Open Thread #2: Let’s Talk Brain Healthy Food Groups

Plus, introducing Substack Notes

The view from Black’s Beach, one of my favorite places to walk in San Diego.

Hello everyone! I write to you from San Diego where I am visiting my mom for a few days. Today we are working on a jigsaw puzzle while I make her a pot of my Creamy Tomato Soup. If you’ve been following along on my book tour, you’ve seen me traveling nonstop to share the Brain Health Kitchen book. In the last few weeks I’ve been to Denver, Boulder, Cincinnati, Nashville, New York, White Plains, and Boston. Wherever I speak, sign books, or participate on a panel, there are always more questions than time to answer. I am incredibly happy to see that people are curious about all aspects of brain-healthy living—nutrition, sleep, stress mitigation, exercise, and cognitive reserve.

Sharing the Brain Health Kitchen Food Pyramid (from page 33 of the book) always spurs an enthusiastic round of Q and A.

Excerpt from The Brain Health Kitchen by Annie Fenn MD, copyright 2023 Artisan Books.

So, for this Friday newsletter, I thought it would be fun to hear from all of you and answer your questions about the Pyramid. I came up with this graphic (with a lot of help from my team at Artisan Books) to show what a week of brain-healthy eating looks like. For those of you who don’t have the book (where I explain the pyramid in detail), here’s a little background. 

The recommended daily or weekly servings (serving size in parentheses):

• Vegetables: 3 servings per day (a serving = 1 cup raw or ½ cup cooked)

• Leafy Greens: 2 servings per day (1 cup raw or ½ cup cooked)

• Whole Grains: 3 servings per day (½ cup cooked)

• Berries: 1 serving per day (½ cup per day or 3½ cups per week)

• Bean and Legumes: 4 servings per week (½ cup cooked)

• Nuts and Seeds: 4 servings per week (¼ cup nots or seed or 2 tablespoon nut or seed butter)

• Fish and Seafood: 1 or more serving per week (3 ounces)

• Fermented Foods

• Meat and Poultry: 0 to 4 up to 3-ounce servings per week; Eggs: 0 to 7 servings per week (individualize)

• Sweets: treat yourself with a brain-healthy treat some days

• Extra-virgin olive oil: use as your primary cooking oil

• Water, Coffee, and Tea: drink mostly water, enjoy coffee and tea daily, if you like.

There are a lot of topics we could get into here. For example, while speaking at the JCC in NY, a lovely woman with an Italian accent asked where the red wine lives on my pyramid. Others were curious about how to get a serving of fermented food? Does yogurt count? How much kimchi is in one serving? And this one from a sprite octogenarian in Boston: Why aren’t mushrooms their own food group?

Fielding questions from the audience at the JCC event in NYC. Thank you Vasudha @WeAteWell for the photo!

This Open Thread question is about the brain-healthy food groups

This is our second Open Thread here on Brain Health Kitchen—a space to connect and chat obsessively about a topic. (I still refer to our first Open Thread whenever I need a book recommendation!) These open forums are meant to be like meeting friends for coffee. Everyone is welcome to follow along and paying subscribers can share thoughts in the comment section. 

Which of the brain-healthy food groups do you struggle to get enough of?
Which ones do you most enjoy?
Do you eliminate any of the food groups based on your own dietary preferences?
What are the questions you have about eating for brain health?

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