Preventing Parkinson’s Through Food
Plus, this week’s menu at Rancho La Puerta’s cooking school
Hello, friends. I write to you today from Tecate, Mexico where I am the visiting chef at Rancho La Puerta, a health and wellness destination in the mountains of northern Baja.
This is my thirteenth time as a visiting chef. I love coming to “the Ranch”—I think of it as summer camp for my brain. During the week, I have a full schedule of teaching but there is also time to hike, swim, work out in the gym, and take yoga and fitness classes. Every day there are opportunites to practice brain self-care, too, with meditation, sound healing, yoga nidra, and lots of strategically placed hammocks for napping.
For my cooking classes here, I chose recipes from my book based on what’s growing in Tres Estrellas, Rancho La Puerta’s 5-acre organic garden. We’ll pull the first spring carrots from the ground for the Creamy Carrot Farrotto (page 259, if you want to cook along). And we’ll be picking plenty lacinato kale and digging up beets for Your New Favorite Kale Salad (page 62). Baja shrimp is in season now, too, so Grilled Shrimp Skewers with Asparagus and Pecan-Quinoa Pilaf (page 195) are on the menu. For dessert, I couldn’t decide between the Tahini-Almond Butter Blondies (page 201) and the Glazed Citrus, Almond, and Olive Oil Cake (page 203), so we are making them both.
On Sunday I gave a talk about the advances in research in Alzheimer’s prevention. This is a talk I’ve given before, but this time I decided to include a few slides about Parkinson’s disease prevention. Parkinson's is a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements and often progresses to dementia. Just like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease is on the rise. And, just like with Alzheimer’s, there is no cure. While the bulk of the science of eating to protect the brain pertains to Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, this knowledge is now being applied to other neurodegenerative diseases.
The same brain-healthy diet that prevents Alzheimer’s can both delay the onset of Parkinson’s and slow its progression.
It makes sense that the MIND and Mediterranean dietary patterns are evolving as critical tools in the prevention of Parkinson’s. Both are plant-based diets that reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, two important causative factors in neurodegenerative diseases. A healthy diet rich in nutrients with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties is the hallmark of fending off Alzheimer’s, and hopefully future studies will continue to show this to be true for Parkinson’s.
So for today’s newsletter I’d like to share what we know about eating to prevent Parkinson’s. I am also providing the full replay from my collaboration with Broadway’s Best for Parkinson’s at the JCC in Manhattan last week. This panel discussion covers many facets of the current state of preventing neurodegenerative diseases. (Find the link below.) First, here are a few facts to know about Parkinson’s disease.