44 Anti-Brainpower Foods

Before you upgrade your brainpower with Nootropics or some fancy biohacking tech there's some very low-hanging fruit - cutting out the anti-brainpower foods.

Foods that clog arteries naturally reduce blood flow to the brain. Foods with higher glycemic indexes can cause harmful blood-sugar swings that steal energy from your brain. Foods bad for the development and health of your brain often contain...

• High levels of refined sugar
• White flour
• Trans fat
• Polyunsaturated or hydrogenated fats
• Toxic preservatives and heavy metals
• Food additives like monosodium glutamate (MSG) and tartrazine

They are also usually lacking in...

• Proteins
• Fiber
• Vitamins and nutrients
• Healthy fats

In moderation

Refined flour products - Wheat with all the goodness stripped out of it and pounded into a powder that is used by the food industry to make a variety of products. Refined flour products are high in sugars that clog the bloodstream - over time decreasing the healthy flow of blood to the brain. Just say "No!" to...

• White bread (pizza, breadsticks, pretzels, bagels, burger, and hot dog buns, etc. - along with pastries, flans, and pies)
• White pastas (including the green vegetable variety)
• Cakes
• Biscuits
• Cookies

Table sugar or honey - These are okay if used sparingly, but they lack vitamins and minerals. Raw organic honey tastes great and has different health benefits but limit yourself to a few teaspoons daily

Simple carbohydrates – Pretty much all simple carbohydrates have the potential to cause wild, uncontrollable shifts in the effective processing of your food by the brain. Overindulgence of simple carbohydrates also risks insulin and blood sugar issues that can cause diabetes. Simple carbohydrates include...

• Processed flour products
• Sugary foods
• Crackers
• Breakfast cereals.

Beer – One could debate that we put in the effort to live limitlessly so we can enjoy things like beer guiltlessly. Nonetheless, beer does nothing good for the mind or body so it should be enjoyed in moderation. For the elite biohacking beer drinkers out there, you'll want to start drinking Groot or Gruit beer. The vast majority of the tasty beers that you can find refrigerated in a liquor store near you are made from fermented hops, as Mark Sloan explains in the video below, hops have a concerning estrogenic effect. Contrary to the message of millions of beer ads you've seen, beer, hormonally, makes you less manly.

Wheat products – For those seeking a limitless mind and body there is no reason to eat bread, pasta, or cereal.

Completely Avoid

Artificial flavorings, artificial sweeteners, and artificial colorings - Try your best to skip eating substances that contain "artificial" ingredients. Any food with artificial sweeteners, artificial flavorings, or artificial coloring is a problem for the health of your brain. These are even worse for the minds of younger children - from the book, Food Forensics...

Seeing a rise in the prevalence of disease and behavioral problems in children coinciding with the advent of numerous artificial additives first available on the consumer market in the 1960s, Feingold focused his research on the growing intake of processed food additives and their increasingly adverse effects on mental and physical health.

the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center recommended a detailed artificial additive elimination diet for treatment of these issues, which worked for other allergens, too. Feingold successfully treated some six hundred children with this method, and found even greater effectiveness after also eliminating the synthetic antioxidant additives butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)...

Toronto researchers tested Dr. Feingold’s theories on diet with twenty-six hyperactive children, validating much of his treatment.

Corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup - Which raise triglycerides.

Hydrogenated and trans fats – A substance that is absolutely terrible for your body and mind! Hydrogenated fats clog arteries and cause heart disease in the long term. Foods containing hydrogenated fats...

• Spreads and margarine – These are nasty processed "franken-foods" that you don't want in your body. Butter is awesome; a natural source of healthy fat, as long as it's organic - the Mercedez-Benz of butter is Kerrygold Irish grass-fed butter.
• Packaged foods - Cake mixes, Bisquick, and other mixes.
• Soups - Ramen noodles and soup cups.
• Frozen food - Tasty frozen pies, waffles, pot pies, pizzas, and breaded fish sticks that contain trans fat.
• Fast food - Is bad news! Fries, chicken, and other foods are deep-fried in partially hydrogenated oil.
• Baked goods - Are even worse news! More trans fats are used in commercially baked goods than any other category of foods. Avoid: Doughnuts, cookies, and cakes.
• Chips and crackers – Check the nutrition facts of chips and crackers for trans fat. Potato chips are loaded with trans fat and should be completely avoided.
• Cookies and candy – Look at the labels for fat content. Nutty chocolate bars and cookies will have more trans fat. If you must have chocolate, enjoy dark chocolate -- since it's been shown to have redeeming heart-healthy virtues.
• Toppings and dips - Non-dairy creamers and flavored coffees along with whipped toppings, bean dips, gravy mixes, and salad dressings which contain lots of trans fat.

How to avoid hydrogenated fats

• Avoid hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated (cottonseed, canola, soybean, sunflower, and other PUFA oils).
• Look to see if the hydrogenated oil is in the first 3-4 ingredients. If it is, this generally means there is a lot of it in the product and you will want to avoid it.
• Look for trans fat on the nutrition label.

Ultimately it's next to impossible to completely remove trans fats from your diet, but minimizing your intake of this fat will make you all the more Limitless.

Nutrition common sense: It's advised to generally avoid putting things in your body that cause the high/crash effect. If you eat something that skyrockets your blood sugar and energy levels for an hour or two and then you fall into a low-energy lull (that the clever marketers of energy drinks that capitalize on - 5-Hour Energy anyone?) it's a sure sign that it's not good for your mind or body.

Cooking techniques - The good, the bad, and the cancerous

Ideally, the limitless way to consume food is to eat it raw. Raw meats, fruits, and vegetables retain the highest amounts of nutrients. However, very few people are willing to make a lifestyle change to eating raw food all the time. The important thing to keep in mind is that when cooking, less is more, the less cooked your food is the more good stuff it retains.

Steaming is the recommended way to cook to maintain the maximum nutritional value. For fruits and vegetables make sure to eat the skin because that is where the nutrients are. The most simple way to steam is to place your plate with the food in a larger pot that is partially filled with water, then cover both so that the steam is contained once you place the larger pot on the heating elements. Or buy a steamer.

Grilling burns the excess fat off your meat and is actually a good way to cook meat if done correctly...

• Grill on lower heat.
• As you can imagine the more rarely grilled your meat is the more nutrients it has.
• Overcooking or charring your meat is very bad for you as it causes hetero-cyclical amino acids that can cause cancer.
• Marinate your meat before cooking, this blocks about 90% of the cancer-causing agents.

Frying, cooking, and microwaving your food will strip nutrients from it.

As I've become more educated about the catastrophic levels of toxins in food, I become less judgmental of my fellow Americans who are stupid and/or fat because it's hard to avoid toxin-rife food and products there in America.

You need to be discerning, selective, and educated about what you consume in America because all those nasty toxins cause obesity and knock your IQ down. One of the best books about this is Food Forensics by Mike Adams, check out my book review here...

Food Forensics

 

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