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concussion and TBI, and limits the biochemical ability of the brain to heal itself. As a friend of mine at the National Institute of Health (NIH) says, junk food equals junk brain.
Our bodies were meant to be in balance. It gets back to what you should have learned in kindergarten, and the concept is simple: You are what you eat.
Both the American diet and the American food supply have changed dramatically in the last fifty years. After World War II, we had saved the world from tyranny. In subsequent decades, we eliminated polio, developed vaccines and antibiotics, and even landed a man on the moon! There was nothing that couldn’t be conquered, so how could we have starving children in America? The answer was found in farm subsidies and food programs that started in the 1960s and ‘70s. Soybean and corn are calorie dense, shelf stable, easy to grow crops that were subsidized by the government. As a result, the amount of soybean consumed by the United States population has grown by over 1200%.
The biggest source of Omega-6s in the American diet today is from soybean oil. Its consumption has gone up 1600% since 1970. Soybean oil is shelf-stable, so processed food is often rich in Omega-6s. In contrast, Omega-3s spoil very easily, so food additives rich in Omega-3s are not utilized by the food industry. The food industry isn’t intentionally trying to harm people; rather, the industry is focused on making food more shelf-stable so it can be shipped cross-country and sit on grocery store shelves for long periods of time. The result, however, is that soy and Omega-6s are in everything, particularly processed foods.
The result has been a growing imbalance between Omega-6s and Omega-3s in the food chain and subsequently in our brains. Omega-6s are critical for brain development and function, but they are also very pro-inflammatory. Inflammation is a crucial process to
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