Diet is an essential component for mental health and wellbeing. Deficiencies in key vitamins and minerals can cause or exacerbate common mental illnesses like anxiety disorders and depression. On the other hand, a balanced and varied diet that is high in several key vitamins and minerals can play an important part in recovery and sustained personal wellbeing. In this Life Surfing guide we explain how mental health problems can impact on diet, how you can improve your diet by using foods from the helpful lists of good mood foods set out in the guide. We also provide some good mood food starter recipes for anyone who is relatively new to cooking from scratch.