Lucinda Miller: Neurodivergence, brain health, and ultraprocessed foods

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that helps support your mental well-being. Today, I'm chatting to Lucinda Miller. I have ADHD. I got diagnosed when I was 31 and I love my brain. But at that point, I didn't love my brain. I was in chaos and I thought, I want to do this through diet. So the first thing I did was to eat a really high protein breakfast and it made such a massive difference to my whole day. So it's certainly not about curing. It's about looking at the situation, looking at that specific person's situation and thinking, how am I going to help their brain to work the best they can?

0:37Lucinda has over 25 years experience as a family naturopath and functional medicine practitioner. She runs a UK-wide team of nutritional therapists specialising in child nutrition and neurodivergence. And she's a mentor for kids with ADHD and autism too. Now, I was so taken with her new book, Brain Brilliance, that I just absolutely had to ask her to come over to mine and have a chat to properly dig into the connection between what we eat and how our brain functions, which I think we still seriously underestimate. And that's why I'm fascinated about this subject. We talk a lot about parenting and feeding neurodivergent kids in particular.

1:23But to be quite honest, even if you're not a parent and you don't know anyone with neurodivergence, which I do suspect is actually quite unlikely, you'll learn so, so much about how your diet is impacting your brain health. And yeah, that basically means your mood and your behavior. So I think there's loads that we can all take away from this chat. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts.

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3:47all right here we go this is the show

4:11Lucinda, it's so lovely to have you here for a chat today. so much to talk about I absolutely loved reading Brain Brilliance your book which you know as it states on the front is for neurodivergent kids but actually having read it and cooked from it this is a book for neurodivergent adults and actually anyone with a brain I would say well that's why I've written it I've really written it for everybody however because there are so many kids that have been overlooked. I feel that it's really important to focus in on the neurodivergence because there are so many kids with neurodivergence that are not having happy, healthy lives.

4:50Well, exactly. And it's a massive problem. And it's such an area of interest for me. It's one that's close to my heart. It seems today that there is a lot of chat around this subject, which I only see as a positive thing. Why do you think it is such a new conversation? Why weren't we having this chat? I grew up in the 80s. This was not a conversation being had. And I'm pretty sure I know people from my life in that era who could have really done with, whether it's a diagnosis or just having some resources to cope better. Absolutely. I think we're all understanding neurodivergence a lot more. I think most of us can sort of relate to some aspects of it, but it's very nuanced.

5:32And that's where a psychiatrist or an educational psychologist will be able to understand exactly what aspect of neurodivergence you might have. But because people are becoming more familiar, they're understanding that kids, for instance, can have a lot more help at school. They can find therapies that may help them with their mental health, with their development, etc. and adults as well they can really help themselves to really thrive with their brains. So let's go right back to basics for anyone who's listening to this that perhaps doesn't know much about neurodivergence what does it mean to be neurodivergent?

6:06Well I think it's a real umbrella term and it just really means that your brain works in a slightly different way to what is described as the neurotypical person. So for instance in a classic traditional schoolroom, you might have had 30 kids and two may be identified with, say, dyslexia or ADHD. Now it's a lot more. And whether that's due to environmental reasons, dietary reasons, or whether it's just more awareness, we don't know yet. However, it's really those kids that may think out of the box, have a different learning style, but also behaviourally might find it really challenging to sit at a desk or, you know, parents might find them really hard to raise.

6:56Yeah, this is the thing. It's a whole different situation for a neurodivergent kid who's navigating that very regimented school life, but also for parents to as sanely as possible parent kids who, you know, the typical things we might see with many, because I know you've got a whole massive list of sort of an index of all the different types of neurodivergence that you you could have it's it's a really tricky thing to parent it's a really tricky thing if you've got kids in the classroom and you're just teaching in the sort of regimented way but one thing that I haven't heard talked about as much which I'm this is why I love your book so much is the connection to diet and I think even when we look at mental health Diet can be a bit poo-pooed, like, oh, as if diet's got anything to do with depression or anxiety.

7:45Of course it does. It's so bizarre to think that we know if we eat a good, healthy diet, our physical body will feel better and will feel good. But we sort of extract the brain from that equation. I think that's its own separate entity. Of course, there's going to be a direct correlation to how our brain works and how we feel due to diet. Why is this being so overlooked, do you think? Well, I think it's an emerging science. I think it's something that wasn't prioritised originally. Many people think of diet as what you look like, how tall you grow or how large you are or those sorts of things.

8:21They might associate diet with, say, heart disease or diabetes. But I think it's more and more emerging now that it can affect the brain just as much. So originally, I think people, you know, doctors were divided into two. You had your medical doctor you'd see for physical issues and then you'd have a psychiatrist who would look at brain psychiatric issues. And it was almost like there was a Berlin Wall between the two. And it was sort of like, you know, they didn't interact. But now research is finding that there is an immune system in the brain. So if your immune system's being disrupted due to a cold or a virus, then your brain.

8:57And I think this is what you see with COVID, for instance. people say, yeah, you know, I felt really ill, but I also, I had a really terrible brain frog. I felt really low. My energy was very low. And that, you know, they could almost feel their brain feeling kind of inflamed. So I think we're all learning from that. And also that, you know, there's a huge amount of research finding that diet is linked with things like depression, anxiety, OCD even. And this is up to, you know, 15 years later. So these are, you know, changes in diet can alter your brain for a very long time. So you're a naturopath and also a functional medicine practitioner.

9:39Is that the right terminology? That's right. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So what does that mean when you're working with somebody, a kid or an adult, and you're looking specifically at neurodivergence, how are you applying diet to the equation? so what it is is I fundamentally believe that we can nourish our brains through eating well now most kids that we see are incredibly fussy eaters so the parents have probably identified that they're eating a very narrow diet and they've made that connection that they're looking really pale they're very tired they're not sleeping very well they maybe have aches and pains or sort of tummy all the time.

10:17So there's other things going on. And so what we do is we look to see what else might be going on. Is there inflammation going on? Is there a gut issue going on? How are they anemic? Have they got low zinc? You know, all these important things. And once we've done those tests, and these are usually urine tests, stool tests, hair tests, occasionally blood tests, but we try and avoid those with kids because, you know, they don't like them very much. And then we piece together a health plan which is changes in diet but these are very positive changes these are trying to put new things in rather than take things out unless there's a really marked allergy or something that's come up like I don't know celiac disease which is a gluten problem so and then it's trying to nourish that child back and to help to feed the gut microbiome which I'm sure we'll talk about a bit more later and to basically help them get back on track and once they feel more energized, once they've got more vitality, then the brain starts working better too.

11:16They're more confident, their mood lifts, they sleep better. Suddenly they're getting better reports from school. You know, they find they've got more friends around them. Life at home is much easier. They feel better liked within the family environment. You know, they just feel they fit in everywhere. And so I think that's where it's really important. It's all about their well-being and getting them to the best version of themselves you can. And I guess managing the symptoms that each of these neurodivergent diagnoses will present to each individual. It's not about, OK, you've got, for instance, ADHD.

11:53We're going to cure you of ADHD. It's let's manage the symptoms with diet. And through your book and from the work that you're doing, you've seen evidence in that being possible. Absolutely. So I have ADHD. I got diagnosed when I was 31. and I love my brain. But at that point, I didn't love my brain. I was in chaos. I was disorganized, scattered. I was a new mum. I found it incredibly hard to manage my life. And now, you know, I've got three kids. I run this business. You know, I love writing books, et cetera. And, you know, I can manage it all. And I love the way that my brain thinks out of the box, quite creative, but also scientific at the same time.

12:34And so I feel I've got the best version of brain I can. My uncle died of dementia. And, you know, again, I want to protect my brain going forward. I'm in my mid 50s now. And, you know, I really want to have a healthy, happy later life too. So, you know, that's just from my perspective. So I'm not curing my ADHD. I thrive with my ADHD without it. It would be I would be empty. However, when I first was looking at this, I wanted to have another baby. There wasn't enough research around the medications. and pregnancy. And I just thought, I want to do this naturally. I was a naturopath anyway. And I thought, I want to do this through diet.

13:14So the first thing I did was to eat a really high protein breakfast. And it made such a massive difference to my whole day. And that was just one change. And then over the years, I mean, you know, we all navigate health ups and downs, and I found different ways to support my brain. But at the end of the day, you know, I think there are little things that you can do that can make a massive difference. So it's certainly not about curing at all. It's about looking at the situation, looking at that specific person's situation and thinking, how am I going to make their life better? How am I going to help their brain to work the best they can?

13:49And for instance, dyslexic kids, there's really good research to find that one basic task at, say, at school, something like, you know, some maths task or English or whatever it might be. can take up about five times as much brain energy as a neurotypical person. Wow. So imagine how exhausting, how much energy that child needs to maintain that energy throughout the whole day. It's exhausting being neurodivergent. Therefore, if they can be fuelled with the right foods to give them that energy during the day, then isn't it brilliant? They're going to come out of school and they're not going to feel completely drained, completely dysregulated.

14:35They're going to be able to go and enjoy their football, all the things they love to do or gaming or whatever they want to do after school rather than be all over the shop. I think this is the thing that a lot of parents experience is the after school meltdown because either kids have had to hold either it could be ticks or it could be constant repetitive movements or it could be just trying to focus like you said on one particular task. So when they do get home It is often a time where they let go and they let everything out that they've been holding in all day. And that, of course, is really hard to manage as a parent, but also distressing for the kid as well.

15:12And it's really typical to see huge meltdowns, even sort of tantrums, but but sort of past the age of when you'd be having tantrums and big dramatic mood swings. How can diet help monitor that or just lessen the degree of those big sort of meltdowns? Really great question. So in the book, I talk about blood sugar balancing. And essentially, if you can start your day with a high protein breakfast, that could be eggs, it could be a porridge, but supercharged with things like peanut butter, or it could be some Greek yogurt, you know, even if they love their cereal, just try and get the protein in as well, then that will blunt the blood sugars from going super high and then super low during the day, because when they go super high, they crash down.

15:59It's a bit like going steeply up a mountain and then it's crashing down. So by break time, you know, they're feeling a bit wobbly. So they crave the biscuits and the fruit rather than something a bit more substantial. So their blood sugar is whizzing up again and they go crashing down by lunchtime. So all they want is the baguette or the pizza rather than, you know, the sort of more solid sort of home cooked, you know, whatever they're getting at school. And then again, blood sugars go whizzing up and then it goes crashing down. And of course, it's school pickup time and that's where they're totally dysregulated.

16:30So if you get the protein at the beginning of the day, that makes an enormous difference. And then sort of encouraging generally getting that protein in and the lower sugar. I'm not saying no sugar at all. And actually, a lot of people don't realize that many foods affect your blood sugar. And so to go totally no sugar is actually really, really hard unless you go ketogenic, which I would never suggest for a child. Because, you know, carrots, red peppers, oats, all these things can alter the blood sugar to some degree, but they all do it at a slightly different rate. But the protein and the healthy fats help to balance everything.

17:09A key thing is to get rid of processed food. And we know this not just for reasons of looking at neurodivergent symptoms, but in general, we shouldn't be eating that stuff. And it's really hard to avoid it because we walk into a supermarket and the shelves are absolutely packed with the stuff. And you say in the book, you know, ideally a kid would be having less than 20 percent of processed foods in their diet. But sadly, it's something like 75 to 85 percent. Yeah. Which made me feel distressed thinking like, oh, my God, just that isn't that that imbalance is huge and not great. And it'll be similar for many adults out there.

17:45And the reasons are that people are time poor and they, you know, we're reaching for the easy to cook thing or the easy to grab snack. Often those items seem cheaper, although I think actually we can look at the evidence of cooking and batch cooking from scratch and it will end up being economically more beneficial. But I think we know that lots of people are in the habit of eating processed foods and it does feel like a big change, but it is a really important one if you can do it. And if you can work out ways to batch cook and get as much home cooked food in your kids, it's so important. I mean, I grew up in the 80s where, and this is no shade of my mum whatsoever, but she was incredibly time poor, had about four jobs.

18:27And I ate, I think, 100 % processed foods growing up. But we didn't have this sort of informational language back then. It was just stick a pizza in the oven, maybe a jacket potato alongside, which is a potato, fine. And then you'd eat a, you know, Mars ice cream for dessert or whatever. I mean, we're just eating so much shit. we've got so much more knowledge today and we know that it's going to impact our kids in a negative way if they're eating this stuff but it does feel like a big change where do people start if they're like oh my god I know my balance with my kids is off here and they're eating a ton of processed food I think the first thing you can do I've mentioned breakfast but I'll talk about snacks is to think what can I do that's a little bit healthier snack wise and it could be that you have a picky plate when they get back from school and you could have some cheese you know you could have some hummus you could have some carrot sticks you could have some little treaty things too but have a bit of a mixture and it's amazing that's when they're most hungry because a lot of kids don't eat enough lunch yeah you know there's something about lunch it's their lunch hall's very busy and noisy and it's food they're not familiar with um you know they're in a bad mood whatever it might be.

19:39And so often, or it's rushed because they've got an extra club. So there's often lunch is not that substantial, even if they go to a school where they pride themselves with good food. It's still, you can't guarantee what they've eaten at lunchtime. So that snack attack when you pick them up from school can really help to regulate them. And it might be that you, you know, when you pick them up from the school gates, you give them a banana just to keep them going until you get home. Now, obviously some are just so fixed on having their packet of crisps or whatever they're used to. And that's okay.

20:09But then get home, as I said, and sort of when you've got a little bit more time and brain space, have a few more different things. And I think it's about stocking your fridge, stocking your larder. So you've got bits and pieces there that you can put out that they enjoy and get them to choose too. They can, as I said, with a picky plate, they can, you know, it'd be interesting to see what they do choose and what they leave behind. And what about, you know, because a lot of neurodivergent kids will be incredibly fussy. they'll be very fixed on what and it could be to do with texture it could just be I don't want to try anything new I've got my 11 year old is a really adventurous eater thank goodness but my daughter is really fussy and it has been a lot more challenging to try and get new things to her luckily she's pretty good with with fruit and veg but it's the protein bit she can be very stubborn about I'm not I'm not trying eggs or I'm not trying chicken whatever it might be so how do we start to introduce especially protein as we've talked about the importance of it either sneaking into their food or trying to get them on board with trying something new so there are some dual approach first of all you could think about things like red lentils in the in the tomato sauce which is just a little bit of gentle protein or using chickpea flour when you're baking or you know using nut butters and things like that so yogurt you know they often quite like that so an egg goes in nicely into baked things so into the snacks so those are things which are less demanding on their sort of sensory input I guess you know like look at you know if they look at a piece of steak or they look at a piece of salmon that's a bit overwhelming but if it's sort of combined with the pesto for instance with the pasta then that sometimes works quite well or egg fried rice again you know the egg isn't sitting looking at them it's just within the things that they're quite familiar with.

21:58So there's that. And then the other angle, which is what we do very much in clinic and something that's really a very big message in Brain Brilliance is all about nutrients and minerals and how they help with things like sense of smell, taste and perception of texture. So there's a particular mineral that I'm obsessed with and it's called zinc. and zinc helps to make all your gastric juices so it helps with sense of smell and taste and because it helps it's really important neurologically it's the second most abundant mineral in your central nervous system it can also help with texture perception as well wow and are we getting zinc from food only or supplements important in this conversation this is where it's difficult because high zinc foods the most the high zinc food is an oyster I mean, lots of people will not.

22:52I've never eaten one and I can't even bear the thought of it. When people chug them back, I think, how are you doing that? That is the texture of snot. And you're not even chewing it. It makes me gag thinking about it. Sorry. Anyway, let's move on. But basically there are other foods. So there's all the meats, the fish, dairy, nuts and seeds. But these are not foods that kids eat that regularly. Anyway, so this is where sometimes when you've got a hypersensitive child, where you've got a child who is highly selective, is not interested in budging with their diet, is that you do need to think about supplements.

23:38And usually zinc comes in drops, pretty tasteless, goes in a little bit of apple juice or orange juice, even be dropped into a pancake batter. I mean, you know, it's that easy. And what this slowly does is it slowly brings up their levels, which then means that their gastric juices start being made so they're a bit hungrier, turns on the sense of smell and taste, helps everything feel nicer in the mouth. But it's also really important for mood swings. And it's really important for emotional dysregulation. As I said, it's so important for the nervous system. So overall, they feel more balanced.

24:17and I've got a my youngest is 16 and we did some tests recently on all the kids actually and we found that he was a little bit low in zinc and a little bit high in something called copper and that can mean that you can feel quite imbalanced he was coming up to his GCSEs although he was seemingly on the outside doing very well and anyway he his skin's fine but you know like all 16 year olds got a few little pimples so I said hey you need a bit more zinc and I really want you to take this and it will help your skin he's a bit in love at the moment so it's so you know he's like hey you know and i look perfect so i did this anyway two weeks later i just chatted to him and i said how are you feeling he said you know i'm feeling so much calmer and basically zinc stops that high adrenaline state wow so it helps with the fight or flight state so it's a really balancing mineral it also helps with the immune system and one of the reasons why when we have covid we lose our sense of smell and taste is because covid zaps up a lot of zinc so if you've got a child that's always sick they're going to go low in zinc so then they become very limited with their diet you need zinc when you're going through puberty so loads of kids suddenly limit their diet going through puberty become much more selective they live in the in the corner shop rather than eating your food and often it's because the zinc's being used up to turn them from girls to women and boys to men and therefore it's sort of almost prioritizing that over what they're eating so they become really narrow you've also talked about how the immune system affects a neurodivergent brain and the symptoms what's the interplay between the two so as i said earlier though you know it's the brain and the body are now known to be connected in this immune system in the brain um there are these amazing cells in your brain called microglia and they're like the housekeepers that kind of clean up your brain overnight so that's why we all need a really good night's sleep because then the brain is doing its sort of housework overnight so it's all fresh and bright for the next day so obviously you've got a child that isn't sleeping very well that can be a problem also the immune system so if you've got a virus or bacterial infection parasite infection yeast infection whatever it might be that can affect the brain too because it can affect the the ability for that microglia to do their job so they're sort of partly on strike because they're trying to deal with the infection.

26:38And also all these nutrients that I talk about in the book, like zinc, are so important too. So there's a particular type of kid that we see a lot of in the clinic. And this is something really important for people to know about. It's a condition called PANS-PANDAS, which is where a child gets a strep infection. It could be a sore throat, tonsillitis it could be scarlet fever and it may be them it may be a sibling it may be one of their friends at school that gets this infection but essentially what happens is almost overnight and or it could be over a few weeks but they changed completely their character so they go from a sort of confident happy kid to suddenly OCD, tics, anxiety, sometimes wetting their bed sometimes they literally their schoolwork goes downhill sometimes they just lock themselves in their room and they won't come out and this is where the immune system instead of being fought you know the infection being fought properly it hits the back of the brain called basal ganglia and it causes this inflammation so the microglia are in chaos basically and not doing their job and this inflammation is just getting worse and worse and it can be there for weeks if not months usually it sort of starts to wane again but then obviously strep's going around school so every time they get exposed to strep it happens again so often over the summer they're better but then in the winter they're just you know they're so dysregulated anyway luckily there are some great doctors now in the uk who are able to treat these conditions medically but from a nutrition perspective we sort of help them so their immune system doesn't do that again because you can't avoid the strep unless you're totally taken out of school which we don't want kids to do so um so that's where the zinc and the probiotics and all those important things make such a big difference in the diet so over time you almost retrain the immune system which again not only is helping you to fight the bugs so you feel better but it's also stopping the brain from being on fire The market's uncertain.

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29:48so let's get more into the gut because this seems like a really important subject that we haven't touched on yet and the gut biome and what's going on down there and why we need it to be healthily ticking along so that we do cognitively feel at our best so again what's the interplay between the gut and the brain. So in our bellies, we've got this incredible ecosystem, this sort of microbial soup called the microbiome. And it's lots of different bacteria, viruses, parasites, yeasts. It's a proper world. And when it's in a really good balance, there's lots of really good guys that are making that soup all yummy and nutritious and happy and positive and warming and glowing.

30:32But sometimes these pesky bacteria, whether it's a virus coming in from the outside, whether it's bacteria that's growing within, whether it's some toxins from the environment, it kind of makes it slightly, it's part of it bad. And most of the time it's sort of doing a good job at keeping it in balance. But there are genetic reasons, there's environmental reasons, there's just bad luck. You know, you get loads of infections in a row, whatever it might be. So you're on loads of antibiotics. It can completely disrupt it. So the antibiotics are almost like a carpet bomb. And they get rid of the bad bacteria, which is what we want.

31:04But they also get rid of this beneficial bacteria. And it's the beneficial bacteria that help to build our neurotransmitters. And neurotransmitters are the things that keep our mood happy, help us sleep, help us focus, help us learn. And so if you aren't creating enough of those, they're not being as efficient as they should do, then the mood and everything goes down. So the immune system is really important. So part of the gut microbiome is to help make your immune system. It also helps to bring down this inflammation I was talking about that can affect the brain, but it also makes these neurotransmitters.

31:38And I tell you a little bit about neurotransmitters because I'm really, really love these. So everyone's heard probably, if they know anything about the gut microbiome, they've probably heard of something called lactobacillus. It's in yogurt, it's in its cousin called kefir. It's in all the fermented culture foods that people talk about. It's also created from eating a healthy diet, fruits and vegetables, et cetera. And lactobacillus helps us digest dairy. It brings down inflammation, it helps with the immune system. So it's great research to find that lactobacillus can help with things like coughs and colds and things like that if a child has enough.

32:14Now we do stool tests in our clinic, looking at the whole microbiome and gut function, etc and most of the time i kid you not i would say at least 90 of the kids that we see have almost no lactobacillus in their gut so then they can't digest dairy so they're put on dairy free which is you know means they're missing out on some of the lovely things like ice cream yeah and yogurts and so forth and um but um and they also you know because their immune system then is a bit out they often a little bit more inflamed and inflammation can show as eczema and rashes and asthma and, you know, sort of feeling sort of like, you know, body compositions a bit out and things like that.

32:55But it also helps to make this neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. And acetylcholine is such an important brain chemical. It helps with learning, memory, emotional regulation and self-regulation. So it helps with things like working memory and processing and executive function all these key things that neurodivergent kids often really really struggle with. I haven't heard of that one I know like your dopamines and your serotonins but I haven't heard of that one. It's a really important one. Why are the majority of kids you're seeing lacking in what was it lactose lactobacillus lactobacillus so why are they lacking in it is that because of the neurodivergence or something that's lacking in their diet and that's why you're seeing them?

33:43So the evidence that I've seen from the papers I've read and from the kids that we see in our clinic, I would say that a very high proportion of these kids will have had antibiotics quite near birth or around the birth. So it's either mum's had a difficult birth or there's been mastitis or there's been a serious infection. And of course, those antibiotics were essential at that point. But because the microbiome hasn't had that opportunity to repopulate, maybe they weren't breastfed, maybe they weren't given probiotics, maybe they were dairy free, so they couldn't have the yogurts and so forth to help kind of rebuild, then that's where it doesn't form.

34:25And it's a really difficult one to stick. Yeah, it's so interesting. Because I think, again, we sort of, we might downplay that and go, oh, well, how could the antibiotics be affecting them, you know, from years and years ago to their gut health today? But that's stuff that still needs rectifying. Absolutely. Laced down the line. And lactobacillus also makes another neurotransmitter, which a lot of people are not familiar with, but it's so important. It's called GABA, G-A-B-A. and GABA is our cool calm relaxed neurotransmitter it basically is that zen-like feeling having come out of a gorgeous massage or a yoga session you feel super calm and you need a lot of GABA to be able to sleep well and you need enough GABA say teenagers you know those risky teenagers that do all the kind of crazy stuff often they haven't got enough GABA I feel like I'm lacking GABA I think most of us can do with more GABA I feel like I need some GABA in my life guys so the lactobacillus helps to make that and so does this other bacteria called bifidobacterium that also is really important too but also GABA can come from tea so older like tweens and teens can have things like green tea and you know how maybe you've had a big shock so I was just sit down and laugh have a cup of tea and you feel all that shaking goes away afterwards because the GABA's kicked in and that contains something called theanine.

35:52And theanine is this amazing amino acid that helps to keep us really calm and it's very GABA rich. But you can get GABA from things like chamomile tea. So it's why you feel great after having a cup of chamomile tea. Oats and again, the yogurts and things like that. And some cheeses contain GABA. So, you know, so there are these GABA rich foods that you can have. The trouble is the opposite to GABA is something called glutamate. We've all heard of monosodium glutamate, MSG, which has been added to lots of the processed foods. Now that's been mainly taken out of foods because there was so much hoo-ha about it.

36:26You know, the food manufacturers said, we better get rid of this. But what they've done is they've replaced the MSG with these high glutamate ingredients, things like yeast extract, even natural flavoring citric acid, which are almost in almost every packaged food you get. And these are incredibly high in the same element is called glutamic acid or free glutamate. And that can affect the brain just as much. So that's making the brain get uppey, uppey, uppey, excite, excite, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. And there's not enough GABA. So if you're not making enough GABA through the gut and then you're not getting enough GABA through the diet, again, that seesaw can be out of balance.

37:01And it tends to be that very excitable, very difficult to regulate child who finds it incredibly difficult to get to sleep is often, especially when you notice that if they, I don't know, have a blue Smartie or, you know, a packet of Doritos or whatever it might be that they've gone a bit crazy. Yeah, I mean, we can all monitor this stuff in our kids. We can actually see it in real time. We can watch them eat something highly processed or really high in refined sugar and we can see it. Like it will be 10 minutes later. They'll be bouncing off the walls or they might have a meltdown. And that's the funny thing is that we're sort of downplaying this idea that food's going to impact whether it's neurodivergent symptoms or just the brain.

37:42But we see it all day, every day. And we feel it in ourselves. You know, if I ate something super sugary now, I know I would feel wretched about half an hour later. I would be bloated in the gut, which I now have learned so much about how that's connected to my brain. But I would probably feel like jittery and high. It seems like when we're talking about neurodivergence, often the first port of call for a parent who's who's managing a child with the symptoms is to look at what can we do in the home to create new boundaries around behavior and then how are we going to manage these mood swings whereas actually this needs to be the first port of call looking at diet and making those tweaks before we do anything i would say so that's what we find exactly that if you can get the diet right then all the other therapies and all the other interventions just works so much more easily.

38:36And as I said, it could be something really simple, like just adding a boiled egg in at breakfast, you know, or, you know, a couple of tablespoons of yogurt or a thick spread of peanut butter on the toast. What's not to love about that? Yeah. I mean, delicious. And then you put some bananas and raspberries and things like that on there. And the snacks can be supercharged too. You know, in Brain Brilliance, we have just got these delicious, well, I think delicious recipes my kids loved it they're so good all the kids on the set that when we were doing all the cooking loved them as well and it's things like mug cake you know it takes a minute and a half to make but it's got ground almonds in it rather than just white flour so they're just little switches that you can have at home different ingredients that you can use and it becomes their normal it's what they normally put in these things exactly so if someone's listening to this thinking god i really need to make some switches here and and and have a look at how my kid is impacted positively if they're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all the information which is natural i think when you start thinking about anything within a different framework or you just want to look at a new perspective everything can feel really overwhelming if we distill everything down to some basics are we saying protein is a must in whatever form get processed food out as much as possible As much as possible.

39:55So cook from scratch. Try and cook scratch where you can. Or choose snacks when you look in the supermarket that don't have too many ingredients on the label. Yeah, if you look at it and think, what does that say? Don't eat it. Yeah. As much as possible. I mean, okay, that's a really good way of just sort of us distilling it down. I guess as your kid gets older, you can get more into conversation with them about this. I know even with my own kids, if I say, oh, guys, I wouldn't pick that if I were you. because I don't, the more I say to my kids, don't eat that, they want to eat it. Like I know how they work.

40:28If I say, don't touch that, they'll touch it. So if I go, look, do you think that's a great choice? Sometimes on a good day, they might have a think about that and pick something else. But usually, you know, my kids are 11 and eight. They'll go, no, I'll be fine if I eat that. And they'll be quite stubborn about it. How can we get into a healthy conversation about food with our children? So we're not dictating the whole time. I think when things become dogmatic, Kids just go, either I'm going to rebel against everything you're saying and run for the processed food or they just completely ignore you.

41:00How can we engage in a conversation where they're really listening and actually it all feels positive rather than a drag that we're sort of nagging our kids about this stuff? So I think the first thing is the human brain does not process the word don't. Yeah. So as soon as you say, don't cross the road, their brain hears cross the road. So as soon as they've heard that, they get completely confused when you shout at them when they start crossing the road. So it's a bit like, so don't eat that muffin is they will hear eat that muffin. So first of all, to say something like, I can see you'd like that muffin, but why don't we have our main course first?

41:45And we'll have that for pudding. so that then they look forward to having it, but they may not eat the whole thing. Or if they do, they've had some protein or something sort of pretty healthy first. So it's not going to knock out their energy levels and that, you know, too much. And it's to say, you know, yes, well, today, actually, we were going to have spaghetti bolognese. I know that you want pizza, but that's what I planned. But why don't we work out when we can have pizza? So again, it's planning it. So they know they love to know they love to have that security of knowing when just but keep to what you said and keep to what you planned but i think this is a really good and rational way of approaching it because we know what it's like when kids go to other people's houses or parties that's where we're out of control and they'll come back i mean my kids certainly come back from every party and they are wiped out they sort of just dive down into either a meltdown or they're just completely exhausted because they've been on this huge sugar high and they're overstimulated.

42:46So I love the fact that you're saying we don't have to go cold turkey, like no processed food ever again. They can't touch sugar. It's about adding in the good stuff and knowing that here and there, they're going to eat loads of shit at parties and they're going to want to eat the snacks when they're at their friends' houses. But if we're putting in the nut butters and getting the good proteins in and cooking from scratch when we can, we are going to see amazing benefits to how they're dealing with things. Because I think a lot of the time parents feel like guilty maybe for thinking, I just want this to be easier for me.

43:22But actually we have to remember it will become easier for us, but it's going to become so much easier for them. They don't want to be having a meltdown or feeling absolutely dreadful. It's going to benefit everybody if we just add these essential things into the diet where we can. And I think it's important for the child to realise how different their brain feels when they eat healthily. And so it's good to challenge. I mean, you know, whether it's the school holidays, whether it's a weekend or a half term, is to say, hey, today we're going to plan out what we're going to eat today. And we're going to eat, you know, three times today.

43:57We're going to plan the snacks and they're all going to be fun and interesting. And we're going to make them and we're going to see how we feel today. and so many kids say oh my god I've had the best day I've had for years and their brain feels clearer they feel happier they feel more relaxed and so then they make those connections and then after that you can get a second day they get oh actually I'd like to eat like that again or you know then they make a choice they say we're going to a birthday party so well why don't you eat before you go to the birthday party that's what we always used to do when the kids were little so I'd make sure they had a really big lunch or early tea so that they'd had something pretty substantial and it might have just been a sandwich you know something but just a good sandwich um so that I and then when they got to the party they ate much less of the C-R-A-P

44:47yeah no it's it's a really really good idea one thing many neurodivergent kids will experience and parents will have to face is terrible sleep because it can impact sleep so massively, whether it's getting to sleep, whether it's waking up in the middle of the night, having a night terror, not being able to get back to sleep. Again, which foods are not helping with that and which foods will help create the serotonin and get kids into a good, healthy sleep pattern? This is the first thing that we do when the kids come to our clinic is to ensure they have a good night's sleep because that is where the magic happens, where the body and the brain heals itself overnight.

45:30And obviously, if you don't have a good night's sleep, then the next day, your food patterns are going to be out, your energy levels are going to be out, your focus is going to be out. So prioritising sleep is the most important thing and probably the thing that parents struggle with more so than food. Yeah. So first of all, overstimulating foods towards the end of the day. So lots of refined sugar, refined carbs, chocolate, tea, hot chocolates, you know, those things, anything that's got some caffeine in it or is overstimulating. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving.

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47:11You know, bring it towards the beginning of the day. It's okay. You know, the French kids all have chocolate at breakfast. Yeah. So, you know, if they have to have chocolate, if that's right at the start of the day, at the beginning of the day, but not at the end of it, but maybe dark chocolate rather than the milk chocolate. But anyway, you know, so it's trying to avoid that towards the end of the day to give them the best grounding dinner you can. So that could be, you know, whether it's, you know, as I said, with some protein in there. So it could be a pasta tomato with lentils and cheese. You know, it could be salmon and broccoli and I don't know, potatoes or whatever.

47:45it doesn't matter but something pretty decent but then very very often neurodivergent kids really really struggle with eating during the day and it might be a kid with adhd who's medicated and so their appetite suppresses it is so often they want some snacks in the evening and my kids certainly i've got two kids with adhd and certainly it was mommy i'm hungry it's always just before you put them into bed yeah they always think of something and that's such a great opportunity to a catch up on missed calories that they might not have had during the day but also to think we can get really lovely sleepy foods in so the basics are you want to make as much melatonin as possible and melatonin is that hormone that helps us to get to sleep it basically says night night time heaven and in the morning the melatonin goes level that goes down it says it's morning so we want to create as much melatonin as possible and that's made by something called tryptophan and tryptophan comes from things like turkey chicken bananas avocado cashew nuts so you could think of literally just giving them a handful of cashew nuts and a banana and that would be okay equally you've got the gabba rich foods again the sort of sleepy foods i was talking about the yogurts and the oats.

49:04And then there are foods that specifically contain melatonin, naturally, like cherries. So you can have like frozen cherries in the freezer and then turn them into a smoothie. Oh, yum. So there's a lovely sleepy cherry smoothie in the book, which I'm really proud of everyone loves. And that's just a brilliant one because you can have all the ingredients almost in a bag in the freezer and just bung them into the blender with a bit of milk or whatever. So, you know, it can be done quite instantly because often they want something pretty instant. The other thing, as I said, is chamomile tea. Brilliant.

49:35And my tip for that was, I always thought it was my kids' way of trying to stay up later because you boil the kettle, get the chamomile tea, it had to brew. It had to cool down. Boiling hot. So what you want to do is get a couple of ice cubes. So once it's brewed, just put the ice cubes in and it cools it down. Yeah, let's speed this up, guys. Let's get you in bed. Exactly. And the other thing is, for little ones especially, is you can put chamomile tea into ice lollies. So again, That's a nice idea. Bring an ice lolly out and they love that, especially on a hot evening. So there's sort of tons of things you can do.

50:06And then one of my favourite, favourite things, which is not a food, but it's just so important and it has been so fundamental to our lives, is something called an Epsom salt bath. Oh, yeah, I love an Epsom salt bath. Oh, my God, they are amazing. Dreaming. So they contain lots of magnesium. And magnesium is this incredible mineral that basically helps us sleep. It helps our muscles to relax. It puts us into a soporific state. helps to make this GABA so it's amazing and the magnesium sulfate in the Epsom salts also kind of helps the liver and it helps sort of every the whole body to sort of rebalance and I remember my daughter who's who's got ADHD she's incredibly sporty and she would always say I have happy dreams every time I have an Epsom salt bath and even now she's 21 and she's still you know she She does a big tournament or whatever.

50:58She'll come back and she will soak in an Epsom salt bath. And it's her kind of homing siren, you know, to come home and ground. And I found it brilliant for aches and pains and things like that. And it's brilliant for things like restless legs, growing pains, you know, all these things that so many kids experience. And that disrupts their sleep. It's brilliant. Epsom salt baths, I think, is such a win. And it's not a pill or a potion. It's just literally, it's not even a food. It's something that you can just put two cups in the bath, swish it around and let them sit, play, chill out, listen to a podcast, whatever it might be in the bath.

51:36And they love it. I want one right now. Sounds so good. Lucinda, this has been so fascinating and I've taken so much from it. And it's I mean, even reading the book has just given me a hell of a lot to think about. I've loved cooking from it. I made the lovely chocolate waffles the other day, which I ate most of them, actually. They're so good. But it's just brilliant. And thank you so much for being on Happy Place. Thank you, Fern. It's been magical. Lucinda. Do you know what? I could have chatted to Lucinda for about a week. She was just so full of knowledge and wisdom. And it's something I feel just deeply, deeply passionate about, not only as a parent and someone that loves to cook.

52:20But also, I think because I have such a strange history with eating and food, I believe that knowledge is everything. The more I learn, the more I heal, the more I understand, the more proactive I can be about all of it for me and my kids. So this book felt really important. And that chat was just mind blowing. I loved it. Brain Brilliance is out right now. We very briefly touched on them, but the recipes in there are so delicious. The chocolate waffles, I think I talked about the chocolate waffles. The chocolate waffles for breakfast, I'm making them every blooming day. My little waffle maker is literally overheating.

53:00I love them. And the smoothies, the cherry smoothies she talked about, which really helps with sleep, is divine. I'd really love to know if you've noticed your food affecting your mental well-being. Let's have a chat about it on Instagram during the week. We're over at at happy place official. I mean, I can tell you now, I know, for instance, if I over caffeinate myself, I feel absolutely wild. If I eat loads of processed stuff or things that are very deeply fried or really salty, I feel instantly sick and I can feel the brain fog setting in. It is so interesting. interesting. I'd love to know what you think is helping and hindering you over on Instagram now.

53:42And of course, I'll be back here next week. So make sure you're following Happy Place wherever you're listening to this right now. So your phone always lets you know when a brand new episode is available. Until then, a massive thank you again to brilliant Lucinda, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you, you are scrummy.

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