nutritional psychiatry

Should we be reaching for the dinner plate before the pill bottle when treating mental illness? Well my next guests certainly think so. Dr Michael Dixon and Uma Naidoo are back on the podcast talking about the Food for Mood campaign, an idea that literally started around the King’s dining table last year!

This idea of food as medicine is truly taking shape in the UK, but without strategies to ensure people can actually attain a level of nutrition to unlock these potential benefits, we’re simply reverberating ideas in an ineffective echo chamber. Michael and Uma are taking up the challenge, and launching the ‘Food for Mood’ campaign that engages multiple stake holders including government, supermarkets and of course, medical professionals and promotes the idea and practical strategies to introduce nutritional psychiatry at scale.

Dr. Uma Naidoo is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef and a trained Nutrition Specialist and her nexus of interests have found their niche in Nutritional Psychiatry. She is also the national bestselling author of This Is Your Brain On Food.

Dr Michael Dixon is chairman of the college of medicine, he’s been a general practitioner at College Surgery in Devon for over 35 years. Since the early 1990s, he has been a leader of the GP/clinical commissioning movement with its aim of allowing frontline clinicians a far greater role in improving local services and health. Since 2007, he has been visiting professor to the University of Westminster (Integrated School of Health) and was also appointed visiting professor of University College, London in 2012.

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On the show today, I catch up with Dr Uma, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, Professional Chef and Nutrition Specialist. 

Uma has been on the pod before where we talked about nutrition, OCD and anxiety and on today’s episode we talk through practical tips on:

• hydration for mental health and some practical tips to drink more
• How her views evolved since writing her book “The Food Mood connection”
• The 80/20 rule and the importance of balance and flexibility
• What’s in her cupboard & fridge and some budget-friendly ways to eat well
• Spices that support brain health
• What’s next for the field of nutritional psychiatry, including psychobiotics

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free

You can download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free to get access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

📷 Follow on Instagram

🐦 Tweet me

We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think,and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode.

Links:

Check out our previous conversation about food, OCD and anxiety: https://thedoctorskitchen.com/podcasts/83-the-brain-series-part-1-of-3-food-ocd-and-anxiety-with-dr-uma-naidoo

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Dr Uma Naidoo is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, Professional Chef and Nutrition Specialist. It is a pleasure to host this internationally regarded medical pioneer in this more newly recognized field of Nutritional Psychiatry.

In her role as a Clinical Scientist, Dr. Naidoo founded and directs the first hospital-based clinical service in Nutritional Psychiatry in the USA. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry & Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) while serving on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.

Dr Uma is a professionally trained chef as well as working as a Psychiatrist, and after listening to this podcast you’ll understand why Michelin-starred David Bouley described her as “the world’s first “triple threat” in the food as medicine space”

Dr. Naidoo, has been asked by The American Psychiatric Association to author the first academic text in Nutritional Psychiatry. But she’s already the author of a book you can get your hands on in the UK called “The Food Mood connection” and in the States it’s “This is your brain on FOOD”.

On the show today we talked about:

• Uma’s upbringing, family roots in ayurveda and how her grandmother influenced her love of medicine and food
• Culinary School and why she went
• Nutritional Medicine it’s scientific shortcomings and her dietary agnosticism 
• Food Irritants to mental health, including transfats, additives and sugar
• Spices, Fibre and Plants
• Her perspective on Nootropics and Adaptogens
• The vagus nerve as a bidirectional superhighway of information between the gut and brain
• The connection between diet and OCD, PTSD and Anxiety
• Her culinary hacks for making healthy food taste incredible

Do check out The Doctor's Kitchen Website for full show notes and all social media links for this and all other podcast episodes.

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