With dementia rates expected to soar in the coming years as Canada’s population ages, there couldn’t be a more opportune time for a cookbook offering information and recipes geared toward maintaining good brain health.
“Mindfull,” an e-book just launched by Toronto-based Baycrest, is being billed as the world’s first science-based cookbook for the brain.
Baycrest, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is a global leader in developing and providing innovations in aging and brain health and one of the world’s top research institutes in cognitive neuroscience.
In creating the 300-page book, Dr. Carol Greenwood, a nutrition and cognitive scientist with the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences, teamed up with Daphna Rabinovitch, an award-winning recipe developer and food writer, and Joanna Gryfe, a food and media expert.
“Mindfull” provides consumer-friendly information on the science of nutrition and brain health along with 100 recipes designed to “fire up your synapses.”
Celebrity chefs including Michael Smith, Mark McEwan, and Dale Mackay, as well as Laureen Harper, wife of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, contributed recipes for the book.
The Alzheimer Society of Canada estimates that 60 percent of Alzheimer’s diagnoses are attributed to lifestyle choices. Studies have shown that poor eating habits and a lack of physical and intellectual stimulation are actually stronger drivers for dementia than genetics alone.
