip. The aphasia to his frontal lobe made it so he could no longer understand language…..I would call when he could still hold the phone to his ear and tell him how much I loved him and how brave he was….even though he could no longer talk…..then went his motor skills, he could no long make the hand coordination to answer or hold the phone….
Before he got sick I didn’t think much about brain health. We are often encouraged to eat well to manage our weight or avoid heart disease or cancer. But seldom are we encouraged to eat to support the specifics of brain health, or what may become of us if we just go about our lives on auto-pilot, eating ultra processed Western foods that can do the brain great harm.
This experience with my brother’s Alzheimer’s has made me very aware of the fragility of this complex command center that dictates memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger, circulation, ability to speak, and every other process that regulates our body…..
THERE IS SO MUCH HOPE AND POSSIBILITY
There are so many foods in our Food As Medicine Healing System that I now teach to better support cognition, make us feel sharper, smarter, more alert, as well as reduce risk of neuro-degenerative disease. The brain thrives on foods that provide neuro-protector effects and promote neuro-plasticity. And because the brain is made up of 70% fat and needs healthy omega 3’s to help it function more efficiently the food that provides the highest concentration of fat protecting antioxidants is AVOCADO.
AVO IS THE GOOD FAT
Most of us love avocados. Our big powerful fatty brains LOVE avocados. The problem is many Americans consume avocados in the form of guacamole, scooping it up with a big ole bag of tortilla corn chips. These chips are fried in extremely high heat commercial fryers. Each company has their preferred oils for desired taste, which may include GMO corn, peanut, cottonseed, soybean or canola oil. Add over the top salt in the chips and you have a highly addictive food. These cheap non-organic oils go rancid easily, contributing to free-radicals in the body and are not brain friendly foods.
Dr Mark Hyman, M.D., practicing family physician and internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Food As Functional Medicine, has described his own relationship to corn chips as being on crack: “Once you pop, you can’t stop”.
Before my husband Joseph joined me on my healing journey he too was addicted to chips and guac. We thought we would have to put him in rehab. Then one day he surrendered, and began to reclaim his health. Since his recovery, he sanely eats a half of an avocado with breakfast and a another half on top of his mid-day salad. I’m so proud of him!
NOT ALL FATS ARE CREATED EQUAL
The temperature of a healthy brain rises and falls in the course of a day. Human brains run hot; they routinely maintain a temperature that would be considered a fever elsewhere in the body. SciTech Daily reports the brain core temp can run upwards of 104 degrees, cooling down at night when we sleep.
Plant-based fats like avocado not only help the brain function more efficiently but they also ground and calm the heated brain.
In America weight-loss advertising has led us to become very confused about fats. Just the word ‘fat’ strikes terror in the hearts of many of us.
So here’s a quick lesson:
Foods high in saturated fats with cholesterol from animal sources:
> Dairy: butter, cheese and cream
> Meats: including beef, lamb, pork and chicken with skin
Foods high in monounsaturated fats and no cholesterol from plant sources:
> Avocados
> Coconut oil
> Oil from olives
> Almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, walnuts
WHY ARE PLANT-BASED FATS BEST FOR BRAIN HEALTH?
Most of the fat in the American diet is not plant based: It comes from dairy and meat. According to Dr Michael Greger, M.D., Founding Member and Fellow Of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and New York Times bestselling author, it has been found that the oxidized cholesterol in meat can be a hundred times more toxic for the brain. Because our Western diet contains no fresh vegetables, no fresh fruits, no fermented foods, there is no dietary balance that other cultures without an an Alzheimer’s epidemic experience. This can readily cross the blood-brain barrier. It can then trigger inflammation inside the brain, contributing to amyloid buildup years before the impairment of memory is diagnosed. Whereas plant-base fats contain no cholesterol and do not trigger an inflammatory response.
(NOTE: If you want to go deeper into the topic of oxidized fats Google up “Oxidized Cholesterol As A Cause Of Alzheimer’s Disease”).
Getting immersed in a whole new way of eating that our Food As Medicine Healing System introduces opens up a world of eating avocado in ways you may have never dreamed of. They can be added to smoothies, delicious raw chocolate puddings, even blended into salad dressings to make a creamy dreamy topping for your daily salad.
If you are not familiar with the variety of uses for avocados I’d like to introduce you to this super simple yummo raw cacao pudding that will knock your socks off….
SUPERFOOD AVO-CACAO PUDDING
> ½ cup Raw Cacao Powder
> 2 ripe Avocados
> ¼ cup Hemp or Almond Milk
> ½ cup Pure Maple Syrup
Add everything to a high speed blender and cream. Set in glass bowl. Leave in fridge for 20 minutes to set.
Serve chilled…..with fruit on top…..
Your Brain Will Say “Thanks”!
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