Page 62 - The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss and Enhance Memory Power
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CHAPTER 5
Start a Healthy Promemory Diet and Exercise
Plan
A Case of Mayonnaise
When I joined Columbia University in 1985, I worked with a nurse who was, to put it mildly,
overweight. One afternoon, I stopped by her desk to ask her a question and found her preparing for a
well-deserved lunch. First, she brought out an enormous bowl of salad, full of greens, a few carrots
thrown in for color. The gargantuan portion didn't faze me, because I had already been in the United
States for five years and had become quite familiar with American eating habits. Actually, I was
pleasantly surprised by her rigor in selecting such a healthy salad with essentially no fat in it. For a
moment, I began to wonder why she was so bulky when her diet was so exemplary. But not for long.
From another plastic bowl that she had brought from home, she unleashed several heaping spoonfuls
of a thick, yellow-white salad dressing that looked like pure mayonnaise. I casually chatted with her
about a patient we were treating, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the salad bowl. Rest assured, I had
no interest whatsoever in sharing her meal; rather, it was the incongruity between the over-grown,
leafy salad and the heavy, viscous dressing that struck me.
