Protecting Your Brain Means Protecting Your Heart - Here's What You Need for Both!

In this episode of Blasphemous Nutrition, Aimee highlights how produce influences cognitive resilience and suggests attainable ways to incorporate them into your diet without puritanical lifestyle changes. As medical advances have so far failed to provide significant preventative solutions for cognitive decline, Aimee argues that turning to our kitchens rather than medicine cabinets may hold the key. Through a comprehensive exploration, this episode breaks down the science behind how specific foods can combat inflammation, support vascular health, and bolster cognitive resilience.

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In today's episode, we'll explore how incorporating colorful, polyphenol rich vegetables and fruits into our diets can support brain health. And discuss the science behind how these foods may help mitigate inflammation, support vascular health, and contribute to your cognitive resilience. So if you're interested in practical evidence-based approaches to support your brain health, stay tuned. Hey Rebels. Welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I am Aimee, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take. On living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you found most health advice to be so generic is to be meaningless or so extreme that it's unrealistic. And you don't mind the occasional F-bomb, you've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now, let's get started. Welcome back to Blasphemous Nutrition, the podcast where we cut through the wellness noise with science, SaaS, and a healthy dose of skepticism. My name is Aimee. I'm a functional nutritionist who believes that when it comes to preserving our cognitive health, the solution may be found more in our kitchens than in our medicine cabinets. Today we're delving into the crucial topic of cognitive aging. While medical advancements have provided us with tools to modestly slow cognitive decline, they have not delivered the preventative breakthroughs that many people have hoped for. And with nearly all other chronic diseases, this lack of significant prevention underscores the importance of having proactive lifestyle based strategies. So let's talk about what happens to your brain as you age, and why vegetables of all things deserve a seat at the head of the table. When we think of memory loss or mental decline, we typically think that it's something that we don't really need to worry about until we're in our seventies or eighties. But data suggests otherwise. Studies indicate that changes in memory and processing speed can begin as early as your forties. That's not a scare tactic. It is actually what researchers are observing. But here's the problem. Most people don't notice these shifts until they're really frustrating and disruptive to our daily life, and even then, they tend to be dismissed as stress being too busy or just aging. Meanwhile, the problems that drive these changes, oxidative stress, mitochondrial decline, vascular stiffness, and inflammation have been quietly building for years and they remain unchanged. Speaking of vascular stiffness, that is a clue that heart health and brain health are deeply intertwined. Your brain ultimately is only gonna be as good as your blood flow. So if your cardiovascular system is stiff and clogged or inflamed, your brain is under fueled full stop, you can meditate all you want. You can take the latest nootropic of the month, but if your blood vessels are too rigid to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your frontal lobe, you are not gonna be able to biohack your way out of that. Here's the thing. Our brain doesn't have the capability of storing energy, so it needs a constant high quality delivery system, and that's where our vegetables come in. Leafy greens and beets boost nitric oxide production and help our blood vessels relax, allowing this free flowing highway of blood to nourish our brain. Cruciferous veggies lower vascular inflammation and oxidative stress. Keeping that blood-based highway really well maintained and polyphenols and numerous fruits and veggies help prevent the damage that leads to stiff arteries and narrowed capillaries in the first place. So this is like having a well, well-funded transportation crew that not only builds quality structures at the onset, but also is on top of the normal wear and tear that comes from using that transportation system. So yes, eating more produce does help you retain your memory, but it also lowers blood pressure, improves arterial flexibility, and keeps the highways open between your heart and your head. So if you want to think better in your sixties, you need to start protecting your heart in your forties. This is a whole body long game resilient ashel nutrition strategy, and it sure tastes better than statins do. We've got tech that can track the decline in our cognition, and we've got medication that may slightly delay cognitive decline, but there's nothing in the medical toolkit that is reversing memory loss the way that we had hoped, especially multiple decades. Out from first starting to seriously look at this. So prevention is not just an ideal strategy. It's absolutely essential if you want to go out with all your cylinders firing. So this is where food comes in. What we can eat offers a sustainable strategic form of support, one that works on the systems that keep your brain and body online alert and adaptive. So let's talk about what's happening under the hood that is contributing to cognitive decline. The first thing is oxidative damage. Our brain uses 20% of the entire body's oxygen supply. Which is kind of astonishing when you think about it because the brain is a pretty small organ, but it uses a massive amount of oxygen that's a high demand, and that high demand for oxygen inevitably creates free radicals. These are unstable little molecules that when produced in excess damage, brain cells, neurons, as well as the protective myelin sheath. That helps. Brain signals fire smoothly. Oxidation is a normal process. There's no way around it. It's a byproduct of oxygen use, and it's not usually a big deal for most of us until we hit about midlife In your younger years, your body keeps that oxidative damage in check with our innate homegrown antioxidants created by our very own body. But as we age, these antioxidant repair systems get sluggish, and the free radicals then start to dominate and outnumber or outpace our body's ability to combat them. This is called oxidative stress. It's one of the earliest contributors to cognitive decline. But plants bring in antioxidants like anthocyanins, flavonoids, and carotinoids that do two jobs. One, they mop up free radicals, and two, they actually activate your body's own innate antioxidant defenses. Vegetables help keep your cells responding better under pressure by supporting a balanced inflammatory response and giving your body backup security guards to combat oxidative stress. Another thing that happens is mitochondrial function slows down. And if the word mitochondria gives you ninth grade biology, flashbacks, let me reintroduce them. They're the power plants of your body cells. They're the energy producers within the cells, including our brain cells. So sometimes a habitually slow, tired, struggling brain is actually a sign of struggling mitochondria. As mitochondrial efficiency declines with age, your brain ends up producing less a TP, and that's cellular energy that can show up as brain fog and inability to focus for long periods of time or fatigue that no amount of sugar or coffee can fix. Veggies matter here because there are specific phytonutrients in plants that support mitochondrial resilience by helping us clean out old dysfunctional mitochondria in a process called MIT phasia and keeps healthy mitochondria working longer, resulting in a brain that ultimately runs more efficiently with better fuel. Number three is microglia. Get a little trigger happy and microglia are your brain's resident immune cells. When they are well regulated, they clean up cellular debris and help us maintain healthy brain structure. But with chronic stress, inflammation, and aging, these microglia can become overactive, this means they start firing off inflammatory chemicals, creating or exacerbating an already existing low level chronic inflammatory state in the brain that damages neurons and impairs our memory and learning capabilities over time. But polyphenols like quercetin and sulforaphane help modulate that microglial behavior by reducing the inflammatory signaling and helping the brain restore balance, keeping its immune activity sharp, but not destructive. I'll be talking about which veggies contain these polyphenols shortly. Another thing that contributes to cognitive decline is the slowing of blood flow. Now, as I mentioned, your brain runs on a lot of oxygen, but it also requires nutrients, and it gets those nutrients from our blood. That blood travels through a vast network of blood vessels, as those blood vessels stiffen with age, blood flow starts to decline. Part of this is due to a drop in nitric oxide, which is a compound that helps blood vessels stay flexible and responsive. Less nitric oxide means more stiffness, less oxygen delivery, and slower mental performance. The same oxidative stress that stiffens our arteries also inhibits blood supply to the hippocampus. So if you want mental clarity, you gotta start with circulation. Consuming a high produce diet and moving your body regularly and often is the best way to achieve this. Beets, arugula, spinach, and other nitrate rich veggies naturally boost nitric oxide production. Other plants help protect the vessel lining from oxidative damage, improving our circulation to brain regions that are crucial for memory focus and mood regulation. So having a veggie rich plate several times a day keeps those blood vessels pliable and ensures that both oxygen and nutrient-rich blood goes where it needs to go. But those nitrate rich veggies like beets and arugula aren't just good for our brain because they support the vascular system and improve blood flow. They also are crucial to keeping blood pressure well managed and supplying nutrient rich blood to the heart. Like nearly all chronic disease, cognitive decline isn't just a bad case of luck or simply genetics. It's the natural outcome of systems in the body that get less efficient over time. So the strategies that we have at our disposal to support those systems can make a huge difference. Everybody knows vegetables are healthy, but they're also chemically active. They supply the raw materials and signaling compounds that help your brain repair damage, maintain adequate energy, regulate inflammation, and keep that nutrient-rich blood flowing where it's needed. Having a high produce diet does not necessitate becoming vegetarian or having a salad at every single meal, but you do likely need to have more consistent produce in your diet more often, and I'm willing to bet you probably could use a little more color on your plate as well as a little more gobsmacking awe for how fucking cool food can be in preserving your health. And that's why I'm here. So you're probably wanting to know at this point what plant compounds actually move the needle? Where are they found and how do you get them into your diet without turning what you eat into a second full-time job? First, let's talk about color. Eating the rainbow has become a meaningless cliche thanks to Skittles commercials, but if you take it seriously, it really is a simple strategy to effectively make a world of difference in your health as long as those colors aren't coming from candy. Using a multitude of colors at your meals is a strategy grounded in biochemistry, the very pigments that give vegetables and fruits their blues, reds, purples, oranges, yellows and greens aren't just pretty. They are super functional and protective. They directly interact with your cells, your blood vessels, your immune system, and yes, your brain. The colors in fruits and vegetables come from plant compounds called. Polyphenols, flavonoids and carotinoids. Now, there are more plant compounds than these, but I'm just gonna focus on these today. These compounds do a hell of a lot more than just fight free radicals. They offer a multitude of health benefits. So let's talk about some of these. First I wanna talk about polyphenols, because polyphenols are a massive group of plant-based compounds, and they protect the plant from environmental stress, the stress of UV light, the stress of pests, and the stress of disease but polyphenols don't just protect plants, they also protect us. They help our body adapt to stress, reduce inflammation, and clean up oxidative damage. We know of about 8,000 polyphenols. I am sure there are tens of thousands more that we have yet to discover. When it comes to the brain, though, some of the most impactful polyphenols are flavonoids, like anthocyanins, quercetin, lutein, phenolic acids like CIC acid, which you'll find in coffee, thank goodness, lignins found in flax seeds and sesame seeds. And tannins. And catechins, which you can find in teas, berries, and cacao. So if antioxidants. As a whole, were your body's cleanup crew. The polyphenols would be the building inspectors. They prevent messes before they happen. Okay. Polyphenols are involved in multiple cell signaling pathways that impact how the brain ages. They reduce inflammation by regulating the release of inflammatory compounds called cytokines, especially by chilling out any overactive microglia. So this helps preserve our synaptic function, enabling rapid and direct communication between cells, as well as preventing neuron damage and loss. Polyphenols also protect our neurons from oxidative stress by acting as a direct antioxidant to combat oxidation in the brain, as well as being an indirect inducer of your body's own defense systems. That's a pretty big deal when it comes to having that oxygen hungry brain that inevitably produces quite a bit of oxidative stress. Polyphenols also improve cerebral blood flow compounds like epic Cain from dark chocolate and tea and Quercetin found in onions and apples help dilate our blood vessels and protect endothelial function, improving nutrient delivery to our brain tissue and certain polyphenols like resveratrol and lutein, promote neurogenesis and plasticity through brain derived neurotropic factor, also known as BDNF. That's been a hot compound in the influencer wellness craze, for a while, so that may be a familiar term to you. BDNF is critical for learning, for memory and for the brain's ability to allow us to adapt over time. You are gonna find these polyphenols in berries like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, your leafy greens, especially darker, more bitter greens, red cabbage, onions, radishes, eggplant skin. Again, those dark purples, blues, reds. They're also really rich in herbs and spices. So when you are seasoning your food with oregano, rosemary, thyme, or turmeric, you're not just delivering a lot of flavor. You're also gifting yourself a lot of polyphenols. Dark chocolate is rich in polyphenols. Isn't that exciting? But it's only really significant if you're consuming 70%. Cacao or greater in your dark chocolate. I hate to break it to you, milk chocolate fans. There's just not enough polyphenols in milk chocolate to be worthwhile from a health perspective. But if you like dark chocolate, this is one way that you can get polyphenols in your diet. Additionally, green and black tea is rich in polyphenols through those catechins as well as coffee, right with the phenolic acids. Additionally, nuts, seeds like flax seed, sesame seed, pumpkin seeds, and olives. Are rich in polyphenols. So this means olive oil is also rich in polyphenols. When you're looking for olive oil, if it's got a little bit of cloudiness to it, that's not a bad thing. The darker the color, the grassier, the olive oil, the more polyphenols are in there. So the best part about polyphenols is they often work synergistically. So you don't need to hyperfocus on one specific super food of the moment. Your goal is to aim for variety, consistency, and frequently include plants in the bulk of your meals. Polyphenols are your brain's daily maintenance crew. They regulate inflammation, support blood flow, promote resilience, and clean up metabolic messes before they turn into symptoms. So now that you know that polyphenols are basically the unrecognized multitaskers of brain protection, let's zoom in on a few of those specific compounds that not only give your veggies their brightest colors, but also give your neurons the strongest shot at aging well. First I wanna talk about anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are water soluble pigments. So they're at the color, literally, they're the color that is responsible for red, purple, and blue hues that you'll find in many fruits and vegetables. They belong to the flavonoid family. So when you think of anthocyanins, I want you to think of blueberries, blackberries, purple cabbage, eggplant skin, purple carrots, red onions. These are where you'll find anthocyanins. Anthocyanins have been shown to cross the blood brain barrier, and in the brain they exert. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. They help improve cerebral blood flow, reduce neuroinflammation, and they may also actually help memory consolidation, especially in the hippocampus. Studies suggest that they may improve cognitive function and also reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. Now, I wanna say that anthocyanins offer early prevention. They don't provide end stage damage control. You can't eat a kilo of blueberries a day, although sometimes I try and expect that this alone is going to reverse Alzheimer's or halt cognitive decline. Okay. The effects of these compounds are most meaningful before a diagnosis when your goal is preservation. That said, some of the research that is coming out does support a very comprehensive lifestyle and dietary strategy to actually reverse early cognitive decline. And in those dietary protocols, anthocyanin rich foods like berries are recommended, which I think is coming from a protection standpoint to slow progression, but the research isn't there yet to really show that it can alone anyway, reverse cognitive decline. Next I wanna talk about flavanols. Flavanols are a subclass of flavonoids and flavonoids are polyphenol compounds that are found in onions, kale, spinach, broccoli, apple, and tea, among other things. Some common flavanols include quercetin as well as camp for all. Research does indicate that higher dietary intake of flavonol is associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in the elderly. For instance, a study published in neurology showed that individuals who have the highest flavonol intake had a significantly slower rate of cognitive decline after being observed for an average of seven years. And this was in elderly folks. So a lot of you know what cognitive decline is one of those things where it starts off slow first and then it seems to speed up and when you're in your seventies and your eighties, the difference in cognitive function over the course of seven years can be really profound. So consuming a diet, really rich in green, leafy vegetables like that, kale, spinach, broccoli, right, as well as onions, having apples which are high in quercetin, can help slow the speed of cognitive decline as we age. The cool thing is that that study in neurology didn't use supplements. They were looking at food, and that makes me super duper happy. So while flavonols like quercetin and camperall can protect our cognition, they're actually anti-inflammatory for your entire vascular system. And this is why higher intake of Flavanols. Is also associated with lower risk of stroke and heart disease in addition to better memory. And there is a reason why we have that saying an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Now we know precisely why it's the quercetin! Lutian and Xanthin are carotinoids. Carotinoids are fat soluble pigments that are found in various plants. They are typically part of the plant family that gives an orange or a yellow hue, but they are also. Ubiquitous in green leafy vegetables. They are known for their role in eye health, but they also accumulate in brain tissue as well as eye tissue over time, and they're especially concentrated in areas of the brain related to visual processing and memory. These compounds are so tightly linked to cognition that researchers can sometimes predict someone's cognitive performance by looking at how much lutein is in their retina. It's so crazy to think about that, right? So you have these carotinoids, they accumulate in the fatty tissues of our body, right? And our brain and our eyes are the fattiest tissues in our body. So researchers can look at your freaking eye and then predict whether or not you're going to perform well on a cognitive test. That's just kind of crazy. I mean, what you eat shows up in your brain and these carotinoids that are concentrated in the brain are linked to better scores on memory tests, attention tests, and processing speed testing in older adults. Not only that, but long-term consumption of carotenoid rich foods shows benefits even decades after the initial intake. And that's one of the great things about fat soluble compounds is they can accumulate in fatty tissue. And because our fatty tissue sticks around for longer, these compounds stay in the body longer. Lutian and Xanthin specifically are rich in spinach, kale, corn, peas, and egg yolks. Next I wanna talk about Sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is probably one of my favorite antioxidants. It is one of the most hardworking compounds in the vegetable world. Sulforaphane is found in cruciferous vegetables. It is a sulfur based molecule, as the name suggests, and it's this darling and functional medicine, but it totally deserves the hype. Sulforaphane is a compound that is formed when glucoraphanin, which is found in cruciferous vegetables, is activated by an enzyme also found in those vegetables called myrosinase Myrosinase. Gets released when the plant is chopped or chewed and then it turns that glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. So if you wanna make the most of sulforaphane, chop up your cabbage or cauliflower your broccoli and let it sit for up to 10 minutes after chopping it up to really let that myrosinase work its magic. Sulforaphane activates. Nerf two, a critical cellular pathway. And when it's turned on, this pathway signals to your body to produce a whole host of different antioxidants and detoxifying enzymes like glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and N-A-D-P-H Queen Dehydrogenase, also known as NQ oh one. Some of those you may have heard of before, some of them you may have not, but effectively, these enzymes neutralize oxidative damage. They reduce inflammation in the body. They facilitate detoxification processes throughout the entire body and protect your neurons from stress induced dysfunction. So as it. Relates to the brain. This means less inflammatory signaling from overactive microglia, reduced oxidative stress in the brain and preservation of our synaptic function, as well as our neuronal integrity. Sulfur AE has been shown to actually improve memory and reduce neuroinflammation in animal studies of Alzheimer's disease. In humans, it's been studied for its potential role in improving cognition as well as reducing oxidative markers after a brain injury, or for those who have neurodevelopmental disorders. There is promise in that human research, but there isn't really a lot of it out there to fully say. Absolutely, yes, unequivocally, this is gonna happen, but it looks fairly promising. So the broccoli hype is deserved. It contains sulforaphane that turns on your internal cleanup crew. It's inexpensive and easily available, which makes it an essential on your grocery list. That said, if like George Bush Sr. You don't like broccoli, you can get sulforaphane in other cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy, arugula, mustard greens, watercress, turnip greens, kale, and broccoli sprouts. Broccoli sprouts are a bit milder than broccoli, and honestly, they're kind of the MVP. They can have up to 50 times more glucoraphanin than mature broccoli does. So if you ever find broccoli sprouts in the grocery store, grab'em. Throw'em in your salad, throw'em in your sandwich, because they're pretty potent and powerful. Lightly steaming your broccoli, especially broccoli stems where there's more glucoraphanin increases sulforaphane availability. But if you take it too far and you boil your broccoli or you over steam it, it does destroy it. So you wanna have a light touch there. That said, adding a pinch of mustard seed powder to cooked broccoli can help reactivate sulfur Han formation. And that's because mustard seed powder contains myrosinase, that enzyme that. Facilitates the transformation of glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. So there's no need to supplement here. Just chop, chew, maybe throw some mustard on your roasted kale, your cabbage, your cauliflower, your broccoli. Call it good. Sulforaphane is awesome to support detoxification, defense, and repair of the brain. It's one of the clearest examples we have of how vegetables activate resilience pathways that protect us against long-term cognitive decline. So if you wanna keep your brain sharp, don't skip the cruciferous. Just don't boil the hell out of'em. So all of these different compounds support brain health through various mechanisms. They supply antioxidant activity, which neutralizes those free radicals and reduces oxidative stress that damages brain cells. If your antioxidant defense systems are lagging, which generally tends to happen as we age, free radicals start damaging our brain cells, our mitochondria, even our DNA impacting our recall, our mood stability, or just kind of making you feel a bit off polyphenols like quercetin, curcumin, and resveratrol not only mop up free radicals, they help your body make more of its own antioxidant defense systems. Compounds like sulforaphane activate glutathione. The body's master internally sourced antioxidants and they protect our neurons from oxidative degradation before symptoms show up. The anti-inflammatory effects of a high produce diet reduces chronic inflammation that ends up contributing to cognitive decline. It also regulates inflammatory signals through these pathways called NF kappa B and Nerf two. So I wanna talk a little bit about these. NF kappa B is nuclear factor capite chain enhancer of activated B cells, which is way too much to say multiple times, and that's why we call it NF kappa B. This is your brain's inflammation switch if it gets flipped too often due to due to poor diet, stress, or aging, it ramps up production of pro-inflammatory cytokines like TNF Alpha or interleukin six, and chronic persistent activation of NF kappa B is linked to everything from anxiety disorders to Alzheimer's disease. It can have a really profound impact on our brain through that chronic level of inflammation and those inflammatory cytokines that are just always lingering wreaking havoc within the brain. And that's where Nerf two comes in. Nerf two is part of your cellular cleanup crew. It turns on genes that help you detoxify, reduce oxidative stress and repair existing damage. Nerf two is anti-inflammatory in the best way. It helps restore your body's own defenses rather than simply suppressing the inflammation. Like taking aspirin would compounds like sulforaphane, EGCG, which you'll find in green tea, and those anthocyanins and blueberries and purple cabbage help downregulate and NF kappa B and upregulate Nerf two. So it reduces the inflammation switch and. Turns up the volume on the cleanup crew effectively calming, inflammatory fire, and boosting the repair team in the body and the brain. The goal at the end of the day, is not zero inflammation. We want inflammation to take care of things like bacteria and viruses and injuries. It's an essential part of that system. But what we want is a balanced, responsive, adaptive inflammatory system, not one that turns on the flame and walks out of the room to let it burn. We wanna be able to know when to sound the alarm and when to shut it off. Veggies also enhance our cerebral blood flow. They improve the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the brain, right? Blood flow is everything because remember, your brain doesn't store energy. It needs that constant supply of oxygen and glucose to function. So if blood flow drops, so does your cognitive clarity. Over time, our vessel walls will stiffen, nitric oxide production declines, and the ability to deliver nutrient rich blood to key areas like the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus suffers, causing difficulty in making decisions. Difficulty in establishing memory and increased mental fatigue are nitrate rich vegetables like beets, arugula, and spinach, naturally boost nitric oxide production. This helps blood vessels relax. It improves circulation to the brain, to the heart, to other organs in the body, and that's exactly what we need and what we want. Vegetables also support neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to adapt, to rewire and grow. It's what helps you learn new things, recover from emotional setbacks, and build new habits even in your sixties and your seventies. But neuroplasticity takes work and it takes a lot of fuel. Having chronic inflammation, poor circulation and nutrient deficiencies will all get in the way. So one of the things that many of my clients have talked about over the years who have family members or loved ones experiencing cognitive decline is they'll talk about, you know, in hindsight, they see that the adaptability of their loved one. Became more diminished. They get a little bit more stuck, more rigid as they age. And people who previously were very curious, very exploratory, always willing to try new things like that, curiosity. And that verve started to dim a little bit, and it really isn't until a couple of decades later that they could look back and say, oh yeah, that was kind of really where it started. So when we're struggling with neuroplasticity, it makes learning anything. Really difficult and over time, impossible, right? So many people who feel stuck or they're forgetful, they're really struggling to integrate new information or who become mentally rigid as they age, it may be a sign of that diminished neuroplasticity. Now, of course, there's personality types that are mentally rigid for ever and ever, right? Or people who have a tendency to just get stuck in a certain pattern. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about individuals who weren't like this before, and then at some point in time around or after midlife started to change, right? Like seeing these personality changes happen before it becomes a very overt, clear case of cognitive decline. Flavonoids and Carotinoids help support brain derived neurotropic factor also known as BDNF. And this protein acts like miracle grow for your neurons. It also reduces the oxidative damage that blocks synaptic growth. Like we used to think that the brain was only malleable and adaptable and grew in childhood, but now we know that the brain can grow new neurons and adapt throughout the entire lifespan, but only if we take care of it. Neuroplasticity is not limited to children, nor is it something that we can take for granted. It's something that we're born with that we start off having a lot of, but unless we take care of our brain, we will definitely lose that ability as we age. Vegetables and fruits also support the blood brain barrier. Your blood brain barrier is like security detail for your central nervous system. It decides who gets in the brain and who stays the hell out. When it's working well, it'll keep toxins, pathogens, and excess inflammatory molecules in check. But if it's compromised, if it's a little bit loose, if there are gaping holes in it, which is probably hyperbolic and not literal, garbage gets through. The blood brain barrier can be compromised through aging, through high levels of stress or chronic stress, through blood sugar swings as well as chronic inflammation, and your neurons ultimately will pay the price if your blood brain barrier is not in tiptop shape. And this is where our anthocyanins and flavanols come in because they help maintain the structural integrity of the blood brainin barrier by reinforcing the tight junction proteins that hold it together. Tight junction proteins are also found in the gut, and we've heard of the term leaky gut at this point. I'm assuming you all have heard of that term, leaky gut. We can also have leaky brain, and that's when that blood brain barrier gets a little bit loose right? Those tight junction proteins aren't as tight and don't work as well. Just like what happens in the gut. Now when we have a nice, tight. Intact blood brain barrier, fewer inflammatory chemicals come through and the blood brain barrier is much better able to control what gets into the brain, which ultimately means less mess for your microglia to clean up. And if your microglia isn't consistently and chronically agitated because of inflammatory stuff getting through the brain, then it's not gonna get out of control. Right? So you can see how there can be this cascade of negative impact that can happen from not keeping these plant compounds, these antioxidant, phytochemical rich plants in the diet to help preserve all aspects of your brain. The cliche eat the rainbow is the simplest way to get those compounds that I mentioned and several more that I've not. When you're thinking of the rainbow, think of purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, but also white. So have some nice little poofy clouds at the bottom of your rainbow, so that white quercetin rich and sulfur compound foods like onions, garlic, cauliflowers, mushrooms also get onto your plate. Okay, so I have made this case that vegetables are essential biochemical support for your brain. But the real problem isn't knowing this information or not knowing this information. The real problem is actually doing what needs to be done, getting those vegetables on your plate in your real life with your real schedule and maybe real burnout and maybe a real hatred of kale. So let's look into what brain supportive vegetable intake actually looks like and how to make it work without turning your kitchen into like some kind of food prep monastery. The first thing that I want you to do is forget about trying to get every single color every day. That is crazy talk. No one's got time for that. Instead, what I want you to think of is diversity across the week, not this perfect Pinterest plate on Tuesday. Think of your dark leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard as your vascular insurance. They contain magnesium and potassium, and those nitrates that don't just lower your blood pressure, they prevent the kind of vascular damage that shows up later as memory loss. So they should be a part of your diet every day. If you are aiming for maximal protection, put something green in your mouth every single day. You also wanna really hunt down those dark purple and deep red vegetables and fruits, add berries to your morning yogurt, throw some frozen blueberries in your smoothies and your set. I basically have a rule. If I'm at the grocery store and I see something that has anthocyanins in it, whether it's purple carrots, uh, purple cauliflower has come up, which is super fricking cool. Um, purple cabbage berries, I put it in my cart. Purple is, for me anyway, one of the hardest, hardest to find with regards to variety and diversity in the grocery store. So when I see it, I grab it, and then if it's in the house, I'm gonna eat it. One thing that you can do is find a list of rain rainbow produce examples online. You can print one out, highlight the veggies that are the easiest to get your hands on at least one, but ideally more from each category, and then include those vegetables and fruits in your weekly shopping list, and that way you'll easily cover your base and you'll get that diversity across the week. That's what we're really looking for, is making sure that all of the colors show up over the course of the week. So over seven days, you could get your blues and your purples from blackberries, purple cabbage, eggplant, those green leafy veggies, right spinach, kale, charred, arugula, watercress, broccoli is awesome. Reds from tomatoes, cio, red skinned apples. Watermelon, oranges and yellows are gonna contain carotinoids. So carrots, squash, yellow peppers. But carotinoids are also found in the greens, and it isn't something that we really think about unless you have aging greens that are starting to turn a little yellow. And that's kind of like when the carotinoids start to show through because some of the chlorophyll has died out.. And then we've got our whites. Our white is cauliflower, bok choy, onions, mushrooms, turnips, radishes. Have a white interior and a red outside that counts as two colors. Folks, that's a two in one. It's a freebie, as are all of the other white fleshed fruits and vegetables that have a colorful skin. So take a look through your grocery store. With your list of colors and just grab something from each of the color categories and use that to incorporate into your meals and snacks throughout the week. Now we also wanna think about quantity, right? And Incorporating vegetables as a foundational structure in your meal. So here's how to think about this. Add frozen spinach to your smoothies or kale to your eggs, or a breakfast bowl. You can toss berries into yogurt or a smoothie that you'll actually drink. For lunch, you can use greens as a bed for your poke bowl if you're dining out, instead of using rice as the base, use greens and then add a little bit of rice on top. You wanna think about vegetables. As the bed, not the garnish. You can also throw leftover roasted veggies into wraps, into soups. Another thing I like to do is use bolognese with a mix of 50% broccoli and 50% pasta instead of all pasta. Bolognese works really well with roasted or steamed broccoli. Uh, zucchini is wonderful as well with bolognese and thinly sliced cabbage. Works pretty well as well, so think about using veggies as the base and grains as the garnish. When it comes to dinner, go for volume. For most of us, this is our largest meal. It's also one that's most likely to be homemade or include vegetables, so roasted broccoli, spiced carrots, sauteed cabbage. Aim for one to two fist size servings of cooked vegetables rather than the few token scrawny Spears of asparagus that is modeled to you by the restaurant industry. I think one of the reasons why we struggle to get enough produce is because we're not really modeled adequate amounts of produce. What we get in restaurants is, you know, just kind of at most one half cup serving, if we're lucky, unless you order a salad, right? So think about at least doubling what you would get in a restaurant and then you're off to a good start. If you can four x that and get effectively two cups of cooked veggies, then you get four servings in one meal, which really goes a long, long way to maximizing the benefits that you can get from produce. Now when it comes to vegetable prep, I'm not asking you to fill your shopping cart full of produce and then come home and spend four or five hours chopping and prepping like some kind of Instagram influencer. Like that is totally not what this is about. And I've, it's funny, I've had so many clients over the years think that healthy eating means always going to the farmer's market, only getting organic spending all fucking weekend chopping and prepping, and then they expect themselves to do this every weekend for the rest of their life, and think that they have a willpower problem because it's not working. No, no, no. The real, the expectations are simply not realistic. FI love farmer's markets. Don't get me wrong. The produce is glorious there, but it's often cost prohibitive for a lot of people, or their farmer's Markets are seasonal and not year round, depending on where you live. So that is not a very realistic or sustainable way for most people to get their produce. Additionally, very, very few of us have the time or the desire to spend all weekend in the kitchen, chopping and prepping and roasting and steaming, and all of the other stuff that needs to be done to make the work week workable So let go of the expectation that that's what this needs to look like, because it 100% does not, absolutely does not need to look like that and should not look like that unless that's something that you actually enjoy, that really works for you. Ultimately, just focus on lowering the friction between you and having your next meal at the ready that includes veggies. So what the, what can this look like? Make the most out of technology? Guys, we have freezers, we have frozen veggies. They are so much easier to work with. They don't go bad. You don't forget them in the back of the fridge and then come up with this like nasty ass gooey gray stuff a month or two later, make the most of frozen veggies. Throw'em in soups, throw'em in, stir fries, throw'em in smoothies. Frozen spinach, riced, cauliflower. Those work great in smoothies, zucchini, carrots also work wonderfully in smoothies. Frozen green beans are very rich in several antioxidants and folate, which is awesome. They're readily available, frozen. Throw'em in everything because they're tasty. Additionally make the most out of the pre-cut packaged fresh produce that's at your grocery store. Those broccoli florets, the cauliflower florets, baby carrots, baby bell peppers. We have so much more variety and so much more access now then we did 15, 20 years ago, and there's no shame in taking the shortcut, like take the shortcut. Thank goodness for the shortcut. And let go of the guilt. Like you don't need that. Nobody needs that. It serves no purpose. All it's doing is getting in the way of you getting your veggies. And all I want you to do, guys, all I want you to do, let's get some more veggies. Get some veggies with the protein, get some veggies with the proteins. Take all the shortcuts that you need to make it happen. And take the win. A high produce diet is so freaking you will feel, you'll feel so great. You'll protect your brain. You'll protect your heart. I'm on a soapbox. Someone needs to push me off'cause I'm a little bit outta control. So let me just wrap this up here. Brain health isn't made with memory games and crossword puzzles. Okay? It's about maintaining nutrient rich, ample blood flow to the brain. It's about calming inflammation and keeping that in check. It's about building cellular resilience and vegetables. Touch on every single one of those systems. This is the long game, okay? Now, if you've made it this far, you already know this episode is not about guilt tripping anybody into kale conversion. It's not what I'm about. It's really about having a deeper understanding of what your brain needs to age well and how freaking awesome colorful nutrient rich vegetables are in supporting all of the systems that keep it functional. So here's what I want you to walk away with today. Know that the brain just doesn't decline. It is responding. It's responding to food, it's responding to movement or lack thereof. It's responding to blood flow or lack thereof. It's responding to inflammation signals. Vegetables are able to modulate and change the language to support the brain into responding differently. Then perhaps your parents or grandparents' brains have responded. And color matters. Color is the other big takeaway. Color is chemistry. Polyphenols, carotinoids, flavonoids, right? All of these work across your entire body systems. I've only talked about the brain today, but they work throughout the entire body to reduce damage, improve our energy, and regulate inflammation. The other thing is you do not, you do not need to overhaul your life. Just start feeding your body what it relies on to stay well. Do it a bit at a time, the easiest way possible. And so let's actually, let's do one thing this week I want you to do one thing. I want you to audit your color. That's all you're gonna do this week. Look at your meals. Not to judge them, just observe. You are a curious observer. You are a culinary anthropologist, exploring the culinary habits of yourself, okay? And ask yourself, where's my purple? Where's my green? Are there any crucifer here? And then after the week is over, kind of assess. Pick one thing to add. Maybe you're gonna focus on crucifer. Maybe you're kind of excited about anthocyanins and you're gonna up your Blackberry game or get some red cabbage. But just pick one thing to add and build from there. Your future brain will thank you. Now, if you're realizing that, yeah, I know what I should be doing, but. I'm really struggling to do it. I've been struggling to do it for a long time. It's not failure, okay? I don't want you to take that as failure. It's ultimately, it's gonna be a systems problem. Setting the systems in place to make this easier isn't always intuitive, and that's where coaching and practitioner support come in. If you're ready for that level of help, you know where to find me. You can find a link in the show notes to reach out to me. You'll also find a link to my substack where you can get all of the research that went into producing this episode. If you wanna dig into the gold yourself. Next week, I'm gonna be talking about CGMs, the hottest trend of the year when it comes to biohacking and my personal take on the matter. But until then, stay salty, stay curious, and I will see you next time. If you have found some nuggets of wisdom, make sure to subscribe, rate and share blasphemous nutrition with those you care about as you navigate the labyrinth of health advice out there. Remember, health is a journey, not a dietary dictatorship. Stay skeptical, stay daring, and challenge the norms that no longer serve you. If you've got burning questions or wanna share your own flavor of rebellion, slide into my dms. Your stories fuel me, and I love hearing them. Thanks again for tuning into Blasphemous Nutrition. Until next time, this is Aimee signing off, reminding you that truth is nuanced and any dish can be made better with a little bit of sass.