The surprising factors behind your brain fog: food edition

Not quite as sharp as you used to be? Having difficulty focusing on tasks or getting through your daily routine? Yeah. You're not alone, and it may not be all in your head (ahem).
Brain fog has cropped up as the single most common issue among our clients. Here are their chief complaints:

• Memory problems
• Lack of mental clarity
• Poor concentration
• Inability to focus

Sound familiar? Let's unpack what's going on here.
Here at Vision Nation, we like to dive deep and find real solutions, not toss you a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter answer to your brain fog woes. Good news: there are plenty of things you can do (and stop doing) that will start the healing. And you can begin today!

When it comes to brain fog, it can be tempting to reach for the stimulants and focus on factors from the neck up. We all looove a quick fix and some fancy designer supplements that target specific factors in our blood tests. (Hello, biohacking.) But it pays to start with the obvious.

First thing's first: Diet

We cannot stress this point enough: the SAD (standard American diet) is no longer supportive of our health or the health of our clients. It's simply not working.

We're not the food police, but if you care about your mental clarity, we can tell you there are some big no-no's when it comes to what you put into your body. Avoid certain foods, and you will see massive improvements not only in your brain function but in your overall health and energy. Your body is a complex, unique system that needs the right fuel to run at maximum capacity. And that’s what you want, right? OK, let’s get specific. 

Watch out for lectins!
If you're aiming to reclaim mental clarity, then lectins, particularly nightshades, need to go. Some people are more sensitive to these foods than others. Many people think they don't have an issue with lectins.

And you may not have, in the distant past. Unfortunately, pesticide usage has increased general gut irritation, and made our gut lining much more vulnerable to other issues.  At the same time, changing harvest practices have unwittingly increased lectin content in our food, while we've also lost traditional cooking practices that used to naturally reduce lectin consumption. Pretty much the perfect storm to make lectins a big deal.

In order to determine where you land on lectins, avoid these pesky gut irritants for a period of several weeks and see how you feel. Once our clients go through the woe-is-me phase of eliminating foods that are creating their issues in the first place, guess what? They feel incredible! Often, they don't want to reintroduce these foods into their diet because as soon as they do, symptoms quickly return. But hey, we're all individuals. See what works for you.

Here's a down and dirty list of nightshades to consider avoiding:

• Tomatoes (All varieties, and tomato products like marinara, ketchup, etc.)
• Tomatillos
• Potatoes (White and red potatoes specifically. However, sweet potatoes are not nightshades.)
• Eggplant
• All peppers (Bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, chili peppers, and hot peppers)
• Red spices (Curry powder, chili powder, cayenne powder, red pepper)
• Paprika
• Pimentos
• Tobasco
• Goji berries
• Ground cherries (Different from regular cherries)
• Ashwagandha

Eliminate allergens
Eliminate foods that are common allergens: dairy, eggs, all grains, nightshades (again!), nuts, soy. You may have a long history of eating these foods and not noticing anything. We can tell you that whether or not you notice symptoms, these foods are creating a lot of extra work for your body and are likely not conducive to health and mental clarity. It's so difficult to know if a particular food is an irritant for you personally, when your general level of inflammation and brain fog is consistently high. "But I've always eaten these foods!" Yes, we know. That's why you're here!

We recognize that there are always exceptions. Still, when your health and your mental agility is at stake, isn’t it worth a try? Cut lectins and common allergens from your diet for several weeks and see how you do! Please report your results back to us. We love to hear about your personal, individual progress.

In our experience, you only learn through experimentation. All the testing in the world cannot compete with your own first-hand experience. 

All organic, all the time
Time to take the plunge and go organic! Avoid processed foods—even the ones that are labeled as “healthy” alternatives to ordinary junk food. They’re just dressed up junk food—get 'em out of your life. Go back to real, whole foods. You’ll recognize these foods easily. They don’t come in boxes, jars, or cans.

Hot tip: the friendly non-GMO label doesn't mean the food is organic. Play close attention to your labels.

Deal with Glyphosate
Many people wonder why they should spend the extra cash required to go organic, one word sums up the answer: glyphosate!

Of all the other herbicide and pesticide residues that find their way from the industrial toxic farm onto your dinner plate and into your body, glyphosate has been shown to open up the blood-brain barrier and allow stuff that doesn't belong in your brain to get in. If you're wondering if that junk getting into your brain has something to do with your brain fog, you are spot on my friend. And we're using 4.5 billions pounds of this stuff per year, worldwide.

This is not a small issue, and it takes work to get toxins out of our bodies and out of our lives. Going organic and avoiding exposure is step one.Bummer alert: many organic foods still contain glyphosate. Substantially less, yes, but even small amounts can affect our health. The good news is, there are things that can help.

Our go-to, proven choice for reducing toxic chemicals is Biome Medic from Purium. This little pill has been shown to reduce our body burden of these toxic Big Ag chemicals by 74% in just 6 weeks!

How it works: Biome Medic contains humic and fulvic compounds that have been
shown to reduce the amount of Big Ag chemicals in the body. We've seen a lot of products claiming big results, but not many of them are backed by actual human studies. This one is.

To sum things up . . .

Our recommendations are simple: Do what you can to avoid exposure, but take steps to reduce your body’s burden of these toxic chemicals. When you do, you will be giving your brain a much-needed break from the constant bombardment of chemical invaders.

There's so much more to this complex topic, but we hope these simple tips will start you on a new path of mental clarity and productivity! We're rooting for you.