Building Your Child’s Brain: Part 1

"The mental apparatus of the coming generation is developed in [the womb] and the time to begin supplementation is before conception.  A normal brain cannot be made without adequate supply of omega-3 fatty acids, and there may be no later oppurtunity to repair the effects of an omega-3 fatty acid deficiency once the nervous system is formed." (bold added)  - Wiliam E Connor; Oregon Health Sciences Center

When I study health and wellness issues that affect my kiddos, what usually scares me are things called developmental windows — times in a growing kid's life were if certain things occur or don't occur, they have lasting results that are difficult or impossible to repair.  Its scary to think that I may have missed something.  You didn't provide your kid with this or that nutrient, you let your child watch television before they turned two, they are therefore doomed for the rest of their life!  — is pretty scary.

What about your kid's brain?  Is that something you want to set up for success?  That is, after all, the organ through which your child will experience existence.  It is the organ through which your child will be able to be happy, learn, experience life, and make his/her mark on the world.  The brain is pretty much square one for your child.

Your kid's brain is made of fat, and approximately 30 years prior, scientists started discovering that it takes a certain kind of fat to make a brain right.  This was partly discovered by accident when children raised on formula (which were little more than skim milk and sugar) instead of breastmilk  were having serious developmental delays — literally being retarded in their brain growth.

Why all of these brain problems?

Around 80 years before that a food processing technique began taking out certain kinds of oils in  foods and saw that shelf life of foods increased dramatically.  Without these oils, food could stay on the racks for weeks, not days or hours.  This was great news!  More people could be fed.  Food poisoning would decrease.

...Or was it?

Years later it turns out that those fats and oils that were removed from foods were also the same fats that coated nerves and made brains.

PART TWO COMING TOMORROW