Examining the Link Between Diet and Dementia

In today’s vodcast, I chat about the link between diet and dementia based on research studying processed food diets. I also discuss the best time-tested diet to keep our minds and bodies healthy.

These conversational vodcasts are available to the Kitchen Pioneers who have joined my YouTube membership community—The Traditional Foods Kitchen Academy.

Disclaimer

I am not a doctor or medical professional. If you are not feeling well, please seek professional medical attention and medicine. And if you are thinking of supplementing your treatment with home remedies, be sure to talk to your medical professional about them. It’s important that you get the medicine and treatments you need to get back to good health.

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The Link Between Diet and Dementia

In my vodcast, I share a fascinating magazine article that discussed how a traditional foods diet helps to keep our brains healthy.

The article highlighted a research study where scientists fed animals the equivalent of four weeks of processed food. After the four-week diet, the animals were not able to perform basic tasks as well as they were before being fed the processed food diet!

• Research Study: How highly processed foods harm memory in the aging brain

So if a processed food diet can harm brain health, what’s the best diet to follow?

What is the MIND Diet?

In the article, the scientists recommended people eat the MIND diet, which stands for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurogenerative Delay. As you can surmise from its name, the MIND diet combines aspects of the following diets:

• Mediterranean
• DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension)

As I discussed in my video, my concern about this recommended eating plan is that it is not a tried-and-true traditional diet. Traditional cultures haven’t followed the eating habits described by the MIND diet over the course of centuries.

DASH Diet

The DASH diet is also a modern-day invented diet, and there is some question as to whether or not it should be eaten on a permanent basis. Most people find it too restrictive.

Augmenting the DASH Diet

The MIND diet tries to loosen up some of the DASH diet’s restrictions by adding the framework of the Mediterranean diet. Unfortunately, the MIND diet eliminates foods that have been found crucial to strong bones and teeth, including calcium-rich foods like aged cheese.

If the MIND diet just wanted to eliminate processed cheese slices, I would agree wholeheartedly. But eliminating properly prepared and aged cheeses made from raw milk contradicts diets with real foods that have proven to contribute to good health over thousands of years.

Problem with New Diets

This is where the problems with these new diets occur. These new diets look at selected foods in the grocery store and assert that you should not eat them. Instead, these diets need to focus on promoting real food that is properly prepared.

If dietitians focused on real food, they wouldn’t have to come up with new names or novel guidelines to catch headlines. The dietitians could instead point to existing traditional diets that have been tested over thousands of years.

Mediterranean Diet and Dementia

Now, I don’t think it is any surprise to you that I am a big proponent of the Mediterranean diet. Instead of headline-grabbing new diets like DASH or MIND, we can help keep our modern-day bodies and minds healthy by consuming a diet that healthy people have eaten for millennia!

Here are a few studies that show how the Mediterranean diet helps to reduce the risk of dementia:

• Mediterranean diet may slow development of Alzheimer’s disease
• Mediterranean Diet, Alzheimer Disease Biomarkers, and Brain Atrophy in Old Age

Don’t Follow Ancel Keys’ Diet

But keep in mind, I am talking about the traditional Mediterranean diet, not the one that discredited scientist Ancel Keys tried to turn into a low-fat diet beginning in the “Medicine: The Fat of the Land” article in Time Magazine in 1961.

More recent studies and the discovery of additional information found that Keys’ study may have been misleading, bringing his low-fat recommendations into question. You can learn more with Scientific American’s article, “Records Found in Dusty Basement Undermine Decades of Dietary Advice.”

And probably one of the most interesting articles to read on this subject is from New York Times science writer Gary Taubes’, “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?“

Learn More About the Mediterranean Diet

To learn more about the traditional Mediterranean diet, be sure to visit my early discussion about the real Mediterranean diet.

And for a deep dive into all about what the people of the Mediterranean region really ate and still eat, be sure to read this insightful article written by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig.

• Weston A Price Foundation: The Mediterranean Diet: Pasta or Pastrami?

Free Subscription to the Brain and Life Magazine

In my How to Help Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies video, I talk about the Brain and Life magazine. This bimonthly magazine provides insightful and helpful articles to those who have brain-related illnesses. It also includes helpful advice for those who help care for patients with these illnesses.

You can read the articles on their website or subscribe to their printed magazine for free through the following link. (I appreciate them having both options to access their content!)

• Get a free subscription to Brain and Life Magazine

Join the Traditional Foods Kitchen Academy

My comprehensive vodcasts are exclusively available to members of the Traditional Foods Kitchen Academy, who we call Kitchen Pioneers. You can learn more about my optional YouTube membership community, including members-only videos and exclusive perks.

This membership community is optional. I’m still publishing my weekly detailed instructional cooking videos on my public YouTube channel that you can watch for free. (Thanks so much for being a Sweet Friend and subscriber!)

More Kitchen Pioneer Videos

As a Kitchen Pioneer member, your YouTube video comments include a special badge next to your YouTube username. You’re always welcome to post questions and comments on my videos, and I’m happy to reply.

Catch up on some of the videos in our membership community that you may not have seen:

• Traditional Foods Kitchen Academy video playlist (Optional Membership Community)

Here are a few of my recent member videos:

Stay in Touch with Mary’s Nest

1. Subscribe to My YouTube Channel for Traditional Foods Videos (Free) - When you subscribe, be sure to click on the notification bell that will let you know each time I upload a new video.
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4. Order The Modern Pioneer Cookbook (Optional Paid) - Get a printed book of Mary's nourishing recipes from a Traditional Foods Kitchen. This bestselling cookbook is published by Penguin Random House with their DK imprint.

I look forward to having you join me in my Texas Hill Country Kitchen!

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Favorite Kitchen Supplies

• Favorite Aprons
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Recommended Reading

• The Modern Pioneer Cookbook
• Nourishing Traditions
• The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook: 500 Vibrant, Kitchen-Tested Recipes for Living and Eating Well Every Day
• Mediterranean Every Day
• Deep Nutrition