This is Sadia Badiei. A dietician by academic and professional background, she’s nowadays hung up her lab coat for a chef’s jacket, and is best known for her “Pick Up Limes” brand. Today, we’ll be taking her advice on managing energy levels with what’s on our plates!

Quick note: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies, and this article cannot diagnose you from afar, and thus neither can it make any certain prescription; this is for educational purposes, and aimed at being applicable to most of our readers.

There are many possible things that can cause chronic fatigue, and not all of them can be fixed by diet. Your doctor will have access to tests and such that we, being a humble health science publication, do not.

You may recognize her; we’ve featured her videos occasionally, mostly recently:

Pick Up A Zest For Life: 10 Lessons For A Healthy Mind & Body

But, what does she want us to know about living life with more energy?

It starts with balance

Badiei makes the case that we should strive for a nutritionally-balanced diet; that may not come as much of a revelation, but what does that look like for a vegan (Badiei advocates for plant-based eating)?

She recommends that our diet consist of:

• About 50% fruits and vegetables
• About 25% grains and starches
• About 25% proteins
• Modest amounts of fats
• A little of well-chosen dairy substitutions
• Finally, a few judicious supplements to top it off

That does add up to more than 100%, but 1) we did say “About n%” and 2) this is not a bad thing to note, actually, since Badiei advocates (as we do) for focussing more on what we add into our diet, rather than what we take out.

Breaking it down a little further, she recommends making sure to get “the foundational seven”, which is a little like “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”, but in this case it’s counted on a per-food-type basis.

Thus, she recommends:

1. Dark green leafy vegetables
2. Assorted other non-starchy vegetables (your choice what kind)
3. Fruit, of any kinds (unlike Dr. Greger separating berries)
4. Grains and starches (so for example, potatoes are lumped in with rice here, botanically very different, but often fulfil a similar culinary role)
5. Nuts and seeds
6. Legumes
7. Fortified dairy alternatives

For full details including how much of each, and “what counts”, etc, see:

Pick Up Limes | The Nourish Method

Time your carbs

Slow-release carbohydrates, those with the most fiber, are best most of the time, giving us more sustained fuel, keeping us energized for longer after meals—even if we would rather sleep:

She cites: Fiber and Saturated Fat Are Associated with Sleep Arousals and Slow Wave Sleep

Quick-release carbohydrates, those with what’s generally considered a less favorable carb:fiber ratio, are best if we’re going to eat nearer to bedtime. We know, eating before bed is often considered a bit of a no-no, but Badiei bids us indulge if we so desire, as the quicker-absorbed carbohydrates support tryptophan reaching our brain more efficiently, and thus promote sleep onset.

See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

About that fat

We mentioned (or rather, Badiei’s citation mentioned) saturated fat. It is indeed linked with difficulty falling asleep, and/but omega-3 fatty acids, on the other hand, promote better sleep.

She cites: The relationship between sleep duration, sleep quality and dietary intake in adults

While you’re enjoying those nuts and seeds (for the omega-3 fatty acids), you might also note that several also star in Badiei’s list of plant-based foods that are rich in tryptophan, such as soy, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beans, green vegetables, and mushrooms.

Micronutrients

Badiei’s focus here is on B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. We imagine most of our readers here are taking steps to ensure to get a full daily coverage of vitamins and minerals anyway, but you might want to read what she has to say about iron on a plant-based diet, because the numbers may be different than you think.

The reason for this is that while animal products contain mostly heme iron, which is easier to absorb but associated with a risk increase in some diseases, plant-based foods usually* contain only non-heme iron, which is healthier but not as bioavailable, so if eating only plants, we need more of it:

Pick Up Limes | Iron on a Plant-Based Diet

*If you eat a carnivorous plant, guess what, it’ll have heme iron in it, tangling that food web.

“What if I know I have chronic fatigue for non-dietary reasons?”

Well, that sucks, and we’re not going to pretend the above will magically fix it. However, there are still things that can at least relatively improve your experience:

Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue! Yes, Even When Fatigued Chronically

(it’s a good guide to being able to consistently eat healthily when your energy levels are consistently at minimal, meaning that a lot of common advice becomes unusable)

Take care!

I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen For…?

Dr. Kathryn Birkenbach is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University, and Manager of Research at Early Medical in New York.

Kathryn has things to tell us about kids’ neurological development, and screen time spent with electronic devices including phones, tablets, computers, and TVs.

From the 1960s criticism of “the gogglebox” to the modern-day critiques of “iPad babies” as a watchword of parental neglect, there’s plenty people can say against screen time, but Dr. Birkenbach tells us the that the reality is more nuanced:

Context Is Key

On a positive note”: consistent exposure to age-appropriate educational material results in quicker language acquisition than media that’s purely for entertainment purposes, or not age-appropriate.

Contrary to popular belief, children do not in fact learn by osmosis!

Interaction Is Far More Valuable Than Inaction

Kathryn advises that while adults tend to quite easily grasp things from instructional videos, the same does not go for small children.

This means that a lot of educational programming can be beneficial to small children if and only if there is an adult with them to help translate the visual into the practical!

There’s a story that does the rounds on the Internet: a young boy wanted to train his puppy, but didn’t know how. He asked, and was told “search for puppy training on YouTube”. His parents came back later and found him with his iPad, earnestly showing the training videos to the puppy.

We can laugh at the child’s naïvety, knowing that’s not how it works and the puppy will not learn that way, so why make the same mistake in turn?

❝The phenomenon known as the “video deficit effect” can be overcome, when an on-screen guide interacts with the child or a parent is physically present and draws the child’s attention to relevant information.

In other words, interaction with others appears to enhance the perceived salience of on-screen information, unlocking a child’s ability to learn from a medium which would otherwise offer no real-world benefit.❞

Screens Can Supplement, But Can’t Replace, Live Learning & Play

Sci-fi may show us “education pods” in which children learn all they need to from their screen… but according to our most up-to-date science, Dr. Birkenbach says, that simply would not work at all.

Screen time without adult interactions will typically fail to provide small children any benefit.

There is one thing it’s good at, though… attracting and keeping attention.

Thus, even a mere background presence of a TV show in the room will tend to actively reduce the time a small child spends on other activities, including live learning and exploratory play.

The attention-grabbing abilities of TV shows don’t stop at children, though! Adult caregivers will also tend to engage in fewer interactions with their children… and the interactions will be shorter and of lower quality.

In Summary:

• Young children will tend not to learn from non-interactive screen time
• Interactive screen time, ideally with a caregiver, can be educational
• Interactive screen time, not with a carer, can be beneficial (but a weak substitute)
  • Interactive screen time refers to shows such as Dora The Explorer, where Dora directly addresses the viewer and asks questions…But it’s reliant on the child caring to answer!
  • It can also mean interactive educational apps, provided the child does consciously interact!
  • Randomly pressing things is not conscious interaction! The key here is engaging with it intelligently and thoughtfully
• A screen will take a child’s time and attention away from non-screen things: that’s a genuine measurable loss to their development!

Absolute Bottom Line:

Screens can be of benefit to small children, if and only if the material is:

• Age-Appropriate
• Educational
• Interactive

If it’s missing one of those three, it’ll be of little to no benefit, and can even harm, as it reduces the time spent on more beneficial activities.