Brain Food: Blueberries

Despite the delicious taste, there are several other benefits to eating blueberries. Dr. James Joseph is a lead scientist in the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. His focus is researching what we should eat to keep our brains functioning full throttle as we age.

Typically rats show the same kind of decrease in performance as humans do around middle age. In one of Dr. Joseph’s experiments, he feed the lab animals extracts of blueberries. He found that there were no signs of any loss in coordination, balance or intelligence with these rats.

Blueberries contain compounds like anthocyanin that are anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory. There compounds are involved in killing major diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and heart disease.

Research has also showed that blueberries keep the memory sharp. A compound in blueberries call polyphenols turn on the signals that get neurons to communicate much more efficiently inside your brain. This compound is also capable of growing new neurons.

Top Ranked: According to the ORAC or Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (a rating system for antioxidant power), blueberries have consistently ranked high on ORAC values out of any food in the world.

To take advantage of all these great benefits, add blueberries to your grocery list and add 1/2 cup a day of wild or frozen berries to your diet. Every morning I add frozen blueberries to my oatmeal and sometimes to my post-workout shake. Whichever way you choose, make sure get them in your daily diet- you’d be stupid not to.