I spend a lot of time in neurology world these days. My son has more neuro-related diagnoses than I have fingers (yes, literally), and we are always looking for anything can make his - and our - life even a little better.
What Max Lugavere and Paul Grewal provide in Genius Foods is a clear and concise guide to how different foods affect the brain and how to maximize diet for the best neurological outcomes. They basically start with the ketogenic diet (a bear of a regimen, and I bow down to those with medication-resistant disorders for whom it's the only way of managing seizures, for example), and then build it into a more manageable plan that most anyone can aspire to. It is, admittedly, aspirational: even with my son's conditions, I don't see us ever going full-on Genius Plan, and we're more highly motivated than most in this area.
That said, there are plenty of key takeaways that make this a valuable read for anyone looking to improve brain health. The first and most obvious are to minimize sugar and carbohydrates. Beyond that, we should all be eating more avocados, eggs, olive oil (extra virgin, please), and coconut (oil and fruit) than we are. The coconut oil test, the results of which were published in a medical journal, were particularly impressive. You better believe my little mister is going to be getting a daily helping of coconut oil from now on. (I mixed it into his oatmeal this morning...like I said, we're not ever going to be exclusive Genius Plan people.)
Genius Foods is also a good reminder of the things that are food and the things that we pretend are food. In that sense, it's a cross between The Food of a Younger Land and Salt, Sugar, Fat. As with those, I dare you to read this and not make any changes to your diet.
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