Power Foods for the Brain: An Effective 3-Step Plan to Protect Your Mind and Strengthen Your Memory Paperback – February 25, 2014

This is solid, usable, reasonable advice to achieve some important and specific goals, mainly maintaining your brain health as you age. This book discusses Alzheimer's, but also includes a discussion of how to avoid or reverse general cognitive decline and function so you can boost your memory and recall in just a few weeks. The information in the book is science based, well presented, and a pleasant and easy read. Dr. Barnard has a wonderful sense of humor and is able to explain complex subjects clearly without talking down to his reader.My mother had a stroke a few years ago. When she was recovering, she said her greatest fear was not the possible loss of mobility or discomfort/pain, but the possibility that she might lose her ability to read and work with knitting patterns.Last year I discovered Dr Barnard's other work and my mother and I went on the diet he outlines in his book 21-Day Kickstart Weight Loss 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health. I wrote a review of that here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R38EXNJ7X5IP63/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_1That diet worked miracles for our health simply by changing our diet. This book will help us extend the benefits of that lifestyle to work miracles for our brain health by showing us what to eat and what to avoid.Dr. Barnard writes in Power Foods about where brain toxins are found in our diet (interestingly, some of the toxins aren't necessarily things to avoid, but things that are a problem if we ingest either too much or too little, or even the wrong form of, for example, some metals). Dr. Barnard writes that just adding an ounce a day of seeds or nuts (for the proper form of vitamin E) will help reduce the risk of Alzheimers by 70%. Add berries, apples, pears, grapes, green leafy vegetables, and beans to your diet. Certainly things we can all do easily! Also, get rid of saturated fats. We all know we need to to this for heart health, and we need to do it for brain health as well.The book also describes brain exercises as well as the benefits of physical exercise and gives some specific things to do. Just a half hour three times a week can make a huge difference.And, very importantly for many of our aging population, what medications can be causing severe damage to our cognition. We found this to be true for my mother. We were able to get her off of her statins from adopting the 21-Day Kickstart diet, and that made a tremendous difference in her ability to think clearly and get rid of the "brain fog" that was following her around like the proverbial dark cloud. We have already made a lot of the changes he suggests in this book, but we are learning some new information to incorporate into our lifestyle, so I would recommend this book even for those who have read other of Dr. Barnard's books.Finding the root cause of cognitive problems can be quite a riddle to solve. I know it has been with my mother. In this book, Dr. Barnard walks you through the variety of things that can be a problem. One of the important things he noted is that not only can medications impact mental function, and the problems can add up as you add more medications. As we discovered in my family, the doctors did not even consider this while medicating my mother, and we had to do the detective work on medications ourselves. Some of the biggest culprits include sleep medications, statins (cholesterol lowering drugs), anti depressants, allergy meds/antihistamines, anxiety medications, pain killers, blood pressure medications, and antacids. Some of these you can just trade out for another kind, but others you really need to see a doctor about and have it managed properly. Dr. Barnard discusses this and tells you how to address the subject with your doctor. We also called our pharmacist and asked him to take a look at what my mother was taking before we saw the doctor so that we arrived to the appointment as informed as possible.In addition to medications, Dr Barnard discusses problems that can arise from other areas, such as food intolerances, depression, menopause (this was a big one for me!), thyroid problems, infections, migraines, cancer treatments, diabetes, and more.There are about 75 recipes in the book. I haven't tried them yet, but they are by the same chef who created the recipes in the Kickstart book, so I expect these to be equally easy to make and quite tasty. Examples of breakfasts include blueberry buckwheat pancakes with veggie sausage and cantaloupe; waffles with maple "bacon;" and breakfast wraps. Examples of lunches include veggie falafel with pita bread and a garden salad; easy colorful pasta salad over mixed greens; English muffin pizza; and a Tuscan wrap. Examples of dinners include red lentil soup with brown rice salad and steamed spinach, tacos with potatoes, swiss chard, and pinto beans with a spinach salad and mashed sweet potato; white bean chili with red rice, steamed spinach, and banana ice cream; and baked ziti with a rainbow salad and strawberry dressing, and warm apple cherry compote. The recipes seem very simple to make without an excessive amount of ingredients or anything excessively costly.I'd like to briefly address the criticism of Dr Barnard's plan that it can be too restrictive or drastic. It may seem that way with an initial look, but to me, loss of brain function and the prospect of losing mobility, cognition, emotions, and the toll that cognitive degeneration can cause on our families are what's really restrictive and drastic. Being bedridden or institutionalized for our later years is restrictive and drastic. Not remembering our children or being able to experience (or even remember) normal emotions is restrictive and drastic. And in light of those very real and unfortunately not uncommon possibilities, Dr Barnard's suggestions are neither restrictive or drastic.Speaking as part of a family that started to make some of these changes about a year ago, they aren't initially easy (it can definitely be hard to give up some of the food we have gotten used to), but if you work at it a little bit at a time and just keep trying, it becomes easier and easier as time goes by (the book has a special section to help deal with food cravings and why we have them). It took way less than a year for our taste buds to change and for this way of life to become not only easy for us, but enjoyable.This book adds to the vast amount of information already out there on the benefits of plant-based diets and is suitable for those who already consider themselves well-read on the subject--there is, of course, some information you will have already heard, but there is more information that is new and important and not available from other mainstream sources.Thank you for reading my review. This is an important topic and I know it's hard for some people to think about some of the changes Dr. Barnard suggests. But it's very do-able.

This book is the best I have ever read on the subject of eating right. I got the Kindle version so I also have the X-way function. This gives background information on parts of the book that many readers may not know and page numbers where the subject is in the book for easily review. What a great way to enhance such a great book!I'm a senior citizen, 74, and have been slowly improving my food choices for more than twenty years. With all the fairly recent discoveries of the benefits of certain foods, and the harmfulness of others, I have still made some mistakes. And even while I really was benefiting from my improvements. I had reasoned, for example, that fish high in Omega 3's was something to eat a lot of - along with supplemental fish oil capsules. Result, I have to take a med to control high blood pressure. This is not a complaint. I'm otherwise in good health. I'd be already dead if I hadn't made the diet and exercise corrections that I did make.But,none the less, I should have known better. Long before retirement I worked in the laboratory of a 7th Day Adventist Hospital. They touted the benefits of a vegetarian diet. The Chief of Surgery was in his 80's. I was privileged to attend the weekly physicians meetings that provided a banquet of delicious vegetarian dishes. Many of these meetings involved differences in certain kinds of cancers between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. I also saw a report on television - American groups that lived longest - yes, 7th Day Adventists vegetarians.After reading Dr. Barnard's book, Power Foods . . . I think I'll make another try for perfection. I can't argue with his credentials, the facts he presents, or the clear and stepwise method. His 3-step plan seems simple enough and I think sufficient. The recipe section of the book will help. I've already adjusted my exercise for better safety and for better coverage of my whole exercise needs.One of the great parts of this book discusses mental/chemical causes for obesity and addictions. For the first time I feel comfortable with my own understanding this process. Dr. Barnard writes clearly, simply, and does not confuse the reader with too much information. For me, this part may be the most important part. Now I have a better understanding of the central problem and can better control myself and my appetite.Of course this book isn't just for seniors. I recommend it for everyone - everyone who wants to live long, stay in good health as long as possible, and (as a bonus) always be in control of their lives.

This book is like a good guide to choose food, and to keep the health, and enjoy different kind of my favorite food.