Every year, I I promise myself that I will not eat alone in a coma: I will eat properly, fill my stomach with salad, and go to Turkey with soup. Instead, I wake up three hours after Thanksgiving dinner, sprawled out like Robinson Crusoe in the living room under a pile of my grandchildren’s toys. My shirt is stained brown, and handprints are on my jeans.
What is it Thank you that sends me – and millions of other Americans – into oblivion? Are we all happy on a trip to Turkey, or is there another reason to be thankful for a lazy holiday?
You’ve probably heard that turkey is dripping with a sleep-inducing chemical called tryptophan. And while it’s true that the stuff helps put your brain to sleep, saying it does so single-handedly is like saying Neil Armstrong jumped to the moon alone.
For one thing, turkey does not contain tryptophan. Just one link, roast chicken, roast beef, or pork dish are all the same. Freezer-dried tofu has almost twice the amount of tryptophan as turkey, and I doubt you’ll hear your cousin from southern California complaining about how sleepy she is after eating fake meat.
Carbs are the real culprit behind the Thanksgiving nap. Keep your heavy eyes on the side dishes. Mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and cherry are high in carbs and will flood your bloodstream with sugar, sugar. In order to control the amount of sugar entering your tissues, your body produces insulin, which controls a group of amino acids to help with the process. Tryptophan is an amino acid, but it is not useful in controlling blood sugar. Instead, it is used extensively by the body to make mood-regulating hormones.
In most cases, tryptophan cannot enter your brain, because it is blocked by other amino acids. However, when called upon to help regulate blood sugar, tryptophan appears. In the brain, it is converted to serotonin, then melatonin, which is known to induce sleep.
Turkey is not unique. Any meal with less tryptophan followed by about 30 grams of carbs (a medium bowl of spaghetti) depletes your amino acids long enough to make the brain feel better. But the tryptophan/carb combo is only part of the reason for your torpor. The main thing is that you eat. Therefore. Asa. More information.
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