ADD and Diet Part 1 (General knowledge)
A.D.D. people tend to have a higher sensitivity to diet (and to their environment) than their non-A.D.D. counterpart. When the ADD person’s diet is inundated with irritating substances (such as food dyes, food additives, environmental chemicals, pollutants, etc.), their ADD symptoms become variable, out of control or worsen. Moreover, if these offending agents exceed the body’s physiological capability to detoxify the offending agents, the ADD symptoms will decline significantly. This is the working notion associated with variable ADD symptoms associated with diet. February is “food” month, and I will address “food” as something we digest, fuel for the body, restorative substances for the body, dietary supplements (vitamins and herbs) and pharmaceutical supplements.
Let’s start with ADD friendly foods that are consumed regularly and abundantly to help our ADD symptoms. First, eat fresh food, not highly processed convenient food. Fresh fruits and vegetable would be an excellent food source. Nuts such as almond, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds, walnut, etc would be another source of food source. Snack on these food throughout the day. If you plan to eat, try to cook your own food from scratch, not the nukeable (i.e. microwavable) food if you can help it. Cooking is very easy if you understand the cooking principles and what are the food complementary relationships.
By the way, I created some pilot cooking videos (DVD) called “ONE PAN CHAN” sometime ago. I will reedit them for distribution latter this year. The concept of “ONE PAN CHAN” is simple. Everything is done in one pan; marinate, cook, serve in one pan. This is great for the bachelor (or the bachelorette) and was created for people with limited cooking experience. I structure this to be enjoyable and humorous. So, please stay tune for “ONE PAN CHAN”, the cooking series.
The fuel that the body needs is in the form of three major categories. They are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. The major meat proteins include beef, pork, chicken, fish, and lamb. The other exotic meat proteins are wild turkey, venison, buffalo, ostrich, and game meat. The non-animal proteins include legumes such as peas and beans. Tofu (soybean products from Asian culture) is an excellent source of protein. Soybeans have been suggested to have breast cancer protective properties. (Food for thought question: When was the last time you heard about an Asian woman eating lots of tofu in their culture developing breast cancer?).
The restorative foodstuffs are the cofactors in the biochemical pathways that are sometimes used but not replenish. Biochemical cofactors could be vitamins, trace minerals, and various biochemical compounds. Some of these could be precursors for neurotransmitters. Some are essential amino acids, fatty acids, and enzymes.
The dietary vitamin is a billion dollar industry. There are so many types of vitamins and so many different brands of vitamins that I will leave it up to you to try the various brands and “daily requirements” to fit your physiology. The caveat is that look for vitamins that are the most bio-available for your physiology. If it works to you, continue to take it. If you don’t feel much benefit, then stop taking that brand and switch to another brand. This is a trial and error approach. I am not here to endorse any one brand over another brand.
Herbs are somewhat of a delicate matter and may lead to misperceptions of their benefits. Some may not believe in herbal benefits. If you don’t believe herbal benefits, I recommend you skip this section and move on to the next area of interest. Since our culture hasn’t been exposed to herbs like other “older” civilizations throughout the world, I would suggest you be familiar with the herbal practitioner. As a general rule, those who are practitioner of the ancient Oriental Medicine (Doctor of Oriental Medicine) probably would be a good source to seek herbal remedies for your particular needs. Doctor of Oriental Medicine practitioners are licensed. Their training is usually a 3 to 4 year graduate level studies after their Bachelor’s degree, nursing degree, or in conjunction with an allied health career such as a chiropractor or osteopath doctor. Do your homework and find one you feel comfortable with.
The pharmaceutical supplements are the laboratory synthesized compounds manufacture to “mimic” natural compound’s properties. This usually is not as good as the real thing. During the manufacturing process, the structure of the compound may not be identical to the natural compound and thus the effectiveness and bio-properties may be of less. For example, if the lab is able to synthesized Ginseng. The synthetic Ginseng may only have small portion of the real Ginseng’s beneficial effects.
The next subdivision of diet is the sequence of ingesting your food. The most appropriate sequence of eating is to start with fats and proteins to initiate the digestive process and to get the digestive enzymes ready to break down the food. In addition, the fats and proteins take longer to digest than carbohydrates. Finally, end with fruits and green leafy vegetable (salad) so that the roughage “pushes” the sticky fats and proteins in your digestive tract downstream. The roughage has a secondary benefit of scrubbing the digestive lining of debris to prevent polyp development. Thereby, minimizes gastrointestinal cancer. The simple point to remember is to eat fats and protein first, end with fruit and salad, and eat everything in-between.
Next week, I will go into detail about the specific compounds that are needed by our body to function optimally.
Let’s start with ADD friendly foods that are consumed regularly and abundantly to help our ADD symptoms. First, eat fresh food, not highly processed convenient food. Fresh fruits and vegetable would be an excellent food source. Nuts such as almond, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds, walnut, etc would be another source of food source. Snack on these food throughout the day. If you plan to eat, try to cook your own food from scratch, not the nukeable (i.e. microwavable) food if you can help it. Cooking is very easy if you understand the cooking principles and what are the food complementary relationships.
By the way, I created some pilot cooking videos (DVD) called “ONE PAN CHAN” sometime ago. I will reedit them for distribution latter this year. The concept of “ONE PAN CHAN” is simple. Everything is done in one pan; marinate, cook, serve in one pan. This is great for the bachelor (or the bachelorette) and was created for people with limited cooking experience. I structure this to be enjoyable and humorous. So, please stay tune for “ONE PAN CHAN”, the cooking series.
The fuel that the body needs is in the form of three major categories. They are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. The major meat proteins include beef, pork, chicken, fish, and lamb. The other exotic meat proteins are wild turkey, venison, buffalo, ostrich, and game meat. The non-animal proteins include legumes such as peas and beans. Tofu (soybean products from Asian culture) is an excellent source of protein. Soybeans have been suggested to have breast cancer protective properties. (Food for thought question: When was the last time you heard about an Asian woman eating lots of tofu in their culture developing breast cancer?).
The restorative foodstuffs are the cofactors in the biochemical pathways that are sometimes used but not replenish. Biochemical cofactors could be vitamins, trace minerals, and various biochemical compounds. Some of these could be precursors for neurotransmitters. Some are essential amino acids, fatty acids, and enzymes.
The dietary vitamin is a billion dollar industry. There are so many types of vitamins and so many different brands of vitamins that I will leave it up to you to try the various brands and “daily requirements” to fit your physiology. The caveat is that look for vitamins that are the most bio-available for your physiology. If it works to you, continue to take it. If you don’t feel much benefit, then stop taking that brand and switch to another brand. This is a trial and error approach. I am not here to endorse any one brand over another brand.
Herbs are somewhat of a delicate matter and may lead to misperceptions of their benefits. Some may not believe in herbal benefits. If you don’t believe herbal benefits, I recommend you skip this section and move on to the next area of interest. Since our culture hasn’t been exposed to herbs like other “older” civilizations throughout the world, I would suggest you be familiar with the herbal practitioner. As a general rule, those who are practitioner of the ancient Oriental Medicine (Doctor of Oriental Medicine) probably would be a good source to seek herbal remedies for your particular needs. Doctor of Oriental Medicine practitioners are licensed. Their training is usually a 3 to 4 year graduate level studies after their Bachelor’s degree, nursing degree, or in conjunction with an allied health career such as a chiropractor or osteopath doctor. Do your homework and find one you feel comfortable with.
The pharmaceutical supplements are the laboratory synthesized compounds manufacture to “mimic” natural compound’s properties. This usually is not as good as the real thing. During the manufacturing process, the structure of the compound may not be identical to the natural compound and thus the effectiveness and bio-properties may be of less. For example, if the lab is able to synthesized Ginseng. The synthetic Ginseng may only have small portion of the real Ginseng’s beneficial effects.
The next subdivision of diet is the sequence of ingesting your food. The most appropriate sequence of eating is to start with fats and proteins to initiate the digestive process and to get the digestive enzymes ready to break down the food. In addition, the fats and proteins take longer to digest than carbohydrates. Finally, end with fruits and green leafy vegetable (salad) so that the roughage “pushes” the sticky fats and proteins in your digestive tract downstream. The roughage has a secondary benefit of scrubbing the digestive lining of debris to prevent polyp development. Thereby, minimizes gastrointestinal cancer. The simple point to remember is to eat fats and protein first, end with fruit and salad, and eat everything in-between.
Next week, I will go into detail about the specific compounds that are needed by our body to function optimally.
posted by Dr Chan at 11:19 PM
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