Neuroscience and nutrition: how we perceive food and its effecrs on the mind, body, and brain
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Abstract
Our need to eat is more primal than our desire to have sex. We must eat several times a day and our survival depends on it. Our choices of what we eat affect our health and the functioning of our mind and body. We have all heard the expression, “you are what you eat,” but why do we eat the foods we do? How do they affect us? In fact, there are strong psychological and physiological factors that underscore the dependencies we have on food. Nutrition affects the health of the brain and the body as a whole. We use nutrients obtained from our diets to provide energy to our calorie-demanding brains, which require more energy than any other organ in the body.