“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.”– George Bernard Shaw

Life is a lot like food. When it’s piping hot and peppered with spices, it’s a delicious treat. But when it’s stale and cold, it can be such a drag! What brings me to such an analogy you may ask. And I can give you a whole lot of examples wherein I could relate a particular situation to the aftertaste of a particular food.

And science proves the connection! A certain food can also determine whether you are feeling sad, mad or high on life. So while life situations remind you of food, food can also trigger emotional states that define your life! While a bar of dark chocolate which has anti-inflammatory properties can lift up your mood a great deal, a sugar-rich and processed-food dominated diet can actually induce depression and erratic mood swings.

The other day when I got an earful at work, I could exactly feel the taste of bitter karela juice instantly filling my mouth, a big glassful that Twinkle Khanna says Akshay Kumar has every day for its copious health benefits. But obviously for me, at that moment it evoked dangerous thoughts of jeopardizing someone else’s health!

On my way to work that morning, after having skipped breakfast and facing refusal by each and every auto driver I hailed, I could feel the pungent taste of gulping down a swig of sour milk that is at least 10 days past expiry date! And when I heard that Facebook had been discreetly collecting user data from Android devices, the taste of a spicy Peri Peri sauce, one that makes your eyes water, emanating a heat that hits right at your brain, sizzled my entrails all the way! I wonder if Farhan Akhtar also experienced the same sensation which made him to delete his Facebook account right after that!

On days when I feel that I have just not done enough to justify my existence on earth, ambling away endless time on social media and moping over failures of life, the taste of a limp papad lingers in my mouth. You bite at it expecting a sharp crunchiness but it only gives a limp and soggy aftertaste that makes you hate your procrastinating self all the more!

Interestingly, not only at such inflection points of life when outrageousness supersedes sanity, that this syndrome is active. It comes to me even at pleasant moments of life leaving a warm, fuzzy aftertaste that is as good as self-love! In one of those rain-drenched evenings, stranded in the middle of a flooded road when a certain auto driver comes out of nowhere, agrees for a ride and even returns you a change-it leaves you with a glow in your heart that feels just like a warm and frothy cup of coffee. We all have our ‘comfort foods’ like ‘dal chawal’ that evoke dollops of nostalgia transporting us to the times when life was ever so simple.

Food and mood are connected in numerous ways. In the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry, the concept of ‘Happy Foods’ is fast gaining ground that establishes specific food items can have a significant influence on our mental health—particularly depression.

Nutritional psychiatry looks at the interconnection between food and brain function and leverages nutrition to enhance the benefits. The right intake of food can encourage growth of nerve cells, uplift our mood, improve cognition, enhance attention span, help cope better with stress and brain disorders like dementia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD), Autism etc.

But the wrong kind or nutritionally deprived food can result in the decay of brain cells, induces inflammation, causes mood swings and irritability, generates negative and suicidal thoughts and also leads to forgetfulness and shortened attention span. Here are some of the food items that jumpstarts your ‘low’ to ‘high’ mood indicator.

According to Prof Felice Jacka, Director of Food and Mood Centre, a collaborative research centre led by Deakin University, Australia, “The quality of people’s diets is related to their risk for depression in particular, and we see this across countries, different cultures, and really importantly we’ve also seen this very clearly across age groups. Half of all mental disorders start before the age of 14 and diet is relevant to mental health in adolescents and even very young children.”

Here goes some of the food items that ticks off the low to high mood indicators:

Sugar

Regular sugar consumption can prevent the lining of our gut from stopping harmful substances to enter into the body. As a result, small molecules can escape from the gut into the blood stream causing inflammation which leads to depression-like symptoms.

Processed Foods

There are evidences that shows that common emulsifiers in many processed foods have a very toxic effect on the gut which in turn affects mood adversely. Certain unhealthy food components affect the brain directly with negative impacts on a region called the hippocampus which is also responsible for mood regulation.

Chocolates

Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate has anti-inflammatory properties which has a positive impact on our mood. Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine (PEA), which is the same chemical that our brain creates when we fall in love and which induces our brain to release feel-good endorphins.

Shakes and Smoothies

Smoothies and shakes that contains green ingredients and fruits usually has lots of fibre, which is very good for our gut and thus our mood.

The key here is to avoid the CRAP, from both our food and life! We need to make healthy food choices, avoid Carbonated drinks, Refined sugars, Aspartame additives, Processed meats and processed foods and that’s pretty much the crap that you can consciously banish from your diet.

Life is simple. Live it, love it and devour it like there was no tomorrow!