Moods and Foods – The Unequivocal Connection

When we focus on emotional wellbeing there are many facets we need to take into account. The list includes: the food we eat, the amount we sleep, the quality of our social contacts, the traumatic events we have experienced, our level of resilience, and our genetic predispositions. It’s not one thing alone. A mentally healthy person can be pushed beyond their capabilities and develop a mental illness. For these reasons alone mental illness needs to stop being taboo and instead viewed as an illness like any other.  We wouldn’t say a cardiac patient is feeling sorry for themselves and yet we do for a depressed patient. It doesn’t make sense. 

Depression is not a new phenomenon. In fact, King Saul was reported as being depressed and a musician was brought in to cheer him up. While music can have a profound effect on our mood, we must not dismiss the connection between the foods we eat and the fact that we can actually use food to prevent depression. A significant piece of the mental health “pie” that we can control, is the foods we ingest.  

Food serves more than just to give us pleasure – food is our fuel. Just like there are different octane gasses, and perhaps even variables in the quality of different brands of fuel which can affect a vehicle’s performance, the food we consume affects the way we think and feel. Just as it is critically important to use the best fuel for our vehicle, we must learn to recognize our individual responses to food, and choose the best fuel for our own body. When we don’t eat, our brain is deprived of its nourishment, specifically, glucose. Glucose is the simplest sugar and it is the battery of the brain. The brain doesn’t need a great deal of it but this is the nutrient needed there. So the obvious question is why not eat more? In deference to Maimonidies, everything needs to be in the proper amount. Extremes are catastrophic. The body requires something akin to 60mg of sugar a day to function. Too much sugar and the delicate brain becomes overloaded and we respond differently to stimuli. It can be a response similar to even being drunk. The body is also built to protect us. If we ingest too much sugar, the excess sugar in our blood stream can cause harm to blood vessels and organs. A built-in fail-safe kicks in and the excess sugar is stored as fat for use when there isn’t enough energy to fuel our body (like in times of famine). 

The best way to prevent short-circuiting the brain with excess sugar is by eating complex vs. simple carbohydrates as our choice source of glucose. Simple sugars (think: all processed sugar including brown, honey, pasta, most breads, many fruits) are quickly digested with very little effort needed from the internal

workings of the body.  Since they are processed quickly it’s like the body gets a burst of sugar all at once.  That causes fatigue, “brain fog” or cloudy thinking, sluggishness, and lower levels of effectiveness. It also can produce headaches and mood swings. Not everyone may be as sensitive to the internal changes in the body. For some it may cause a minor buzz while others may not be able to function as a result. But skipping meals can be just as destructive. The foods we eat help fuel us. They allow our bodies to produce the chemicals they need to function optimally. Without regular eating the body can’t make hormones or even neurotransmitters such as serotonin. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that the nervous system uses to transmit messages all through the body.  They signal the heart to beat, the lungs to inhale and exhale, and they are important in regulating our emotions and moods.

For decades, depression has been treated by increasing one neurotransmitter in the body or another. The most widely known one is Prozac. Prozac increases the amount of serotonin in the body and therefore improves the mood. But there are other ways to increase your neurotransmitters. Sometimes changing our diet can do it. A significant number of clinical studies have proven that the gut bacteria in depressed people is very different than in those who are not depressed. A lower variety of probiotics (sometimes only one!) has been identified in depressed versus non depressed people.  One study infected healthy mice with just this lowered variety of probiotics and the healthy mice started acting listless and depressed! The cumulative amount of scientific data on the subject is so enormous that an entire field of treatment and evaluation has developed based on examining the flora in our digestive tracts, as well as the bowel! Therapies have developed in the past eight years on treating patients with obesity and certain mental illnesses with flora transplants. An easier way to start or prevent the need for such therapies is to incorporate foods into your diet that will increase your flora.  What foods would increase your probiotics? Tempeh, miso, sauerkraut, kimchi, and cheddar cheese are some options. Once you increase or even supplement probiotic intake, you need to give the body the prebiotics to properly digest and absorb the probiotics: beans, bananas, oats, garlic, onions are all examples of foods that will do the job. Just to add, sugar and processed foods have been attributed to harming flora.   

The Western diet is overloaded with unhealthy fats. Some scientists are of the opinion that this is also the cause of the excessive amount of depression in society. A six-year study that tracked 12,059 university graduates proved that