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Understanding the Shifts in Human Nutrition – From Difficult to Super Easy (Part 3)

12 • Categories: Special Reports, Step #1 Avoid the Bad • by Jon Bennett

Last week’s article focused on the fact that improvements in production methods and transport links mean that our food is sourced from all over the world. This might seem like a good thing, on the one hand, because economies of scale mean that we are paying much less for globally produced foods. It is perhaps not such good news when we look at the health implications of the globalisation of food. I pointed out that provenance is one of the most important concepts when we think about how healthy, or otherwise, our food is.

Simply put, provenance is about where something is from. This is important because production standards and methods differ from place to place and country to country. It is common, for example, to see chemicals that have long been banned in North America due to adverse health effects still being used in other parts of the world. This is a serious issue for people dealing with the effects of ADD/ADHD. Many of the symptoms of the condition can be traced back to signals in the brain not being transmitted properly. This is often due to chemical imbalances. Anything that can contribute to such imbalances should therefore be avoided at all costs.

So how can you get serious about provenance as an ordinary consumer? I think one of the keys is to stop seeing food shopping as a health-neutral activity, but to rather view it as a valuable investment in the health and well-being of your family. Some suggestions on how you can ensure that every bite that your family put into their mouths is safe include the following:

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ADD/ADHD and Videogames – Is there a link? (Part 2)

11 • Categories: Special Reports, Step #1 Avoid the Bad • by Jon Bennett

ast week we began a discussion on the topic that some people would regard as fairly controversial: a possible link between ADD/ADHD diagnoses and video games. I pointed out that I would normally be reluctant to make strong claims about the existence such a link. This is slowly changing thanks to more and more research coming out showing a positive correlation between gaming and ADD/ADHD.

Research on this topic is still in its infancy and it is clear that we might be dealing with a kind of chicken and egg situation. In other words: Are children suffering from ADD/ADHD more likely to become addicted to video games; or is it the case that videogames exacerbate the symptoms of ADD/ADHD? This very important question will only be answered by focused research. What is clear, however, is that parents of children struggling with ADD/ADHD should at the very least actively monitor their children’s involvement with videogames.

The monitoring and perhaps even control of gaming will not go down too well with most dedicated gamers, especially as many of them view their gaming identity as such an important part of who they are. I am convinced, however, that this will in some cases be unavoidable if you have your children’s best interests at heart. I suspect that the best way to deal with this issue is not to go in with all guns blazing but to rather attempt to have a rational discussion about the content and possible ‘real-life’ consequences of videogames.

I would strongly recommend that you carefully analyze your child’s video gaming before you attempt to have a discussion about it with him or her. This does not mean that you should follow them around with a clipboard for a number of days but rather that you take an active interest in what they are playing and how often they do so. Some of the things that you should pay attention to are:

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Understanding the Shifts in Human Nutrition – From Difficult to Super Easy (Part 2)

11 • Categories: Avoid High GI Foods, Special Reports • by Jon Bennett

Last week we had a look at the way in which our understanding of food shifted from a ‘resource acquired through hard work’ to an ‘easily acquired commodity’. I noted that it is very difficult to respond to this trend as cheap and easily available food is so ubiquitous. One, rather extreme, way of responding [...]

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Understanding the Shifts in Human Nutrition – From Difficult to Super Easy (Part 1)

12 • Categories: Avoid High GI Foods, Special Reports • by Jon Bennett

Over the past few weeks we looked at some of the subtle, and not so subtle, changes that occurred in human nutrition over the past few decades. The purpose of this series is not to suggest that previous generations consisted of ‘food saints’ who always ate perfectly balanced meals. It is rather to show how we fundamentally changed our relationship with food, often with disastrous results. It is my belief that these shifts had a disproportionate impact on those struggling with the effects of ADD/ADHD. The reason for this belief is the extraordinary sensitivity of the ‘ADD/ADHD Brain’ to factors that hinder, even in minor ways, optimum brain function.

The shifts that we looked at over the past few weeks were:

* Natural to Artificial
* Scarce to Superabundant

With this week’s article we will begin to discuss a shift that is perhaps a bit more difficult to pin down than the two mentioned above but that are no less significant. I am referring to the historical perception that food almost always equalled hard work.

Most people, especially those responsible for getting meals to the table, would perhaps unreservedly welcome the fact that this is not always the case anymore. The fact that we do not have to spend days and months cultivating our own food, followed with hours behind the stove to prepare it, has undeniable benefits. Time previously spent in food preparation can now be used for leisure or work in other areas. I am, of course, not advocating a return to the time when the main meal of the day took, on average, four hours to prepare. I am merely asking you to consider what we as a society lost due to the fact that it is now possible to put the words ‘easy’ and ‘fast’ before so much of what we eat. Consider the following:

The cost of ease of access: Modern methods of cultivation and distribution means that we have left the link between cultivation (or hunting!) and consumption far behind. While there was nothing romantic about tilling the fields, previous generations were in no doubt about where their food came from. These days our food can just as easily come from the other side of the world as from a farm in your county (with the former perhaps more likely). Most of us do not spend any time thinking about this fact, aside perhaps from the occasional amused glance at a food label spelling out the name of some obscure third world country. Our forebears couldn’t help thinking about the origins of their food – especially since they had to gather, hunt or cultivate it themselves. Our foods often have much more ‘interesting’ stories but we can afford not to worry too much about where it came from. Or can we? Foods shipped from the other side of the world are a) often grown with the help of pesticides that are banned in North America and b) Preserved with chemicals that could have a marked negative effect on optimum brain function.

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ADD/ADHD Misdiagnosis: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder often mistaken for ADHD

3 • Categories: Adult ADD, Avoid ADD Diagnoses, Special Reports, Step #1 Avoid the Bad • by Jon Bennett

I have often written about the huge problem of ADD/ADHD misdiagnosis. This problem makes me think of the old proverb that says: “If you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail!” Modern medicine have become so preoccupied with sticking the ADD label on kids that it is very often the first diagnosis that [...]

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