What is the MIND Diet and How Does it Help My Brain?

In this episode, we welcome Lisa Johnson, a seasoned dietitian with Homestyle Direct, to uncover the science and strategies behind the MIND Diet—a unique combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets proven to support brain health and reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Darleen and Lisa  break down the staggering statistics around dementia in the U.S., and explore why people living in Mediterranean regions see far lower rates of these diseases.

Listeners will get a practical look at the “15 rule” of the MIND Diet, including ten recommended foods, tips for incorporating healthy fats like olive oil, and easy hacks for fitting more nuts, seeds, legumes, and greens into everyday meals. Lisa  offers creative recipe ideas—like pumpkin orange chili and brain-boosting smoothies—and shares how meal planning and simple ingredient swaps make it easier to follow this lifestyle at any age.

We also talk about budget-friendly ways to shop for brain-healthy foods, why frozen berries and pre-made meals can be great time-savers. The episode closes with encouragement that it’s never too late—or too early—to make positive changes for cognitive health, and that these diet tips can benefit everyone in the family.

Discover actionable meal planning strategies, easy snack ideas, and approachable ways to make the MIND Diet part of your routine—whether you’re cooking at home or looking for prepared meals from providers like Homestyle Direct.

SeniorLivingGuide.com Podcast sponsored by LIVDRY & TerraBella Senior Living
 

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Transcript

Darleen Mahoney [00:00:02]:

And we are joined today by Lisa Johnson. She is a Dietitian for over 40 years or around 40 years, working in many areas of the nutrition spectrum, including critical care nutrition, veterans health, long term care, director of food services, diabetes care, eating disorders, and most recently, medically tailored meals and menu development for Homestyle Direct. One of the things that I have really come to learn doing these podcasts, especially with Homestyle Direct and you as well, is that food is such an important or can be a potent form of medicine, really, it's capable of disease prevention, boosting our immune system, and enhancing our overall quality of life. That's why I want to keep talking about it, to continue to have those conversations. And I'm so glad that you've been such a great part of it.

Lisa Johnson [00:00:57]:

Well, it's great to be with you, Darlene.

Darleen Mahoney [00:00:59]:

Absolutely. So I know that this is something we want to talk today about a diet.

Lisa Johnson [00:01:07]:

It's not Weight Watchers

Darleen Mahoney [00:01:10]:

that I've actually never heard of. And then really, in all honesty, why it's such and one of probably one of the most important diets. It's not you not going to like, lose a bunch of weight or anything like that, but it's actually better than that. So it's called the Mind Diet, is that correct?

Lisa Johnson [00:01:26]:

Yes, the Mind Diet. So the Mind Diet is a combination of two diets that you probably have heard of. It is a combination of the Mediterranean diet, which is, I guess, less of a diet and more of a lifestyle way of eating and living, and the DASH Diet. So the Mind Diet kind of combines the best of both worlds and focuses on both healthy eating, healthy living, stress management, and lifestyle changes that you can make that are really flexible. And the DASH Diet we've known about for years, where we're doing research and trying to control blood pressure and cardiac outcomes.

Darleen Mahoney [00:02:15]:

Ooh, very good. So it really is the best of both worlds.

Lisa Johnson [00:02:19]:

Yes.

Darleen Mahoney [00:02:20]:

Yeah. So why do we call it the Mind Diet? I'm assuming it has something to do with our minds as we age and some of the diseases that are becoming more and more prominent.

Lisa Johnson [00:02:33]:

So the Mind Diet was, like I said, a compilation of those two diets. So the M part is Mediterranean and the D part is the Dash Diet. And it was an interventional study that was done over the years, actually started in, I think, 2015, where they were focusing on making these lifestyle changes. So people were focused on in general, a general way to look at it is more leafy greens, more whole grains, specific fats. So olive oil is the preferred fat in that less red Meat, more fish, and then salt, and various cardiac interventions and seeing how people's minds did. They were specifically looking at both Alzheimer's and dementia and seeing results there. What they found is that pretty minimal changes in terms of the diet and the foods that one was eating and, and then looking at the things that they're focused on, kind of avoiding, made significant changes in brain health to the tune of brain age, if you will, actually dropped by seven and a half years for very minimal changes in terms of diet intake.

Darleen Mahoney [00:03:56]:

Ooh, okay. So, you know, you mentioned, like, the dementia and Alzheimer's, that is, and we talk about that a lot on this podcast. But you shared with me some statistics that I, I, I honestly found staggering.

Lisa Johnson [00:04:11]:

Right?

Darleen Mahoney [00:04:12]:

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Johnson [00:04:14]:

So the current stats that are out there, 42% of Americans over 55 will develop a dementia. So that's 1 and 2. I mean, that's over 50%. And with the aging population, so the increase in boomers, we are going to see an increasing overall cases of dementia that will double by the year 2060. Dementia currently affects more than 6 million Americans and accounts for about 100,000 deaths a year. Yeah.

Darleen Mahoney [00:04:51]:

So I know that one of the components of this diet is Mediterranean, and I think we're going to chat about this at another podcast, so I'll kind of tease that a little bit. But the Mediterranean people that live in Mediterranean countries, do they have the same rates of dementia and Alzheimer's that the US Does?

Lisa Johnson [00:05:13]:

They do not. They do not. Yeah, they do not. And you can think of it as both the diet, but it probably is a little bit also about environment and less pollution, let's say, and maybe less stress, because we know that not only is the diet a big piece of this, but so is activity, exercise, stress levels. All of those contribute to the overall brain health.

Darleen Mahoney [00:05:45]:

Sure, yeah, yeah, so exactly. With like, so separating it out. So we talked a little bit about the Mediterranean and the dash, so based on foods by region, is basically the Mediterranean. So can you give us a breakdown of what those foods are?

Lisa Johnson [00:06:09]:

Sure. So in the mind diet, what we're focusing on is what's called the 15 rule. So there's 10 things that we want to include in the diet with really pretty significant specifics on what to do with those. And there's five things that we want to avoid. So the 10 good ones, leafy green vegetables. So here we're talking about kale, spinach, collard greens, Six servings a week. So what you want to have is a serving of a leafy green every day. So you can make your salad with that. You could have steamed collard greens with a dinner if you wanted. You can make a smoothie and include those greens in your smoothie. Then your other colored vegetables. So this would be things like beets and carrots and squash and broccoli. You want one serving a day, so you need seven of those in a week. Berries. Really big on berries. So we're very specific. We're not talking about mangoes and pineapples here. We're talking about blueberries. We're talking about raspberries, marionberries, chokecherries, huckleberries, any of those types of things, because those have anthocyanins, which are going to be good for your brain health. You want two times those a week. A serving generally is somewhere between a quarter of a cup and a third of a cup. Again, smoothies. You could get frozen berries and throw them in your oatmeal in the morning if you want. You could put crannies on your salad at night if you wanted to do that. Nuts and seeds, five servings a week. And we want to focus on all nuts and seeds are fine, but focusing on like, walnuts, peanuts, all of those types of nuts and seeds, beans and legumes. So here we're talking, we're not talking green beans, we're talking like dried peas, we're talking quinoa, we're talking chickpeas, we're talking lentils. You want three servings per week, whole grains. So your breads and your cereals here want those to be dark and we want them to be crunchy. You want three servings per day. So if you're a three a day person, you need a whole grain serving at each meal. Preferably you could have a big bowl of cereal, maybe be grain free for lunch, and then have another grain at dinner. Fish, you want once a week. So the studies all show that 6 ounces of a fatty fish. And the best way to remember your fatty fishes is the word smash. So salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring are the fish that we're focusing on. And most people will say, okay, salmon's easy. I can think of that. You know, salmon, I could grill a salmon steak. I could have, you know, salmon, salmon, fettuccine. Little bit more difficult, I guess, for me to think of ways to maybe incorporate herring or sardines or anchovies. But you could do anchovies in a

Darleen Mahoney [00:09:17]:

salad, salads and pizzas.

Lisa Johnson [00:09:20]:

Right, Right. So smash is your key there. Poultry two times per week. And olive oil should be your primary oil. Don't really incorporate or talk about red meats much. I would say that based on the DASH guidelines or we're shooting for three to five servings, no more a week of red meats. Okay, so that's your 10. That's your healthy 10. The five to avoid are red meat, butter and stick, margarines, cheese, pastries, sweets and fried foods, and fast foods. So like ultra processed stuff.

Darleen Mahoney [00:09:56]:

All the stuff that's super yummy. Not that the others aren't, but they're just bad yummy. Exactly. So one of the things, you know, you're kind of going over all of this and it sounds like a lot of food. And I think to myself, nuts and seeds. I don't know how often I have nuts. I mean, not often. Unless you're at a party and there's like a little thing of nuts.

Lisa Johnson [00:10:19]:

Right. So you have to be intentional. I think for sure. Nuts and seeds, about including them. But you can put chia seeds in a smoothie. You could put chia in yogurt or oatmeal. If you wanted to do it that way you could have. So nuts and seeds could also be like your nut butters. So maybe you're gonna have a slice of toast and you're gonna put like some cashew butter on your toast. Yeah, yeah.

Darleen Mahoney [00:10:44]:

See, I love the tips. The tips are the best way to go. Because I think sometimes you hear all this and you're picturing a dinner plate with piles of all these different things that are now becoming, you know, just one big meal. And if you're able to, like, think outside the box like you are, you can incorporate those, like the berries and the yogurt and the chia seeds. You could do chia seeds, berries, and yogurt. Boom. Done.

Lisa Johnson [00:11:10]:

Right? So one. So the talk that I went to about this specifically, they did a cooking session with it, and they provided pumpkin. Let me see what it's called. Pumpkin orange chili. And it covered five of the 10 groups. So you had pumpkin, you had two different kinds of legumes in it. You, they used turkey. You could use chicken. You probably wouldn't be really tasty with, with fish, but. Or you could leave the meat out and not have anything. It had diced kale and greens in it. And then they put a little bit of cocoa powder to give that kind of mole taste to it, and chopped tomatoes. So in the one cup serving of this turkey pumpkin chili, you had five of the things that you needed to have. And some of those things you don't need to have every day.

Darleen Mahoney [00:12:13]:

Yeah. I mean, it's just about getting creative. And that's one of the things I love when I talk to you. And a lot of times we talk about the smoothies because those you can incorporate so many different aspects. And one fun, yummy, delicious shake.

Lisa Johnson [00:12:28]:

Right. So I tend to like my smoothies on the sweet side. I like them to be with the berries as opposed to being with. With greens. But, you know, you could do something with a berry mix and throw some spinach in. I have a really good recipe where I actually put avocado in the berry smoothie with agave and orange juice and. And yogurt. So you could get your dairy things in there, your healthy dairy. You could put some chia seeds in and get your nuts and legumes in that, or your nuts or your seeds in there as well.

Darleen Mahoney [00:13:03]:

Yeah. So one of the other things that I was just thinking about as you were talking about that is I loved cold pressed juices. So getting. That's how I love to do the kale and the ginger and all those types of things.

Lisa Johnson [00:13:15]:

Sure.

Darleen Mahoney [00:13:16]:

Is another thought as well. Yes, yes, yes.

Lisa Johnson [00:13:20]:

That would be a great alternative.

Darleen Mahoney [00:13:22]:

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Johnson [00:13:22]:

And then. And then including things like, you know, a snack could be some whole grain crackers and hummus, if you wanted to do something like that and get some added things in.

Darleen Mahoney [00:13:32]:

Oh, hummus is amazing. And. And that you can go to the store, buy and you don't have to like, make it or it doesn't. And you can put it in your refrigerator, pull it in and out every day, have a little bit of hummus.

Lisa Johnson [00:13:42]:

Yeah.

Darleen Mahoney [00:13:42]:

I mean, I think that that's a great, great solution. I'm gonna go buy some right now. I'm telling you, I'm gonna go buy some and then I need to restock on chia seeds. So I always have to keep that in the back of my mind to put those chia seeds in. So it's just that extra step. So one of the things that I noticed that you mentioned is olive oil. So how can you incorporate olive oil versus any types of butter? Is that just in the cooking process or is that how other people may utilize, especially this country? So much butter goes into so many different things.

Lisa Johnson [00:14:22]:

Right. So I was just talking with my mom about that today, and one of the things you can do. So I really like butter, but what I've tried to do is limit my butter use to things that inherently need to have butter, let's say. So a piece of bread as opposed to, I would normally like. If I was making a pasta dish, I might have half the noodles with butter on them and half the noodles with, let's say, the spaghetti sauce. And so I've been trying to be very intentional about not using butter on things that don't need to have butter, saving it for the things that do, and then being mindful of using butterfly so you can get an olive oil butter type spread that's made with olive oil and that then you can use on all those things that you like to use butter on. But in terms of actually using olive oil itself, I use it in all of my cooking. So if I'm. I'm. If I'm cooking something up in the pan that needs fat added, I use olive oil. I use olive oil for all of my salad dressings. If you can actually use, instead of using butter, if you're making a sauce that needs to be more fat based, you can use olive oil for that and no butter. And then you use olive oil is in things like pestos and those types of things. So just being really intentional. And the idea is that that's the preferred fat. But don't go hog wild on your fat. I mean, the dash recommendations in terms of portion sizing for fats would still be no more than about a tablespoon and a half of fat a day. So one fat serving at each meal is about all you need to get your essential fatty acids.

Darleen Mahoney [00:16:08]:

Yeah, yeah. And you're so right. When I'm doing pasta, anything like that, I only use olive oil. I don't use any butter just because. But I am excited to hear, because the type of butter that I do use and I do have is the olive oil sea salt butter.

Lisa Johnson [00:16:26]:

Yeah.

Darleen Mahoney [00:16:26]:

So it's. And it's delicious. It's got so much flavor when I do. When I do use butter. So fruit for dessert is also, I feel like a really great alternative to a big, sweet, chocolatey, sugary dessert.

Lisa Johnson [00:16:50]:

So fruit is a good choice. I mean, there are some hacks out there in terms of ways to get these foods in and also be budget conscious. So fruit is a great choice for an unhealthy dessert, if you will. Now, here's a great. Here's a great option. Make an olive oil cake and put berries on the top. You've got your olive oil and you've got your berries using frozen berries, you know, because one of the things that will come up is berries are pretty expensive unless you're buying berries in season at the farmer's market. That's true. You could buy fresh berries in season and freeze them. And then, you know, it doesn't really matter how the berry looks if you're using it in a smoothie, but keeping some frozen berries on hand to. To use as will. The other thing is it isn't no berry is better than the other berry. So picking the one that's in season and cheaper is always an option as well.

Darleen Mahoney [00:17:53]:

Yeah, yeah. And, and a little good versus bad. Having just like maybe a small like cup of ice cream with some berries on it. If you do something that's a healthier version of ice cream, which I don't know if you can recommend what that would be.

Lisa Johnson [00:18:10]:

So in that area of the world, gelato is. Is a big deal. Yeah. So gelato in general is probably, especially a fruit based gelato is going to be a healthier choice than a whole cream milky ice cream.

Darleen Mahoney [00:18:27]:

Right.

Lisa Johnson [00:18:28]:

You know, if you can make your ice cream at home and then kind of control the fat source, choosing an ice cream recipe, let's say that doesn't have egg in it, is just milk and cream. Choosing something using half and half versus using heavy whipping cream is going to be a better option. Generally soft serve ice cream is probably a healthier choice. It's generally made with 2% milk as opposed to whole milk and it's got a lot of air whipped into it. But I was in Seattle recently visiting my son and they have a new trend which I'm sure is probably elsewhere as well. But they do fruit blended ice cream is essentially what it is. Takes what looks like an agar or if you've ever made applesauce at home, you had the colander that was kind of triangular shaped and you do your applesauce. So it has a machine where you put the ice cream base in and it mixes your choice of two things, generally fruit. So when I did it, I did like a sweet cream base and did mango and strawberries mixes that all together in this thing that is whipping it up and comes up with a harder than soft serve but not as hard as hard ice cream ice cream mix that you either serve on a cone or in a cup. And then you can put toppings on top so you could put your nuts and seeds on top, you could put additional berries on top. I chose to go for dark chocolate nibs on top of it. And at this particular place their name was Manny Benny's and. And their claim to fame was they took two little candy eyes and put it on to look like a bunny.

Darleen Mahoney [00:20:14]:

Oh, so cute. Oh my gosh, that's so much fun.

Lisa Johnson [00:20:17]:

Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm envisioning. I mean, obviously you could get all of the equipment to do this, but you could also just mix your fruit. Fruit in with your ice cream.

Darleen Mahoney [00:20:27]:

Yeah.

Lisa Johnson [00:20:28]:

You could mix. If you like nuts. I'm not a big nut in ice cream person, but if you like nuts, you could mix your nuts in the ice cream as well and then put some additional topping on top.

Darleen Mahoney [00:20:40]:

Then you could go wild and do some, like, chocolate nims.

Lisa Johnson [00:20:44]:

Yeah, Dark chocolate.

Darleen Mahoney [00:20:47]:

Dark chocolate. That would be great with a. With the berry is the dark chocolate for sure. And dark chocolate is. I know we're getting a little bit off, but that's healthier than the milk, correct?

Lisa Johnson [00:20:57]:

It is, yeah. It has less fat in it. And we. Research would show that dark chocolate is probably more protective of the heart than milk chocolate. Yeah.

Darleen Mahoney [00:21:07]:

Yeah. And I feel like a little bit of dark chocolate goes a long way, whereas I think you could sit there and eat milk chocolate for a longer period of time. But dark chocolate, I feel like there's something about it that's more satisfying.

Lisa Johnson [00:21:18]:

Right, right.

Darleen Mahoney [00:21:18]:

So you don't tend to like, gorge on it like a, you know, a Hershey bar.

Lisa Johnson [00:21:24]:

Exactly.

Darleen Mahoney [00:21:27]:

So I just kind of want to. I know that we talked a little bit about some different hacks, if you will, and some different things, because honestly, that's my favorite part about a lot of the information that you bring is that understanding why we need it, understanding what's happening, and then being able to implement it once you've heard the information, because you can hear it, and then you feel like it's a chore. So I don't want it to be a chore. I want people to really go, oh, this is really cool. Some ideas for meal planning so that you kind of have an idea to keep it simple, get everything that you. That you need. Do you have, like a simple meal plan you can kind of go by that is going to hit those marks?

Lisa Johnson [00:22:12]:

So I would say that. That for me, I try to plan it out by the week. So I try to go to the grocery store once. And so generally I kind of have a theme for that week. So maybe that the theme for that week is going to center around, let's say, fish. So getting maybe a bigger piece of salmon, let's say. And you would normally. So that you could cook it all off. You could use it crumbled in a salad. You could have a piece of a filet or a steak. You could maybe use some of it in like a salmon burger. And make a salmon burger and then maybe just have some crunch dip to throw in somewhere along the way. And that way you're including fish more than once in your week. You probably save trips to the store in terms of that and then base that your meal plan around that. So knowing that you want to have a serving each day from colored vegetables, fruits and vegetables, you want to have one to two servings of your grain or your leafy greens. So, you know, a big bag of spinach and let's say we're going to do a spinach salad. Maybe we're going to put spinach in a couple of smoothies. And maybe we're going to do spinach as a side dish to one of our dinner meals. Having a loaf of whole grain bread in the house to be able to use for your whole grains. And then I always keep oats, some type of oats to either cook as a cereal or, or to throw in things. I mean, oats are good. Another good thing in a smoothie, if you want to go a smoothie route. Yeah. You know, having a couple of boxes of crackers or some type of crunchy thing, that's a good whole grain. And then having like brown rice or having quinoa, having chia seeds, which are easy to add to things, I would probably make sure that I always have some, some type of yogurt on hand and then including your berries and your fruits. And I like, I love berries, but I also like other fruits as well. So figuring out ways to incorporate, incorporate, say apples, maybe sliced apples in a salad or in the fall, throwing some pears in, putting some dried crannies or apricots and things.

Darleen Mahoney [00:24:43]:

And I always think, okay, so some different snacky ideas. You know, the peanut, the, the peanut thing, that's a hard one for me. But getting, I do like peanut butter. So getting a healthier version of a peanut butter that's not all vegetable based, is that right?

Lisa Johnson [00:24:59]:

So getting a healthy peanut butter, I think would be key because I too love peanut butter. And then maybe experimenting, maybe trying an almond butter or a cashew butter to have that as well. Some of those other butter flavors are really good with, like, if you're going to go the savory route, maybe a bruschetta or a pesto on a piece of toast or in a pasta, if you're going to go the sweet way, maybe some chopped fruits like a marmalade

Darleen Mahoney [00:25:30]:

or just dip that, that apple wedge right in there.

Lisa Johnson [00:25:34]:

Exactly.

Darleen Mahoney [00:25:34]:

Yeah, right. Right in the jar. Just don't tell anybody.

Lisa Johnson [00:25:37]:

Exactly.

Darleen Mahoney [00:25:38]:

Yeah, yeah. And then I was. The other thing that I was kind of thinking the veggie side. One way to kind of get those veggies in without feeling like you're eating a lot of veggies is I love omelets. So utilizing like, like an egg scramble or egg omelette, something of that nature, I think would be a good choice as well, especially for spinach.

Lisa Johnson [00:25:58]:

Right. So smoothies, chopped vegetables and things, a soup base. So if, you know, you could say on Sunday you're going to cook up your greens and potatoes and carrots and tomatoes and make a broth that you're going to use in other things for the rest of the week and also use it as a vegetable soup. Hummus is another great way, you know, having some sliced veggies around. One of the big groups within these other colors would be your, what we call bitter vegetables. So things like onions and garlic and, and your cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli are all great choices for heart health that you can incorporate and dip in things and eat them as well.

Darleen Mahoney [00:26:44]:

Yeah. So what, what this is completely kind of. We haven't talked about celery. Is there a lot. I love celery. I eat it all the time. Is there a nutritional value to that or is it because it does feel

Lisa Johnson [00:26:56]:

like mostly water, so it doesn't fall in any of the specific groups like, like your garlic and your bitter vegetables. There's nothing wrong with celery, and celery has almost no calories, it has a lot of water, and it has a ton of fiber. Okay. So including it is a great thing. I mean, the, the best thing about the Mediterranean diet is there's really. I mean, even wine is included on the Mediterranean diet. Now the dash diet is pretty specific about limiting alcohol, limiting sodium to under 2300 milligrams a day, and, you know, staying away from red meats and cholesterol containing foods. But the Mediterranean diet to me is, is more flexible. And aside from avoiding things like a lot of fatty foods and ultra processed and highly sweet sweetened things, and staying away from red meat and butter, you can pretty much have whatever you want. Celery probably is not specific to the region, but there's nothing wrong with it.

Darleen Mahoney [00:27:59]:

Yeah, well, that's a good thing. And it's probably on another diet where it's very popular.

Lisa Johnson [00:28:03]:

For sure.

Darleen Mahoney [00:28:04]:

Some weight loss diet out there says just chow down on some celery and you're good to go. Just don't dip it in like loads of ranch Dressing, because I think you missed the point. But there is that. So this is great. And one of the things I really love the ideas is we talked a lot about fish and salmon I think is kind of the most filling probably and most accessible out of, out of what you talked about. I feel like that's something that is. Everyone has access to that and can and cook it and it doesn't have to be super, super creative. It's available in restaurants, so all the different things. So I think that's such a great choice on the fish side, especially with what it's offering towards this diet as far as nutrition.

Lisa Johnson [00:28:49]:

So and, and with salmon, if you're doing stuff at home, you can get canned salmon. And the benefit of like canned salmon is it's canned with the bones. So then you get the added calcium and vitamin D that are really important in terms of bone health. There are other fish that kind of are medium fat fish that fall on this. Things like tuna. Oh like ahi. Some of those that may be easier to think of in terms of how you would use as fish in a meal. One thing you want to be careful of is also being mindful of the mercury level in the fish. So just be mindful of where your fish is coming from if there are any alerts and warnings in that area to as you increase the seafood that you're not also increasing the mercury in your diet.

Darleen Mahoney [00:29:42]:

That's a great point. I didn't even think about that. So yeah, I do appreciate that because that is something that can definitely affect you if you get too much of the mercury.

Lisa Johnson [00:29:52]:

Sure.

Darleen Mahoney [00:29:52]:

Yeah. So. Oh my goodness. Well, one of the things that before we wrap up that I'm kind of thinking as we're going through all of this and you have all these different hacks and ideas and recipes. You work for Homestyle Direct and one of the things that they do is they kind of take all the. They make it easy to order food that's kind of set with this specific diet.

Lisa Johnson [00:30:16]:

Right. So we do the pre made meals that are available. We actually are starting a salmon special this month that'll run probably a few months through the summer where you're getting a three ounce portion of salmon prepared exactly as we're talking about all of our grains, our whole grains. So we use brown rice for our rice and use a lot of different blends where we have quinoa or orzo or other types of grains mixed in the rice mixture. So that is also very helpful. And then focusing on things like your leafy greens and tomatoes. And those types of things, we tend to not go in depth in your nuts and seeds because of the allergens, but you certainly could add those to a meal if you wanted to.

Darleen Mahoney [00:31:09]:

Yeah, I think it's great. That's. That's probably the easiest hack of all, is just order it, that you don't have to put all the behind it. So I think that's. I think that's such a great service that Homestyle Direct provides is those customized types of meals, so.

Lisa Johnson [00:31:25]:

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Darleen Mahoney [00:31:26]:

Exactly. Well, is there anything else that we didn't cover in this episode? I feel like we talked about a lot, but I want to make sure that we hit everything.

Lisa Johnson [00:31:36]:

No, I think we. We covered it all. Brain health is so important. And the interesting thing about brain health is that you can make differences all throughout the life cycle. So if you're 85 and thinking it's over and done, it's not. Yeah. We can grow brain. We can make our brain more plastic and increase the connections by doing stimulating things, by increasing our activity, by improving our diet. So that's something that one should always do throughout the life cycle.

Darleen Mahoney [00:32:09]:

Yeah. And I love the idea that this is not just for seniors, this diet. If you start becoming. I'm trying to think of the word where you start working on it right now. The words escaped me. Even as a younger person, we can decrease these numbers that we have in this country for Alzheimer's and dementia. I think we just. You need to get started and get working on it. I do know that, you know, some people think, well, I'll do that when I'm older. But this is something that you really should be doing as a lifestyle.

Lisa Johnson [00:32:42]:

Right. And it helps all kinds of other things. I mean, if you're. If you're battling, let's say, weight issues or you have diabetes or you have other health conditions, any of these changes that you make within this sort of framework of healthier eating and monitoring your salt intake are going to be helpful for those things as well.

Darleen Mahoney [00:33:04]:

Absolutely. 100%. I think it's such a big deal to. What goes into your body is going to be ultimately the predictions on your overall health and mind, for sure. The thing is, with Alzheimer's and dementia, that's a very scary thing as a prospect, especially if you've been around it and you've seen it and you think, oh, pray to God this hasn't happened to me. These are just such great tips on how you can kind of minimize that as a potential.

Lisa Johnson [00:33:42]:

Exactly.

Darleen Mahoney [00:33:43]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Johnson [00:33:45]:

So.

Darleen Mahoney [00:33:45]:

All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today. Lisa with Homestyle Direct. If you enjoy listening to this podcast and you got a lot of great information out of it, please share with someone who will benefit from the information we discussed today. And if you like this podcast, we have over 127ish I think right now go check us out. We can be found on Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen to podcasts podcast please like share and subscribe.