Posted on 08/06/2025 7:54:12 AM PDT by Red Badger
Doctors will often tell you to avoid processed foods or foods that contain high amounts of sugar or saturated fat.
Their advice is sound, since consuming these foods frequently can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases, including neurological conditions like stroke and dementia.
However, as a neurologist, I can tell you that there are some other surprising and lesser-known foods you should avoid in order to prevent serious neurological issues.
I never eat these four foods:
1. Canned foods that appear damaged
If a can is bulging, cracked, or severely dented, it should raise an alarm. It might be a sign of botulinum contamination, which can cause botulism.
The botulinum toxin is one of the most potent neurotoxins known to science. It blocks the release of a neurotransmitter that helps your brain tell your muscles to move. The result can be limb paralysis, blurred vision, and, in severe cases, respiratory failure. Without an antidote, botulism can be fatal.
What makes this toxin particularly dangerous is that you can’t detect it by smell, taste, or sight. Unfortunately, heating the food in a contaminated can may not be enough to neutralize the toxin.
Remember this motto: “When in doubt, throw it out.”
2. Certain reef fish, especially in tropical areas
I love eating fish and I encourage my patients to consume varieties like salmon, sardines, and trout, which are high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in mercury.
However, I advise caution when it comes to larger tropical fish such as barracuda, grouper, sturgeon, moray eel, and amberjack. They may contain a neurotoxin called ciguatoxin, especially if they were caught in places with coral reefs like the Caribbean and the South Pacific.
I’ve personally seen a few cases of ciguatera poisoning, and symptoms can include a sensation of coldness, burning, tingling, dizziness, or even vivid nightmares. Because some of these symptoms are non-specific, it can be easily misdiagnosed, especially without a detailed patient history.
The kicker is that ciguatoxin is heat-stable, meaning that no matter how long you cook the fish, the toxin remains intact. And like the botulinum toxin, it doesn’t have a taste or smell.
Try to limit your intake of large predatory fish, avoid certain parts like liver, roe, and heads, and be particularly cautious in endemic areas.
3. Uncooked or undercooked pork
The risk here is neurocysticercosis, a condition caused by ingesting the eggs of the pork tapeworm. The tapeworm’s larvae can travel to the brain and cause a variety of symptoms, including seizures, increased intracranial pressure, and even dementia-like symptoms. Brain imaging typically shows multiple cysts in the person’s brain.
Neurocysticercosis is one of the leading causes of acquired epilepsy worldwide. And while it isn’t very common in developed countries, I have seen cases in the U.S.
So if you travel frequently to or spend significant time in developing countries — or anywhere with poor sanitation — cook pork thoroughly and practice good hand hygiene.
4. Unpasteurized milk
When milk is pasteurized, it’s treated with heat to eliminate microorganisms that can cause disease. The process does reduce the concentrations of certain vitamins, but the impact is minimal.
Raw milk, on the other hand, is a well-recognized source of pathogens such as listeria, E. coli, and salmonella. Drinking it causes approximately 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized milk, despite being consumed by a small minority of the population.
Current data shows that children, pregnant women, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals are at highest risk for severe outcomes, including hemolytic uremic syndrome, miscarriage, and death.
I’ve personally seen cases of irreversible damage to the brain leading to seizures, meningitis, and coma that were caused by pathogens from unpasteurized products.
And claims that drinking unpasteurized milk lowers rates of asthma, cancer, or lactose intolerance? Those are unsubstantiated.
Of course, you should always consult with a health care professional before making any drastic changes to your diet. The key is to be more mindful and aware of what we put into our bodies, especially if it can be damaging to our brain health.
Baibing Chen is a double-boarded certified neurologist and epileptologist practicing at the University of Michigan. Find him on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
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VIDEO at link..................
It seems selling snake oil is more lucrative than peddling thoracic/coronary surgery. No matter how good you are at it.
Yes. Pigs are cannibalists.................
I prefer damaged, out of date canned foods, large barracuda and wild hog cooked rare.
Been eating pork loin or tenderloin at 135 degrees my entire life.
Butter!!
Wow, someone made one of those “NEVER Eat These 4 Foods!!!” Internet clickbaits into an actual article! 😜
Ha Ha! Your old.
I clicked on one of those types ads one time.
It went on, and on, and on, page after page for maybe 15 or 20 pages until I finally quit.............
Does she only have a headache in the morning? Or does it creep up later in the day, too?
That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?..................
Seemed like click bait.
Turned out it was a fine, well-written article.
My understanding is that the commercial temps that can be done very fast exceed the boiling point, and likely cause a change in taste as a result.
There are multiple methods lower temp (~70) for a long time, higher temp (~130) for a shorter timer, and the commercial method which is over 200.
I’m guessing that if the lower temp for long time was used it would end up closer to unpasteurized taste.
For me as long as it’s whole milk I’m ok either way. That skim milk stuff may as well be water.
“ I knew this over 70 years ago!”
Yeah.
People are stupid and ignorant today.
Reef fish for sure know what you’re eating
To keep mine safe and healthy, I stopped taking it out of my skull to play with.
Not to me it doesn’t
Guts?
Anyone here prepped cooked and eaten chitlins?
Def guts and doo doo smell especially when peeling them out to rinse good before cooking
Not my fave but I’ll eat em
Calf fries is better
Another unusual food
It’s more of “at least wait until I’ve had my coffee and brushed my teeth, old man” timing.
LOL. Too bad you have to take cialis though.
From AI…
Thought it would be helpful to evaluate the risk of raw milk:
“ From 1998 to 2018, about 4.4% of U.S. adults reported consuming raw milk at least once in a given year, with 1.6% being frequent consumers (once per month or more) according to survey data. Given the 20-year span, considering the recurring population consuming raw milk annually, the number of raw milk consumers over this period would be in the tens of millions cumulatively.
By comparison, during the same period, there were 2,645 illnesses linked to raw milk outbreaks.
Compared to fresh produce, which is also not pasteurized…
“Produce-associated outbreaks from 1998 to 2013 caused about 34,674 illnesses.”
I still eat fresh produce.
I still drive a car too!
“ From 1998 to 2018 in the United States, fatal motor vehicle crashes resulted in approximately 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year on average. Over this 20-year period, this amounts to roughly 700,000 to 800,000 deaths from auto accidents.”
Deaths 1998-2008
Raw milk: 3 deaths
Produce: ~ 72 - 100s of deaths
Cars: 700,000 to 800,000 deaths
Not for that reason, no, lol.
It’s actually annoyingly persistent, to quote the wife.
(The dosage for brain/vascular health is 2mg, whereas the dosage for erectile dysfunction is something like 20 or 40. But there definitely is, even at the lose dose, an overabundance of effect for healthy people. Bit like being 13.)
Here you go:
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