Move over gut health, 2025 is the year of brain food, with Google searches for the term up 86 per cent and supermarkets rushing to sell brain food products. Do they work? Sophie Morris finds out
If you’ve struggled to get your brain into gear this month, you’re not alone. Most of us are deep in the quagmire of the 21st-century “attention economy”, a kind of purgatory between work, life, family and oh-let-me-just-check-on-that-one-last-thing that demands our brain flits between tasks and treats incessantly.
Our brains are so tired that 80 per cent of those questioned in a recent survey said they worry about their cognitive health. While a new year is a good time to commit to better work, sleep and screen habits, the most effective way to improve brain health is already scheduled into our day, three times a day – at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Move over gut health, 2025 is the year of brain food, with Google searches for the term up 86 per cent year on year and manufacturers rushing to provide us with food that will make our brains feel great and – they claim – work better. Feeding your brain isn’t a new idea, but the evidence that demonstrates the myriad benefits of eating well for your brain is constantly evolving, and the results are fascinating. Eating a daily portion of leafy greens can ward off dementia, for example, while blueberries can help children score better on tests – without an energy drink in sight.
THE BEST BRAIN FOODS
- Eating a daily portion of leafy greens could help ward off dementia
- Eating 240g fresh blueberries can significantly improve memory and attention.
- Polyphenols found in brightly coloured fruit and veg helps blood flow to the brain
- A study found that mushrooms may prevent brain decline if you eat two or more portions a week.
The blueberry discovery was made in a test where 54 children aged 7-10 were given a 200ml blueberry drink, equivalent to 240g fresh blueberries, which was found to significantly improve memory and attention.
Isn’t all food technically brain food? “We do tend to think of the idea of brain food in terms of energy,” says Kimberley Wilson, nutritional psychologist and author of Unprocessed: How the Food we Eat is Fuelling Our Mental Health Crisis (WH Allen, £12.99). “But your brain requires very specific nutrients to function well, which have to come from your diet. Without them, your brain would be depleted.”
Wilson tracks our interest in eating for brain health back to the pandemic, when there was a rise in anxiety as well as brain fog, such as forgetfulness or difficulty maintaining attention. “Without access to doctors and our usual self care such as walks, there was a real shift in thinking about how we were going to take care of our mental health and by extension our brain health,” she says. This chimes with me, as I took up piano in 2020, afraid my brain was turning to jelly, then gave it up when practising became a stress rather than a pleasure. As I turned 40 when we entered the first lockdown, I’ve wondered ever since whether minor ailments like brain fog and tiredness are age or covid-related, and caused by hormones or too much wine.
Five years on, my brain feels slower to react and more likely to be distracted than ever. Some days I feel as if I have only a single brain cell struggling to retain a universe-worth of mostly useless information. Maybe food is the answer. I agree to a “brain food” experiment for the first week of the year, and divert my intentions from leftover chocolate oranges to eating foods flush with the nutrients our brains crave.
I start with a trip to M&S, who have a new range of ‘Brain Foods’.
Teaming up with with the British Nutrition Foundation, they have identified six brain-supporting nutrients that lots of us struggle to get enough of: omega 3, iron, iodine, folate, zinc and vitamin B12, to create a range of ‘brain food’ drinks and snacks, each of which is high in at least two of these nutrients.
I try their Oat Out of the Blue (£2.75), an oat milk and coconut drink that contains spirulina that’s packed with iodine and vitamin B12, which contribute to cognitive and psychological function. Not a fan of spirulina, I hold my nose and knock it back but feel the worthiness of drinking something that’s meant to be good for you. I prefer their Brain Ball (£1.50), a protein ball stuffed with almond butter and coated in raspberry powder, high in iron, zinc and vitamin B12.
Of course, you don’t need to buy special products. Some of the very best brain foods are cheap and easily available. I make a “polyphenol plate”, as Wilson says that these wonder compounds, found in brightly coloured fruit and veg, especially berries, are really powerful when it comes to immediate brain function benefits. “Polyphenols make sure that all of those very hungry cells in your brain are getting the energy, the glucose, the nutrients, and the oxygen they need to function well,” she says. “It seems to be that you’re getting more blood flowing through the brain, so more gas in the tank, ninety minutes after eating those polyphenol rich foods.”
I tried out eating a 200g portion of blueberries, the volume tested on schoolchildren, to see if it makes me feel alert during the morning. It is a really big portion, not something I’d want to eat every day and it would end up expensive if I did. I’m off caffeine so am flying on just polyphenols and mint tea all morning (though tea and coffee are good sources of polyphenols). I do feel good and I am definitely more effective at my desk than usual – sticking to tasks and not leaving emails half-written – but it’s hard to say if that’s the blueberries or my smugness at such saintly behaviour.
Either way, I continue with Wilson’s advice at lunchtime, with a salad of bulgur wheat, pomegranate seeds, some delicious ‘high polyphenol’ olive oil I got in my Christmas stocking, and lots of steamed cavolo nero. “Most people see salad as a diet rather than a brain food,” she points out as she extols the virtues of green leaves: leafy greens, rich in fibre, folate, and Vitamin K, have been found to slow down brain ageing to the extent that a study looking at people aged between 58 and 99 found that those who ate a portion every day might extend the youth of their brain – ie delay dementia – by 11 years. Sign me up.
I’m attracted to the idea of instant gratification for eating a few berries, but it’s these long-term benefits that stand out. “Brain health is a long game,” says Wilson. “I want people to think of it like a pension plan.”
Using mushrooms to improve alertness and cognitive ability is big news in the health nut world, and there are scores of products out there. These fungi are said to have brain boosting properties but it’s not legal to make such claims in the UK, though it is elsewhere, including California. Ocado.com reports Lion’s Mane as one of the biggest health food trends of the past year, with searches up 265 per cent.
I tried its Dirtea Lion’s Mane powder, which you can add to any drink, in the mid-afternoon. It doesn’t taste great alone, so in future I might try it in a smoothie or coffee, and the results for me were as expected, in that I felt virtuous just for drinking it. This is one I will continue though, mostly because I don’t want to jettison such an expensive product – it’s £35 for 60g. I am intrigued by the powers of mushrooms and what we’re yet to discover, and predict we’ll know much more in the coming years. Until then, you can make do with simply eating more mushrooms, as a study found they contain an antioxidant that may prevent brain decline if you eat two or more portions a week.
After a week of my brain food menu, I am able to connect a few dots, especially in how my mornings go. I usually skip breakfast two or three times a week, but found that eating some brain-boosting foods helped me to focus and get through work quickly for the first few hours of the working day. Conversely, this makes me feel stupid, as I always swore by breakfast before the cult of intermittent fasting came for me. I am also making sure I serve up some leafy greens – yes those again – every time I make eggs.
Is the focus on brain food here to stay? As more is discovered about the relationship between the gut and the brain, we’ll no doubt find fascinating evidence to support eating well, though I expect much of it will come back to those blueberries, leafy greens, and mushrooms. But I am encouraged by the idea that eating for our brains is such an honest expression of self-care. Whether we’re eating for hunger, comfort, joy, or because we fancy a bit of chocolate, I think it should be positive and nourishing, not the denial most diets promote.