It can be a stimulating environment capable of engaging humanity's brightest minds. Or it can be a fearsome place filled with flaming lakes, deadly traps, cackling wraiths and unimaginable torment.

I am, of course, referring to the workplace.

Regardless of the quality of the office environment, the simple desire to put in an honest day's work - if nothing else - should motivate everyone from mail clerk to the CEO to give their employer their best effort.

However, this can be easier said than done. Your own physical frailties can prevent you from delivering your best performance.

The benefits of the judiciously timed consumption of nutritious food to maximize your performance can't be overestimated.

For example, there is nothing more awkward than the moments after your senior vice-president walks past your office and observes something about your aspect - the slack jaw, perhaps, or the closed eyes? - that suggests deep sleep.

You could plead that your lapse was actually a power nap - a tactic available to any conscientious employee desirous of contributing to increased corporate productivity.

But there's a more potent alternative. I call it corporate power eating. This is nothing more than the judiciously timed consumption of nutritious food to extract maximal performance from body and mind.

Here are my particulars, in the interest of disclosure of my stake in dietary matters: I am six feet tall, still on the windward side of 60, in tolerably good health and in possession of a body mass index in the area of "overweight" but well shy of "obese."

I am acquiring a greater awareness of the benefits of power eating after decades of a fast-paced lifestyle as a journalist fuelled by fast food. This was followed by a more sedentary lifestyle in administrative work with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), then the Alberta public service.

I have found in recent years that power eating can be an antidote to drowsiness while reading or writing reports - an annoyance that has been a challenge for the sort of work I have done all my adult years. Through changes to my diet at home, I have lost weight and gained sustained physical and mental performance.

So, what is power eating? How can food or beverages at work be used to facilitate nimbleness of mind, thus enabling you to deal with the exigencies that arise from inside or outside your business (i.e., the mob with the torches and pitchforks that would like a word with you)?

Power eating is not the scarfing of a Big Mac or a bag of doughnuts just as the sandman is making its rounds through your offices. Power eating is the consumption of food calculated to give its host a well-maintained blood sugar level throughout the workday combined with an occasional shot of sugar-fuelled energy derived from a natural source such as a fruit. Beverages have a salutary effect, too, and they need be nothing more fancy than water.

Though I began glimpsing the benefits of good eating when my wife changed her diet from typical North American processed-food fare to a low-fat, high-fibre whole-foods diet in the early 1990s, I have had the good fortune to work closely with executives in recent years who have mastered the art of high performance through power eating.

I marvelled at how a BBB executive was able to go flat out for several hours, effectively managing one crisis after another non-stop. Later, I noticed how a senior official with my ministry achieved similar performance through good eating and lots of physical activity. What I observed with both was the ability to muster a sustained application of mental energy that would have wilted the mere mortal.

It didn't take me long to make the connection between their office performance and their eating habits. They ate lightly and the food they ate was the type you would find in Canada's Food Guide.

"Eat a banana," the government official advised me.

He knew I would lead or participate in challenging meetings, and he was offering a tip on what to do immediately before entering the meeting room.

Vancouver nutrition consultant Adam Hart says an abundance of scientific literature points to a strong link between good eating and mental alertness. "It's what's in the food that we're eating and how our bodies use food," says Hart, of Clear Impact Consulting, which provides employee wellness programs to employers. "It's all about how to increase the nutritional value of what we need."

A University of Florida-Gainesville economist has shown that even bad food can yield benefits (though clogged arteries and obesity would be a likely long-term consequence).

David Figlio wrote about how Virginia school districts strategically altered school menus during exam periods in an apparent attempt to artificially increase test scores. They fortified their students with extra "empty calories" - calories that have major very-short-term cognitive effects but no long-term benefits.

So, being open-minded, I have embraced power eating to the greatest extent that self-discipline will permit. I still consider myself a work-in-progress in this area, but I believe I have managed to avoid physical and mental decrepitude by pursuing good eating habits.

Here are some of my workplace discoveries: Eating a banana or any piece of fruit immediately before a meeting does produce sufficient mental energy to get through the meeting without babbling or snoozing.

I'm at my best communicating with my colleagues or the public on difficult matters when I'm functioning on a near-empty stomach, provided that I ate well during my last meal at breakfast or lunch and have a glass of water onhand.

My wife, a devotee of Arizona diet-wellness guru and physician Dr. Andrew Weil, explains that this is the result of blood being in the brain instead of in a headlong rush to the stomach when the belly has just been filled with food.

I function well without caffeine, consuming herbal tea and tap water in the morning. However, I continue to drink moderate amounts of black coffee in the afternoon out of habit and - occasionally - to combat drowsiness from lack of sleep.

The eventual elimination of coffee - which I did once before for two years - will be my next milestone.

One of my greatest discoveries is the use of hot cereals made from non-mainstream grains such as amaranth, quinoa and millet.

The continuous, even output of energy provided by a breakfast of hot amaranth (which can be slow-cooked overnight) and brazil nuts and raisins gets me through any morning with a clear mind and light body.

All of this is consistent with the teachings of Dr. James F. Balch and Phyllis A. Balch in their book Prescription for Nutritional Healing, which extols the benefits of carbohydrates, the main source of blood sugar, a major fuel for all of the body's cells and the only source of energy for the brain and red-blood cells.

"Aim for variety, and include as much fresh food as you can in your diet," Weil wrote in a 2005 Time magazine article.

"Minimize your consumption of processed and fast food. Eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables, and try to include carbohydrates, fat and protein in every meal."

(Brock Ketcham can be reached at brock@businessedge.ca)