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Food for the Brain, a non-profit
campaign founded by psychologist and leading nutritionist Patrick
Holford, has launched a major new education initiative, aimed at
improving children's school performance and behaviour by addressing
all those areas at the same time.
This pilot study will create a
template that can be applied to schools throughout the UK, to ensure
children are operating at their Optimum Nutrition level.
Read more about the Campaign
here.
Patrick recommends:
If you want to maximise your child's
potential you need to feed them the best brain food. Here is an easy
to follow 5-point plan to help you balance your child's mood and
improve their concentration, both at school and at play.
1. Take your child
off foods with additives or added sugar
2. Increase fruit,
veg and foods rich in vitamins and minerals
3. Boost levels of
essential fats
4. Supplement the
diet
5. Eliminate
allergens from the diet
1. Take your child off foods
with additives or added sugar
Sweets, chocolate, biscuits, cake,
some breakfast cereals, puddings and soft drinks all contain sugar
in one form or another. This sugar creates an imbalance in energy
which can contribute to hyperactivity, mood changes and erratic
behaviour.
When checking labels, avoid foods that
contain sucrose, glucose, dextrose, honey, and any form of syrup.
Also check for additives - such as
artificial colourings, sweeteners, preservatives and flavourings.
Look out especially for orange colouring tartrazine (E102) which can
be found in orange squash and sweets. Also watch out for mono-sodium
glutamate (MSG) and caffeine. It's desirable to opt for natural,
sugar-free alternatives rather than processed foods.
2. Increase fruit, veg and
foods rich in vitamins and minerals
Most of the nutrients have been
stripped out of white bread, white rice and pasta, so opt for
wholemeal varieties instead. These are more filling and contain
fibre to encourage healthy digestion.
Fresh fruit and vegetables contain
vitamins and minerals which are essential for building a strong
healthy body.
Some children may be reluctant to swap
the sweets for a piece of fruit, but if you hold firm, often their
sweet tooth will get less.
Aim to make fresh food more exciting -
tempt them with bite-size snacks of cherry tomatoes, berries or
grapes. There are now lots of recipe books aimed at healthy eating,
with children in mind.
For children who are used to a diet of
processed food such as chicken nuggets or fish fingers, it may help
to make home-made equivalents to begin with, such as strips of
chicken and healthy fish cakes, and then gradually add more
vegetables into the mix - for example fish cakes with broccoli. That
way their taste buds gradually adjust to natural vegetable flavours.
You'll find lots of healthy packed
lunch ideas in our
Jamie
Oliver newsletter
3. Boost levels of essential
fats
Some fats need to be avoided, whilst
others almost always need to be increased. For example, the
saturated fats found in processed meats and fried foods should be
avoided. On the other hand, most children and adults too are
deficient in the 'essential' fats called omega 3, and good quality
omega 6.
To get these healthy fats, eat fish
such as fresh salmon and mackerel two or three times per week, and
used a heaped tablespoon of freshly ground seeds on their cereal or
sprinkled on soups or in salads every day. Patrick Holford suggests
the magic formula of seed mix is half pumpkin, sunflower and sesame,
with half linseeds: store in a glass jar in the fridge and grind
fresh in a coffee grinder before serving (keep in the fridge as the
oils in seeds can go rancid quite quickly). (TIP: we recommend
Linuset Gold linseeds, available in most supermarkets.)
Also, supplement essential fats. This
could either be a fish oil (which contains omega 3 fats) or a seed
oil (which contains a blend of omega 3 and omega 6 fats).
Nutri
Eskimo Kids or
Nutri-West
Omega 3 Essentials are our favoured products here.
4. Supplement the diet
It's hard to get all the nutrients we
need from our diet, and Patrick suggests that children's diets are
supplemented with a good-quality multivitamin and mineral. Small
children who cannot swallow may like
Dinochews.
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