Korn - The good mood kitchen: simple recipes and nutrition tips for emotional balance

Also by Leslie Korn

Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health

Note:

The recipe for ArugulaFigPeach Salad, the dish depicted on the cover of this book, can be found in the Good Mood Fruits section of .

The Good Mood Kitchen

Simple Recipes and Nutrition Tips for Emotional Balance

LESLIE KORN

NOTE TO READERS: This book proposes to educate the reader about the role of diet and nutrition in mental health; neither the publisher nor the author(s) can guarantee the efficacy or appropriateness of any particular recommendation in every circumstance.

Copyright 2017 by Leslie Korn

All rights reserved
First Edition

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

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W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

Book design by Vicki Fischman
Production manager: Christine Critelli
Cover design by Christine Knorr
Cover photograph Claudia Totir

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Korn, Leslie E., author.

Title: The good mood kitchen : simple recipes and nutrition tips for

emotional balance / Leslie Korn.

Description: New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2017] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017014287 | ISBN 9780393712223 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Mental healthNutritional aspects. | Cooking.

Classification: LCC RC455.4.N8 K66 2017 | DDC 641.5/63dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014287

ISBN 978-0-393-71223-0 (e-book)

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.,
15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

For my husband, Rudolph Rser,
who has taught me so much about food and cookingco-forager, cooking partner, and good mood role model.

Contents

There are many people in my life, present and past, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for their contributions to my own good mood, as well as my professional work. Of these many, four are foremost in my mind and heart. My exploration of the role of culture, foods, and medicine began in early life with my grandmothers, Jessica Schindler Finberg and Esther Hirsch Korn, who cooked sumptuous old-country meals reflecting their wisdom about nourishment. In my professional studies, no one has influenced my work in nutrition and diet more than the late Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a brilliant and generous physician who is the reason why I, a 27 years-long vegetarian, am now a recovered vegetarian. We lost Nick too soon, but I hope that this book contributes a small portion to his legacy. Finally, I would like to thank my editor at Norton, Benjamin Yarling, whose consistent enthusiasm for our collaboration brings out my best, and for that I am ever thankful.

The Good Mood Kitchen

There is no doubt that nutrition affects mental health. Poor nutrition leads to and exacerbates mental illness. Optimal nutrition prevents and treats mental illness. Note the word optimal to describe nutrition that prevents and treats illness. Ones diet cannot be just good, or providing the basics for survival; it must be nutrient dense and tailored to the needs of the individual, who may have been missing the basic ingredients for optimal brain function since life in the womb.

Where there is mental illness, there is very often poor diet. Where there is mental illness, there is usually a long history of digestive problems. By adding the lens of nutrition, diet, and digestion to your personal toolbox, you can forever change your approach to self-care and enhance the efficacy of your eating habits for optimal energy, health, and emotional well-being.

I have written this book to take you step by step through all the essentials required to revolutionize your personal diet with mental health-savvy recipes and tips. Even if you do not apply all of these approaches yourself, this is an opportunity to explore food substitutions, eating principles, and recipes that will, without a doubt, enhance your well-being and stamina.

Changing your thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and habits can be challenging. It happens slowly. Changing nutritional beliefs and behaviors is no different from changing other beliefs and behaviors, but results are assured. This book is not ideological; it is practical in that it provides concrete steps to modify your eating behaviors for healthful results.

Knowing who you are and what your body needs is the art and science of mental health nutrition. Some people function best as carnivores, others function better as vegetarians. But what is incontrovertible is that nutrition matters. It is the most important missing link to mental health in society today.

In the chapters that follow, I will guide you through each stage of dietary and nutritional change. I will suggest some first steps, but nutritional change is much like a jigsaw puzzle. No matter where you start, youll begin to discover new patterns that lead to improved health.

When discussing diet and nutrition with the people I work with in my professional practice, I usually suggest that they use a food, mood, and exercise diary, which asks them to keep detailed track for three days of what they eat, how they feel, and when they move or exercise. Id like to recommend this practice to you, too. The food diary is a valuable tool for taking stock of your current self-care routinesor lack of themand can greatly enhance awareness of what youre eating and how its affecting your energy and mood. However the conversation begins, recognizing that mood is a mind-body experience and not just based on personal history or mental processes can be crucial in enhancing your sense of self-efficacy, feeling empowered and motivated to take action, and broadening your perspective on the many pathways to change.

If, as the act of picking this book up suggests, youre ready to start making changes to feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally, and to have more fun in the kitchen, you might ask yourself: What do I do first?

Ive listed below some questions to ask yourself, both now and as you continue to read and learn about mood-savvy nutrition in ways that can add to and inform the way you cook and eat. Theres plenty to learn, but theres no correct or incorrect way to make changes. You can start right away, and then continue to adapt and expand as you learn more over the course of this book.

What is essential when making changes is to make the changes you feel like making first and that you will feel successful doing. I encourage you to ask the following questions of yourself now, and write the answers down, as a helpful way to begin exploring your diet, your eating behaviors, and the food-mood connections you experience:

How many of my meals am I preparing?

How many meals a week are fast food?

How am I preparing my meals?

Which foods make me feel good?

Which foods make me feel bad?

How do foods alter my consciousness?