Diet and its influence on ADHD has been very well researched. Certainly what a child eats can influence their levels of hyperactivity and we know also that this condition is rapidly on the increase with approximately 5% of the population showing signs of ADHD. So what are the reasons for this and what is the best ADHD Diet?
Well another set of research data has looked at the nutritional values of food from before the war and compared them to vegetable and meat nutrition levels recently.
The results are quite staggering, vegetables were far higher 50 years ago, in all the essential minerals that are required for healthy body functioning. Elements like Iron which are needed for healthy blood, calcium and magnesium, for healthy teeth, muscle and bone etc are very depleted in today’s food production chain. All of these minerals
are needed for a healthy nervous system and the reality is that food today is sadly deficient in what is necessary. It is not today’s children that are starting this trend off because the trend started 3 generations ago and is the children of today that are picking up the tab on 50 years of malnutrition, passed on from generation to generation.
The growing techniques for food, how it is stored and transported include processes which deplete the nutritional goodness needed for healthy growing
children and then the added complication of preservatives, insecticides, and flavour enhancers, etc all take their toll on healthy hormones, nerve transmission and development. It is no coincide that this downward trend in natural food productions coincides with a downward trend in children’s behavioural health!
The first step in improving ADHD through diet has to be in eliminating the effect of specific additives to which the individual may be sensitive. The second stage is good nutritional supplementation to remedy the deficiency and thirdly, we have to look at how and where we source our food.
Locally grown food, grown without the use of damaging pesticides is important. It should be eaten as soon after being picked, as possible in order to access the energy giving life force in all fruit and vegetables which starts to die off immediately it is picked. It is the life force in food that gives us our own vitality and feel good factor, and from which the body is able to run on optimum performance. It was Einstein himself, a vegetarian that promoted this approach maintaining that we should eat food as close to sunlight as possible.
I have developed many projects working with young people and their families that look at something called the ‘Rainbow Diet’.
This is where they have to work out what healthy foods are and then match them to the colours of the rainbow. Not only should they put recipes together and start to cook them but to also grow them. Ranging from tomato plants on windowsill to cold frames in gardens and poly tunnels and allotments in the community. These projects are usually undertaken in small social groups, involving families and friends and this is also a helpful approach to ADHD natural learning. Historically, ADHD children fail to achieve and meet their potential in crowded noisy classrooms where the effects of poor dietary compromised nervous systems that are unable to information process properly are overwhelmed by the school environment. I have found that when the children are out and about on the land and with animals, they are far more able to concentrate, engage and experience a sense of achievement.
There are many local produce box schemes, and one of the projects I set for families, is to research what is happening locally and to involve themselves in home food production. Something as simple as growing nutritious alfalfa on the kitchen windowsill and developing recipes around it can open up a whole new life time approach towards better and healthier eating habits.
