Nutrition for Learning: Feeding the Starving Brain

We are now offering Jan Katzen-Luchenta's book, "Nutrition for Learning: Feeding the Starving Brain," for sale in an Adobe PDF file on a CD on our site.

Here is a quick peek at the intro of her very useful book:

1. Children who eat more French fries than asparagus reverse letters while learning to read and mice fed trans fatty acids struggle through a maze with reversal learning disabilities.

2. Children who come to school eating breakfast “on the run” are full of added sugar while scientists have identified a child’s physiological response to sugar to be 10 times that of an adult.

3. Glow-in-the-dark confections line bakery shelves while studies indicate irritability and restlessness in children who eat tartrazine (yellow food dye #5) and laboratory mice fed red food
dye are spawning offspring with chromosomal damage.

4. Infants from all socioeconomic backgrounds are being born malnourished and scientists have identified fetal adipose tissue programmed for later “catch up” obesity, putting them at risk for
diabetes.

5. Babies are born deformed, with preventable mental disorders or low birth weight (with a high risk of brain damage), and researchers consistently identify maternal deficiencies of vital nutrients from whole unprocessed foods (born of the earth and sea).

6. Fetuses are growing from embryonic cells that will genetically predispose them to DNA damage while oncology researchers are discovering the protective effect that 12 servings of fruits and
vegetables a day (in utero and until the age of two) have against infant and childhood cancers.


Some little learners never make it to preschool. Others make it into preschool and turn into bigger learners who join the rising numbers of learning-disabled children embedded in special education
programs nationwide.

According to the 2003 Summary of Health Statistics for US children, learning disabilities are amassing diagnostic numbers close to 5 million annually. (Did I mention that reading failure plagues 80% of the learning disabled?) Autism is now reaching epidemic proportions.

She goes on to talk about the science behind proper nutrition for children, and then discusses what we can do to make sure our children get the right food for the brains and bodies. A great Montessori tradition!

Check out her 200+ page book in Adobe PDF format on our site My Montessori House.