Well, here we are with Part 2 of the 14 Secrets to a Healthy Brain series. This section focuses a lot on the fats that we are eating and how important they are to the brain. It also focuses on a really easy to use Cellular cleansing and Replenishing system that we have been recommending with great success for years. Enjoy!
5) Get rid of Trans fat – In 1925 a Frenchman invented trans fat. It’s a way of turning vegetable oil from a polyunsaturated fat to a saturated fat. This is what makes a pie crust harden. Look for terms such as hydrogenated, or partially hydrogenated. The first trans fat was Crisco, which is basically plastic. What is interesting is that the Frenchman never sold it in France, because it was banned, he instead sold it to the Americans and Canadians. What happened over the next several decades was heart disease, brain problems, type 2 diabetes all started to rise in North America, but not France. Make sure to look at the labels! They only have to list trans fats once it reaches a certain threshold. So…look for partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated in the ingredients list.
Your brain is mostly fat. If you don’t have omega-3 fat in your diet, your brain will take in trans fat, turning it into plastic. Your body takes 6 months to flush trans fat out of it’s tissues. However, the brain can take anywhere from 1 to 10 years to get rid of the trans fats, severely limiting its function! This is a major risk factor for “bad brains”.
6) Omega-3 fats – You take a conventional cow in North America, and it never gets to eat anything green. In fact it gets grain supplemented with the carcasses of dead animals. Not a good diet for the cow. You essentially change the fat in the cow, chicken, pig, etc., which ends up having a diet loaded in omega-6. Really, all you need to know is that you need equal amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 in your diet. If you look at all the healthy tribes around the world, their consumption of omega-3 to omega-6 is almost 1:1. In North America, the consumption ratio is 1:25. The higher the amount of omega-6, the higher amounts of inflammation you have in your body. Which leads to degenerative diseases. Cows should be out in the field eating grass. As long as an animal is on its natural diet, it’s fat ratio will be right for you.
If you are not eating organic, pasture fed animals (cows, chickens, pigs, etc.) you need to be supplementing with about 10-14 grams of omega-3 per day. An enormous amount. If you switch to organic, pasture fed you can cut down on the amount of supplementation you need to a few grams per day.
7) Herbal Adaptogens – As a human species we have more stress than ever before. Herbal adaptogens are critical for life-long health. First discovered by the Russians, these herbs help balance the stress response in the body thereby supporting the endocrine system, immune system, and nervous system.
8) Optimal Health Systems – The shakes, the greens, the fruits powders, fiber, vitamins all give the body good healthy baseline nutrition that we can’t get by just eating food. To give you an idea of how much nutrient content has been lost in the soil, UCLA did a study in 1997 and found that it would take 43 bowls of spinach to equal the nutrient content of just 1 bowl from 1953! Scary. Going organic is much healthier, but we need to do more than that. Optimal Health Systems is our preferred choice because it is powerful, tasty, and easy to fit into our lives.
9) Cleansing – We live in a toxic world with the air we breathe, the buildings we are in, the water we drink, and the chemicals in our food. If you have these impurities in your body, they don’t just get picked up by your body fat, but your brain is also fat. If they cross the blood-brain barrier, they get lodged in your brain. So cleansing to remove these impurities is essential. Also, with cleansing you help to balance the hormones in your brain as well. We’re not just talking about once in a while cleansing, but regularly! You’re exposed everyday. Our preferred program is Isagenix.
Stay tuned for Part 3…