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Good Mood Foods: Meat and Eggs

The focus today is on meats and eggs from a brain health viewpoint. If you are concerned about mental fitness and brain health, I encourage you to read on. I get it. Eating meat is controversial. I’ve previously addressed my own journey with meat in To Eat or Not Eat Meat.

[su_expanding_quote_book alignment=”right” source_author=”Drew Ramsey, MD” source_title=”Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety” full_quote=”As a former vegetarian, I understand that many of us feel conflicted about eating meat…But that said, meat is a remarkable source of iron, protein, and vitamin B12. I’ve come to believe the age-old debate over whether we should or shouldn’t eat meat instead needs to evolve into a discussion about how we can eat meat in a way that is both healthy for our bodies and sustainable for the environment.” ” short_quote=”As a former vegetarian, I understand that many of us feel conflicted about eating meat”]

Your brain is the most complex organ in the human body. It consumes 20% of everything you eat. That food provides the energy and nutrients to support this incredibly complex organ. When your brain is deprived of the nutrients it needs, it will struggle to function. It will also affect your mood, focus and memory.

Sustainably raised meats (beef, pork, lamb and poultry) are rich in brain healthy nutrients:

  • Bioavailable (easily absorbed) protein
  • A balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids important for reducing inflammation and promoting brain health
  • Good levels of B vitamins (B1 – thiamin, B2 – riboflavin, B3 -niacin, B6 – biotin, pantothenic and folic acid), also especially hard-to-get vitamin B12
  • Vitamin E and the phytochemical carotenoid because they freely roam and eat natural vegetation
  • Iron content is good and more usable by the body than iron from any other food
  • Several other essential minerals, such as zinc, copper, selenium, potassium
  • Vitamin A levels are very high in liver. Beef or calf liver is known to be one of the most concentrated sources of nutrition available. Historically in many places around the world liver is often suggested as a medicinal food because of its high iron and blood-building nutrients
  • Vitamin D

It is difficult to obtain adequate protein on a diet that completely excludes animal products. This can also lead to deficiency in many essential minerals. Zinc, iron and calcium from animal sources are more easily absorbed.  Sustainably raised meats are better for our health and better for the environment. Buying organic foods from farmers and farmers helps the organic farming industry know there is a market that supports them.

Meat is not only beef.  And not just muscle meat (for example steak and roasts). A variety of foods provides a variety of nutrients. This prevents deficiencies that today are too common.

  • Bison
  • Lamb, consumed especially in Middle Eastern countries, is similar to beef in its nutrient makeup and high protein content.
  • Pork is a blend of nutrition between beef and chicken.
  • Poultry: chicken, turkey, duck, geese
  • Chicken contains vitamin A and B vitamins, potassium, phosphorus, zinc and iron.
  • Turkey has a little more zinc, iron, potassium and phosphorus
  • Wild game such as deer and boar, game birds like duck and geese
  • Our ancestors and traditional tribes especially valued certain high-vitamin animal products like organ meats, butter, fish, eggs and shellfish

Pastured Eggs

Spend the money on pastured eggs – especially if you choose not to eat meat. These eggs come from chickens allowed to roam free, eating plants and insects like would in the wild.

They are the most complete, nutritious and economical form of animal protein available and are valued by traditional cultures throughout the world. Don’t skip the yolk. It is high in vitamin A, has B vitamins, vitamin D and vitamin E, calcium, iron, and zinc.

[su_expanding_quote_book alignment=”right” source_author=”Kelly Brogan, MD” source_title=”A Mind of Your Own” full_quote=”Eggs are perfect food, and the yolk is a nutritional gold mine. Whole eggs contain all the essential amino acids we need to survive, vitamins and minerals, antioxidants known to protect our eyes. And they can have far-reaching positive effects on our physiology. Not only do they keep us feeling full and satisfied, but they help us control blood sugar.” ” short_quote=”Eggs are perfect food, and the yolk is a nutritional gold mine.”]

What to do?

  • Eat meat as an occasional and/or celebration food
  • Eat meat as a condiment in the way of cuisines around the world or blend with plant foods to make meatloaf and/or meatballs
  • Eat a wide range of foods from various meat groups on a daily and seasonal basis
  • Use herbs and spices used traditional to not only enhance flavor, but for health/medicinal purposes. They also improve nutrient absorption.

Here are some of my favorites

Along with these, the above chili, enchiladas and stir fry are staple recipes I’ve used for years. I usually make one of these on a Sunday and rotate through them.  As always, I make a double recipe to freeze half for another day.

Meatballs

Meatloaf

Pork Tenderloin 

Do you have a traditional meat recipe?

What to Eat for Energy and Focus: Macronutrient Guide

If you struggle with brain fog, low energy, mood swings, or hormonal imbalances — or you’re a leader seeking to improve employee cognitive performance — your brain health depends on nutrient-dense macronutrients that support not only brain cells but also the crucial gut-brain axis.

Macronutrients — carbohydrates, fats, and proteins — provide the essential building blocks and nourishment your brain and gut need to function optimally. The quality and balance of these nutrients are key to improving mental clarity, emotional resilience, and sustained energy.

What Are Macronutrients & Why Do They Matter for Brain & Gut Health?

Macronutrients are the nutrients you need in large amounts to sustain life and promote health. They:

  • Provide glucose and other nutrients that fuel your brain

  • Support healthy gut microbiome which communicate directly with your brain through the gut-brain axis

  • Build the structural components of neurons, hormones, and neurotransmitters

  • Regulate inflammation, mood, and cognitive function

A balanced intake of nutrient-dense macronutrients strengthens the gut-brain connection, which is vital for mental well-being, hormonal balance, and energy regulation.

🧠 Protein: Essential for Neurotransmitters, Hormones & Resilience

Protein builds more than muscle. It provides the amino acids needed to create dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, and stress-regulating hormones.

Whether omnivore of vegetarian, it’s essential to get sufficient protein for your brain and body. And quality matters. Choose grass-fed, pasture-raised, or wild-caught sources, instead of factory-farmed meat and farm-raised fish.  Choose nature’s plant-based protein rather than man-made (artificial meat burgers)

✅ Best sources:

  • Wild-caught fish (salmon, sardines, mackerel)
  • Pasture-raised poultry
  • Lean meats – bison, elk, venison – occasional grass-fed beef and lamb
  • Pasture-raised eggs
  • Properly prepared legumes or tempeh

These proteins:

  • Provide all 9 essential amino acids
  • Support mental clarity, mood stability, immune strength
  • Deliver nutrients like B12, iron, zinc, and creatine often lacking in plant-only diets

Vegetarians:

It’s important to consume a variety of plant proteins to meet your amino acid needs. Some top vegetarian protein sources include:

  • Lentils and legumes (beans, chickpeas, peas)
  • Tofu, tempeh, and edamame
  • Quinoa and amaranth
  • Nuts and seeds (chia, hemp, pumpkin)
  • Whole grains (brown rice, oats, barley)

While many plant proteins are incomplete individually, combining diverse sources throughout the day helps ensure you get all essential amino acids.

For detailed vegetarian protein options, see Top Vegetarian Protein Sources.

👉 Brain Tip: For optimal brain and hormone health, emphasize diversity: fatty fish and poultry most days, with lean wild red meat occasionally.

🧠 Carbohydrates: Natural Glucose + Fiber for Brain Energy and Gut Health

Carbs are your brain’s preferred fuel—but quality matters. We want natural glucose, not refined, man-made sugars that spike and crash energy.

Carbohydrates from nature come from whole foods loaded with fiber and micronutrients that nourish the gut-brain axis, regulate blood sugar, and support neurotransmitter production.

✅ Best sources:

  • Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables
  • Colorful vegetables
  • Tubers and root vegetables
  • Legumes
  • Fruits (moderation)
  • Whole grains

These carbs:

  • Provide clean brain fuel (glucose)
  • Feed the gut microbiome, boosting mood and immunity
  • Support tissue repair, neurotransmitter production, and joint health

👉 Brain Tip: Chronically low-carb diets may lower serotonin and GABA levels, leading to anxiety or sleep issues. Don’t fear carbs—skip man-made carbs and choose carbs from nature

🔢 How Much Macronutrients Do You Need?

Your ideal macronutrient ratio is unique, influenced by genetics, lifestyle, stress, age, and digestive health.

Here’s a general range to support brain function, blood sugar stability, and o

  • Carbohydrates: 30–40%
  • Fats: 30–40%
  • Protein: 20–50%

Use these as starting points and adjust based on your body’s feedback.

🔎 How to Find Your Bioindividual Macronutrient Ratio

The ideal ratio should help you feel:

  • Energized and focused
  • Calm and emotionally balanced
  • Satiated, without cravings or crashes

Use the guide below to assess:

✅ Balanced Ratio
⚠️ Imbalanced Ratio
Cravings Full, no cravings or snacking Still hungry or craving sugar
Energy Steady, clear, resilient Tired, wired, or crashing
Mood Calm, focused, uplifted Anxious, foggy, irritable

Observe these signals to gauge if your macronutrient balance supports your brain and gut health

Steps to optimize your balance:

  1. Track your macros with apps like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal

  2. Keep a Food & Mood Journal for 1–3 hours after meals for 3 – 5 days to connect what you eat and how you feel

  3. Adjust your ratios based on your physical and mental responses over days or weeks

🌳 Choose Nutrient-Dense, Whole Foods for Brain & Gut Health

Quality matters as much as quantity:

  • 🌈 Eat a variety: Different proteins, seasonal carbs

  • 🐄 Choose ethical animal foods: Grass-fed, pasture-raised, wild-caught

  • 🍅 Eat seasonal and local produce to maximize nutrient density and minimize toxins

  • 🚫 Avoid processed foods, refined sugars, and industrial seed oils

Refer to the EWG Dirty Dozen & Clean 15 for produce guidance.

🧠 Final Thought: Your Brain Thrives on Nutrient Dense Food

Macronutrients are more than just numbers—they’re the building blocks of your energy, emotions, and resilience. By choosing carbs, fats, and proteins from nature in the best ratio for you, you build a lifestyle that supports:

  • Mental clarity and productivity

  • Emotional resilience

  • Hormonal balance

  • Sustained energy and vitality

Start tuning into your body’s signals, nourish your gut and brain with quality carbs, fats, and proteins, and experience lasting improvements in your health and well-being.

Ready to support your brain and gut health with nutrient-dense real food?

  • Subscribe for more insights on brain and gut nutrition and lifestyle 👉 

I Choose Real Food

What is real food?  Food that we have eaten for most of human history. One way to cut through all the confusion is to think of foods that come from nature. Foods that people were eating before the twentieth century when laboratories and machines started making food products, stripping out natural nutrients and in their place inserting artificial flavors, chemicals and other additives.

[su_expanding_quote_book alignment=”right” source_author=”Nina Planck” source_title=”Real Food, What to Eat and Why” full_quote=”Real foods are old. These are foods we’ve been eating for a long time – in the case of meat, fish and eggs, for millions of years. We’ve been eating butterfat for at least ten thousand years. By contrast, margarine – hydrogenated vegetable oil made solid and dyed yellow to resemble traditional butter – is a modern invention, about a century old. Real foods are traditional. Fruits and vegetables are best when they’re local and seasonal; grains should be whole, fats and oils unrefined. From the farm to the kitchen, real food is produced and prepared the old-fashioned way. The traditional methods of farming, processing, preparing and cooking enhance nutrition and flavor, while the industrial method diminishes both.” short_quote=”Real foods are old. These are foods we’ve been eating for a long time”]

The marketing of this industrialized food has created tremendous noise and confusion about food consumption. It’s become not just necessary, but vitally important to learn where our food comes from and to make educated choices about what we eat.

Chronic disease – diabetes, cancer, heart illness and neurological disorders – are increasingly linked to fast food, junk food and processed food, and sadly have become norm in the US.  I don’t want a chronic or life-threatening illness, not for me nor for those I love. So I steer away from processed foods and seek out real foods.

[su_expanding_quote_book alignment=”center” source_author=”Kris Carr” source_title=”Crazy, Sexy Cancer” full_quote=”But of course I eat food, you say. Do you? Food isn’t made in a laboratory. Today we’re infusing our food with chemicals, hormones, pesticides and countless other toxic substances. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is tap dancing on the last nerve of our health. When we make the connection between what we consume and how we feel, a great transformational shift can occur. Most people live to eat and don’t eat to live. We wake up sick and tired on a daily basis. Allergies, high cholesterol, low-level depression and chronic diseases are just accepted parts of aging.” short_quote=”But of course I eat food, you say. Do you? Food isn’t made in a laboratory”]

After a huge amount of research, I’m convinced that the simplest way to make food choices is to go back to real foods; foods that are more a product of nature “than a product of industry”

  • Foods that don’t need ingredient labels: fruits, vegetables!
  • Whole foods that typically only have 1-ingredient like “brown rice”
  • Packaged foods generally made with no more than 5 unrefined ingredients
  • Organic dairy products like whole milk, unsweetened yogurt, eggs, and cheese
  • Breads and crackers that are 100% whole-grain
  • Sustainably wild caught seafood
  • Humanely raised meat: chicken, pork, beef, and lamb
  • Dried fruits, nuts, and seeds (nuts and seeds are better raw)
  • Natural sweeteners: honey and maple syrup

A fantastic resource if the idea of real food is new for you, is 100DaysofRealFood.com

I choose to eat the way people did for thousands of years. My goal is that 70-80% of the time I cook/eat a variety of fresh whole foods provided by nature:

  • Vegetables and fruits– preferably seasonal and local. To minimize pesticides in our food, I use the Environmental Working Group: Dirty Dozen as a guide. If I can’t buy organic, I buy the foods on the “Dirty Dozen” list only occasionally and always wash them well, using a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
  • Beans – Dried beans are one of the most cost-effective, nutrient-rich foods we can enjoy. Once a week I cook a big pot of beans and, once cooled, put them in mason jars and freeze whatever won’t be used that week. Canned organic beans (garbanzo and either white or black bean) are pantry staple. I can always make a quick last minute dinner with canned beans, or a hummus/bean dip when friends drop in for happy hour.
  • Whole grains – quinoa and brown rice are pantry staples. Buying in bulk at the grocery store is usually most cost-effective. I add an alternate another grain for variety, usually buckwheat or bulgur.
  • Sustainably wild caught or responsibly farmed fish
  • Responsibly raised meats: Pastured pork and poultry. Grass-fed beef. It’s more expensive, but we eat meat just a couple times a week.
  • Organic dairy (milk and yogurt)
  • Unrefined fats: butter, coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil (when I can find it) and expeller-pressed canola oil
  • Nuts and seeds rather than cheese, and I buy them raw. Roasted nuts generally are salted, and apt to go rancid.

I believe eating healthfully is all about moderation and variety. I’ve found that the best way to stay the course (eating healthfully 70% of the time) is to be flexible. Birthday parties and special celebrations are meant to be enjoyed. And yes, I think it’s okay to occasionally indulge (guilt-free!) – some of my favorite indulgences: buffalo wings, Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream (actually ANY Haagen Dazs ice cream!), croissants, and anything chocolate. The key word being occasionally.

Organic and sustainable real food is more expensive, but the more of us who choose this path, the more accessible such food will become, and the greater the impact will be on the health of our planet, but that’s another story for another day.

New to Real Food?

100 Days of Real Food

100daysofrealfood: Answers To Your Real Food Questions

 

Budget Tips for Real Food

100daysofrealfood: Real Food Tips, 12 Ways to Keep it Cheap

100 Days of Real Food: How to Afford Real Food on a Budget

Dr. Hyman: Eat Healthy on a Budget

Environmental Working Group: Good Food on a Tight Budget