Free Power Foods for the Brain by Neal Barnard

you are slathering these oils all over your foods, they slip into your bloodstream and occupy the enzymes that should be handling ALA. 16 And suddenly your brain is wondering what happened to the “good” fats it needs.
    Now, you do need a little bit of omega-6. But most people’s diets include so much of these oils that they crowd out everything else. Their enzymes are all tied up, and only a fraction of their ALA is ever converted to the longer-chain forms.
    So, omega-3s are good, and if you have too much omega-6, it will crowd out your omega-3s. What should you do?
    The first step is to have ALA-rich foods in your diet. Have plenty of vegetables, fruits, and beans, and, if you like, top your salad with slivered walnuts or ground flaxseed, for example.
    The second step is to greatly limit competing fats. Take a look at the low-fat cooking techniques described in chapter 9 and in the recipe section. You’ll be able to sauté onions and garlic without drowning them in grease. And you’ll be able to top a salad with lighter, healthier dressings.
    You already want to avoid animal fat and partially hydrogenated oils because of the harm they do. Limiting or avoiding cooking oils is a good idea, too.
    It’s really a question of balance—getting an adequate amount of ALA while limiting the competing oils. The balance your body is looking for is somewhere around 2:1 to 4:1—that is, 2 to 4 grams of omega-6 for every gram of omega-3. 16 That is the ratio that maximizes your body’s ability to use the omega-3 to build the longer-chain fats your brain uses. If your menu emphasizes vegetables, fruits, and beans, your foods would give you a pretty good balance of fats naturally. While these healthful foods don’t have a great deal of any sort of fat, what they do have is proportionately rich in omega-3s, as opposed to other kinds of fat.
    Some people take a third step, which is to make sure they have DHA in their diets. Their rationale is that for most people very little ALA is actually lengthened to EPA and DHA, so they aim to get DHA directly. Their problem, of course, may be that they are getting too much omega-6, and it is tying up their conversion enzymes. So cutting out those competing oils is important. Still, if you do decide to include DHA in your diet, the most healthful source is a DHA supplement, which you will find atany health food store. Vegan brands are preferable. Their DHA is derived from algae rather than from fish, and they contain no animal-derived ingredients.
    That said, omega-3 supplements have not yet proved their worth for preventing dementia. In a two-year English study, 867 elderly people were given a capsule that contained two different omega-3s: 200 milligrams of EPA plus 500 milligrams of DHA. It did nothing to forestall memory loss. The participants’ reaction time, spatial memory, and processing speed were no better than for people given a placebo. 17 A Dutch study showed the same result. 18 It may be that omega-3 supplements would show more benefit in people who had low omega-3 intake to start with.
    Fish oil supplements have also been tested in people who have Alzheimer’s disease to see if they can slow the disease process. So far, results are disappointing. An eighteen-month test of fish oil (2 grams of DHA) in Alzheimer’s patients showed no benefit. 19
    The take-home message is not to rely on pills. Instead, put omega-3-rich foods on your daily menu.

Beyond the Mediterranean
    Some people promote a “Mediterranean diet,” meaning one that emphasizes vegetables, fruits, beans, and pasta, fish rather thanred meat, olive oil instead of butter, and perhaps wine. It’s an easy sell. To North Americans, the word “Mediterranean” conjures up sunny images of places they would rather be.
    Earlier I mentioned a Columbia University study in which researchers rated the diets of New Yorkers. Those who emphasized vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, and fish, while having less meat and dairy