New Delhi: Food is of special importance for staying healthy. What we eat affects our brain, heart, waistline and mood. Everyone knows how important it is to eat green leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and homemade food to stay healthy. But when there is a craving, we quickly eat hunger-satisfying snacks, which immediately calms the hunger. However, there are some snacks, whose consumption can prove to be very harmful for our brain. Therefore, for a healthy brain, you should stay away from these snacks.

Baked Items

Cookies, biscuits, namkeen, pies and almost all baked items are rich in trans fat. Apart from the risk of heart related diseases and stroke, baked items are very harmful for the brain. High amount of trans fat in the blood also increases the risk of Alzheimer's and dementia .

Aspartame

Many food items contain aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener . Its regular consumption increases the amount of dopamine and serotonin in the body, which can lead to stress, irritability and other neuro-related behavioral changes.

Processed and fast foods

These seem to be a very easy option when you are hungry. Who doesn't like packet chips and coke, but the fat, sugar, salt present in these processed foods together create such cravings, which is a type of addiction. This increases the chances of microvascular hemorrhage, which can damage the walls of the blood vessels present inside the brain. This increases the risk of brain stroke.

Saturated fat-rich snacks

Snacks that are high in saturated fat have been shown to increase oxidative stress and reduce plasticity between synapses. Such high-fat diets increase the risk of experimental brain injury.