Lisa Mosconi PhD

I admit it. I underline passages in my books. I mark them up, make notes in the margins, circle and highlight. With Mosconi's Brain Food I was doing a lot of all of that. Pages upon pages were worthy of notation; simply chock full of interesting information. To say that I had several ah-ha moments is an understatement. Those moments were like finally figuring out how to get out of a maze; driving a tangle of street before you finally find a signs for the highway. What Mosconi is trying to show more relate makes sense. There is just a lot to process.
But, here's another element to Brain Food that I didn't expect. Mosconi makes the information so compelling that you want to listen to it and what's more, follow it. Case in point: how many times have you heard about the benefits of drinking more water? Me too. Except it never sunk in. No matter how many times I heard the about the science of staying hydrated, it never prompted me to fill the water bottle a second time. Something about Mosconi's writing made me sit up and take notice. Something she said finally resonated with me. I may only fill the water bottle a second time, but that's a start.
I think what makes Mosconi's book different is her approach. The language is not snooty, doctor on high advice. Her tone isn't didactic or preachy. She simply tells it like it is. She makes it personal and the information, approachable.
Bonus points for the quiz on dietary brain health and the recipes. show less

Wow--this is a meaty book and there is a lot of good stuff here. I learned a LOT and am still going back and re-reading bits to better absorb it all.

Rather than summarize it, I'm going to distill my reaction to it below so that anyone considering reading this has some context to decide if it's right for them:

I got this book from LibraryThing as an early reviewer and am really glad I requested it and was picked. It is probably not a book I would have picked up or been exposed to otherwise. show more

Altzheimers runs in my family which is what drew my interest initially, but I make my living with my brain. 50 isn't that far away and I have greater interest in neuro-nutrition as brainpower insurance and suspected there was, ahem, considerable room for improvement in the nutritional area.

This book is very accessible without being patronizing. Although backed up by the author's credentials and with observations and recommendations supported by research, it reads with a ring of truth.

The front two-thirds or so makes the case for neuro-nutrition and makes some generalizable recommendations - the importance of sleep for brain restoration, why the right kind of hydration is important, why diets that produce weightloss or other good results for the body (like paleo and others) aren't necessarily giving the brain the nutrition it needs.

The back third or so brings it all home, so to speak. There's a quiz to figure out where you stand from a neuro-nutrition point of view, and how to improve, eating plans and recipes.

I came away with concrete changes that I can make that will improve my brain and body heatlh. This book is in rare company with a handful of other non-fiction books that have been like a master class in something and I've come away smarter, richer, better for having read it.

There biggest criticism that I have of the book isn't really fair to put on the author, but much more systemic societal issues about food manufacturers and retailers that aren't her fault and for which there are no easy solutions.

What she's recommending is complicated to act on, for several reasons. Here's what I would have liked to have had/known from the book:

1) Where I live, there's ZERO access to some of the foods she recommends. I don't mean they're hard to find, I mean they aren't stocked on shelves within 100 miles of me and Whole Foods (or insert like here) doesn't deliver to my area. There is no butcher/fresh meat or seafood options where I live--nothing but frozen and not much range in that. Walking away from packaged or frozen foods simply isn't an option I have, and many others are in a similar boat. I'd like to have some sort of way to know how to make better choices within limited options. Which brands are best? What do I look for on the package or steer clear of?

2) What she's recommending is very cost prohibitive for most people. Black caviar may be the best brain food ever, but it excludes a lot of people based on price and availability alone. For those of us without deep pockets, what recommendations do you make for us?

3) A sense of priority. At times, I wanted to stop reading and chuck the book because it requires such lifestyle change to follow prescriptively that it's almost easier to never start. That's a shame. But I would have liked to know if I only could make two changes, which two give me the biggest bang for my brain? Or, if I'm starting small and working my way to bigger change, where to begin? The way this is written it comes across as all-or-nothing or at least equally important and urgent. That's neither fair, nor helpful.

4) If doctors and nutritionists aren't well-trained in this field (and no doubt many aren't), I have no local support and no one to ask questions of. Would have been nice to have a collection of resources, or ways to discern whether a nutritionist/doctor's counsel is sound or something.

All in all though, lots of meatiness here and plenty of things I can do to better feed and water my brain. And for that, I'd recommend anyone with passing interest read it--it's like getting direct access to someone's hard-won lifetime body of work. show less

Good scientific info on how to feed the brain, I enjoyed learning. I also liked the addition of some recipes to use as examples of how to eat for the best brain health. Dr. Mosconi's credentials can't be beat, but, as with so many books/magazines, the "should do" and the "able to do" are going to be on opposite ends of our means.

It makes sense to me to drink lots of fluids, to eat breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner. However, my job doesn't allow me to use the show more restroom at will so drinking a full glass of water before breakfast and a cup of tea with breakfast then smoothie as a morning snack plus a glass of water before lunch and another cup of tea with lunch isn't going to fly. Besides that, we don't get more than a 15-minute lunchbreak and certainly no breaks for multiple snacks or tea. A 10-12 hour workday on the factory floor isn't amenable to "Ayurvedic Mung Bean Soup" or "Grilled Salmon in Ginger Garlic Marinade" especially without a refrigerator or microwave. Red wine with dinner or herbal tea before bedtime will keep me awake with heartburn all night.

Organic, grass-fed, and gourmet foods - much of what makes up the recipes - are extraordinarily expensive where I live and while I agree they are better for us, their cost (and expense incurred just obtaining them) is mostly prohibitive. Lastly, the advice to "consider taking naps during the day" is sensible and logical, unless your employer is very much against it or you are rushing from home to work to pick up your kid from the sitter to home to throw something in the microwave so you can get to bed on time and hopefully get 5 or 6 hours sleep before the next 10-12 hour shift. Really, this is not a plan for the masses but for the elite who have the time and money for it. And that's a shame, because everyone deserves to have good brain health and good food and time for naps.

Lifestyle modification, diet, nutrition, and health is going to require the entire village - American society - to change. I, and the masses like me, can maybe manage to follow the guidelines of the diet presented here, if lucky, on weekends (if not working overtime). Someday, someone is going to write a book for us. Until then, I just try to sneak in one more apple slice. show less

Neuroscience is a very current topic right now and Brain Food is an excellent addition to the conversation. Of course nutrition would affect the health of our brains! Figuring out the details of which foods offer the specific nutrients can be complicated and counterintuitive. This is a very helpful book in putting it all together and even offers a nice range of recipes to help you get started.