For your brain to function, it needs fuel. Unlike muscles, your brain doesn't store glucose for energy production. Instead, it constantly draws on glucose in fluid surrounding your brain cells. This glucose comes from regular meals, with carbohydrates (in vegetables, fruits, legumes, and grain foods) as the best fuel source. Beyond that, adequate amounts of several B vitamins, vitamins C and E, iron and zinc are essential for normal brain function.

Can certain foods promote short-term memory? Healthful eating does that. Other food substances -- in blueberries, strawberries, dried plums, fatty fish -- are under study for their possible roles in short-term memory. Stay tuned!

Even before research offers more insight, think to eat, and eat to think.

Eat smart. Enjoy blueberries, strawberries, dried plums and fatty fish, such as salmon. No matter what research ultimately says about their link to memory, they're good for you.
Skip the urge to skip meals. You need to freshen your glucose supply, especially in the morning. Breakfast gives a healthful start to the day.
Enough rest and plenty of physical activity helps, too.

Source: 365 Days of Healthy Eating from the American Dietetic Association (Wiley 2004), Roberta Larson Duyff, MS, RD, FADA, CFCS; Reprinted with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.