6 Minute English / Feed your brain

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Phil.

And I m Georgie. Has this ever happened to you: you eat a doughnut and get a sugar rush, a strong feeling of excitement and energy, only to collapse an hour later, with a headache?

Food affects us more than we realise, and that s because what we eat alters our brain chemistry, changing our mood and emotions. Our brain is working 24 hours a day, even while we sleep, so it needs more fuel than other body parts.

So can we eat our way to feeling happy? In this programme, we ll be discussing the relationship between food and the brain, and, as usual, we ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

Sounds great, Georgie, but first I have a question for you. Humans, with an average brain weighing one-and-a-half kilos, are one of the cleverest animals, but which mammal has the biggest brain? Is it:

a) an African elephantb) a dolphin? or,c) a sperm whale?

Hmm, I think it s an African elephant.

OK, Georgie, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Now, did you know that despite making up only 2 percent of our total weight, our brain uses 20 percent of the body s energy? Nutritionist, Dr Reeta Achari, does. She thinks we should be specifically eating for our brains, as she explained to BBC World Service Programme, The Food Chain:

Dr Reeta AchariEating every day, right? And eating a balanced diet so you get the full complement of vitamins and minerals is critical. If you go low in something and one day if you just, you know, don't eat any protein for a day or - for me in my situation, if I don't eat any vegetables - I know the next day I'm not as sharp.