A Holistic Psychiatrist Eats A Spoonful Of *This* Every Day To Calm Her Mind

The foods we eat play an important role in how our brains function, and prioritizing certain nutrients can go a long way in supporting mental health. Take it from holistic psychiatrist Ellen Vora, M.D., who values a "food first" approach when it comes to balancing mood: When trying to help someone feel less stressed, "we look at food first and foremost—your brain is a piece of flesh in the body. It's an organ, and it only functions as well as it's physically in a state of balance," she explains on the mindbodygreen podcast. We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Chicken liver might not be on your weekly grocery list, but according to Vora, it may very well deserve a spot: "I eat a lot of chicken liver pâté. I try to stock it in my fridge at all times—I take about a spoonful a day," she notes. Organ meats—including the aforementioned chicken liver, heart, kidney, brain (a source of omega-3s), tripe, thymus, and pancreas—are especially nutrient-dense and provide a variety of vitamins and minerals; Vora goes so far as to consider them "Mother Nature's multivitamin."

These nutrients include zinc; copper; manganese; vitamins A, C, D, E, and K; B vitamins (which support methylation, the process responsible for synthesizing mood-regulating neurotransmitters, among other essential processes in the body), iron, phosphorus, choline, and selenium. "If you can throw back a spoonful of pâté every few days, it'll go a long way toward meeting your nutritional needs," Vora writes for mbg. Additionally, the protein content of organ meats provides the building blocks for peptide neurotransmitters like serotonin, which is famously known as one of the "happy hormones."

Now, let's address the elephant in the room: Organ meats might not be the most...visually appealing. If you can't stomach the thought of eating chicken liver—even a mere spoonful!—you can always look to dietary supplements to meet those nutritional needs. Multivitamins, in particular, are designed to help you meet the daily requirements of an array of vitamins and minerals—many of which are found in organ meats, the multi from Mother Nature. In fact, a 2017 study1 discovered that ​​frequent use of a multi effectively increases micronutrient intakes and decreases the prevalence of most nutrient inadequacies in U.S. adults.