How eating vegetables will help your mental health

Posted by kathryn in Mental & emotional health

Your brain is an organ, just like your heart, liver and kidneys.

There’s a lot we don’t know about how the brain works. One thing we do know, is you need to feed your brain for it to be healthy.

Carbohydrates, Omega 3 essential fatty acids, protein, vitamins, minerals and water – these are the nutrients your brain needs.

Vitamins are needed by your brain, because they assist biochemical reactions. For example, vitamins are catalysts in the production of neurotransmitters.

Low levels of folate, as well as vitamins B1, B2 and C have all been linked to depression. It’s also been suggested that a lack of vitamin C and E are linked with Alzheimers. While population studies have shown a link between high vegetable diets and low levels of dementia.

The best way to make sure you’re getting the vitamins for your brain, is to eat vegetables. Having at least five serves a day, preferably more.

While five serves can sound daunting, eating this much veg during a day doesn’t have to be hard. To get an idea of how much five serves of vegies actually is, take a look at my pictorial guide to five serves of vegetables post.

How to increase your vegetable intake

If you’re not eating a lot of vegies, including more in your diet will really help your health. Try to find ways to include a couple more serves in your day.

Breakfast: have hummous and cucumber on toast, instead of butter and jam. Other choices are avocado and tomato, or make a toasted sandwich with cheese, tomato and baby spinach.
Sandwiches: If you’re buying a sandwich for lunch, try to include three different salad vegetables.
Take-away: Choose Thai or Vietnamese stir-fries with plenty of vegies or if you’re ordering pizza and pasta, get a salad as well.
Grocery shopping: when buying groceries, try to get one extra vegetable a week. Use this to gently up your mid-week vegie intake.
Weekend breakfast: if you’re breakfasting out or doing a fry-up at home, include some mushrooms, tomato and spinach leaves.
Making salads: make smaller portions of dinner and have it with a side salad. Add handfuls of fresh herbs to give more flavour. Alternatively make a side dish of mixed seasonal greens.
Eat vegetarian at least once a week: boost your weekly vegie intake by having at least one meat-free meal every week.

I’m not saying that upping your vitamin intake will cure all mental health problems. However, these nutrients are needed by your brain, so why not make sure you’re getting enough?

It’s Mental Health Week here at Limes & Lycopene and this post is part of a series: five food and diet strategies you can use to improve your mental health.

Technorati tags: “mental health week” and mental health week