Eating for a Better Brain

http://www.everydayhealth.com/digestive-health/how-gut-microbes-change-the-brain.aspx?xid=fb_EH_sf

The Smoothie Test

This is my first proper smoothie. By proper, I mean I actually spent time on it. It's genius. I mean, it's so genius that it had me sqeaking in excitement. It made two whole glasses worth! What a reward for all that hard work chopping one apple, a few strawberries, shoving lots of frozen fruit in a jug, and hitting the stir button on the food chopper. It's not my recipe: it's from 'Superjuice: Juicing for Health and Happiness,' by Michael van Straten. I added two mint leaves, because I thought it looked cool. But does Rusty like it?

Here it is: the yummy looking smoothie in a glass.

Here he comes. I think that's a sniff. I think that's a definite like!

And why wouldn't he?

It's just yum. And it passed the test!

Recipe:

• The recipe called for one cooking apple, but there just happened to be a Pink Lady apple sitting in the fridge, so I stole that.
• I couldn't find a scale (I know, I know: how do I live my kitchen days?) so I just took some leftover strawberries, some frozen mixed fruit, removing the blackberries, and some frozen mango (the recipe called for one whole mango, but I was all out), and some pineapple from a tin. The amount fit into a 1 litre measuring jug (right)
• I tipped half into a plastic bowl and used the food mixer. Then I poured this amount back in and mixed it all at once. This way it all fit. The final amount made just under 1 litre, or 2 tall glasses.

Symptoms

If you're stuck with any of the following moans and groans or symptoms, this health blog may be a place to check in every once and a while: 

• regurgitation (not sick or acid reflux)
• having to eat little and often
• ensuring there are enough vitamins and nutrients in your diet
• motility conditions - in which you absorb foods at weird rates and can't take meals which have a large variety of ingredients in them, particularly if liquids are combined with solids.
• prepandrial bradygastria (my condition) or rhythmic disorders of the gut/stomach 

IBS and other bowl conditions may also share some - but not all - symptoms. 

My theory is that for those of us with these conditions/symptoms, there is no single cure, and thus no single theory of how to deal with it. Along with my own experimenting, I will be referring to some theories and books - the paleo diet, the hay diet and general food combining, and others - but I will be taking out bits from each one, and finding something which works for people who need the easily digestible foods on the paleo diet, but who also need easily accessible foods (i.e. from a supermarket) which are also affordable and do not fill up a fridge or a cupboard. 

The aim is always to find the ultimate 'perfect' diet which doesn't budge no matter how hard it's nudged. In reality though, this 'perfect' diet may need to change, or be redrawn, year on year due to a change in routine, activity level, the notorious 'H' for hormone, or even the weather which influences Vitamin D levels and, y'know, whether you want a hot drink or a cold one. The real aim then, most only be to find the most easily adaptable diet, or to understand your body/stomach well enough to know what you need and what you simply can't take.