Can Nutrition Impact Learning?
January 23, 2010 by Geoff Nixon
We are big believers in the connection between nutrition and learning. Nutrition can alleviate, although not likely eliminate learning difficulties. We are a big fan of nutritionist, Nancy Guberti, who has spoken at Gemm sponsored seminars about sugar and will be speaking again in early March. For more on how sugar impacts learning click here.
Our friends at Scientific Learning recently sent out a note about “health literacy” — an intriguing concept — and alerted us to an interesting website that integrates the various food groups and brain function connection nutrition and learning. Here’s an excerpt:
The “Brainiac Blue Plate Combo”—the ultimate brain-health meal.
Start with two slices of whole-grain bread for carbohydrates; these will get converted into glucose to power the brain’s electrical activity. (Did you know that the brain uses about 20% of our total energy every day?) To that, we might add some lean turkey, roast beef and tuna fish (mmmm!) to supply the proteins and fats that make up the basic building blocks of our neural tissues. Then, we could top it all off with a light smattering of cheese and serve it with a side of roasted potatoes and a banana to give it the perfect zinging balance of neurotransmitters, from aspartic acid to tyrosine.
For more great facts and information on neuroscience and nutrition for kids, check out Dr. Eric H. Chudler’s site, Nutrition and the Brain at http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nutr.html.