One in every five Australians will experience a mental illness during some stage of their stage of their life. There is growing evidence to suggest that diet may play a bigger role in good mental health than previously imagined. Here are my top tips for boosting your mental health;

Having too little or too much red meat may increase our risk of anxiety, depression and even bi-polar.

In women, not eating enough red meat can actually double their risk of both depression and anxiety.

Dr Felice Jacka from Deakin University’s Food and Mood Centre recommends sticking to the recommended three to four palm size serves of red meat a week.

Just like probiotics, polyphenols are poorly absorbed by the gut and therefore is great food for our healthy bacteria.

Cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate contains loads of these polyphenols, which may help positively influence our mood and reduce symptoms of depression.

The darker the chocolate the better, dark chocolate has a higher percentage of cocoa and therefore more mood boosting polyphenols.

A diet high in Omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent mental illness and reduce the severity of symptoms.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids help to reduce inflammation (high inflammation has been liked to depression and anxiety) and can even affect gene expression in the brain.

Foods that are high in Omega-3 fatty acids include oily fish (anchovies, salmon and tuna), walnuts and flaxseed.

Fermented foods are great for restoring balance to our gut bacteria and mitigating inflammation but did you know that fermented foods also contain neurotransmitters such as gamma aminobutyric acid (calms the nervous system) that are essential for good mental health. Fermented foods include: Kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, pickles, miso and Kimchi. Diet and mental health is a very complex relationship and can be affected by our genes, environment, stress and the way foods are processed. 

However, Michael Pollan said it so perfectly “eat whole foods, don’t eat too much and mostly plants” this is the great general rule to live by to improve our mental health.