Medical myths, eating turkey makes people drowsy
I have always heard that eating a ton of turkey would make
me sleepy, but is it true? (I don’t like turkey, therefore it does not matter,
but thanksgiving=turkey, so…)
Tryptophan is present in turkey, because it is an amino acid
existing in a lot foods. Scientific evidence has revealed that the amino acid
is involved in sleep and mood regulation, and can cause drowsiness.
L-tryptophan is even advertised as a sleep aid.
However, turkey does not contain a large amount of the amino
acid. Turkey, chicken, and ground beef contain almost equal quantities of the
amino acid, approximately 350 milligrams per 115 grams. Pork and cheese are
comprised of a greater quantity of the amino acid per gram than turkey. Plus
with all of the other food eaten with turkey at Thanksgiving, would limit its
absorption because it is suggested for maximum absorption, an empty stomach is
necessary. The drowsiness after eating turkey can be explained by the large
meals eaten during Thanksgiving with lots of carbohydrates, because blood flow
and oxygenation to the brain are lowered.
Voila! The turkey mystery has been debunked with a little
biology! Super cool!
Here are some Thanksgiving fun facts!
·
The first thanksgiving was thought of as the one
that occurred in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621, but there are twelve claims
that the first Thanksgiving happened in places in Texas, Virginia, and
Massachusetts.
·
The turkeys in images on thanksgiving are not
the same turkeys people actually eat. Domestic turkeys are too large to fly and
weigh twice as much as non-domestic turkeys.
·
People eat 535 million pound of turkey on
Thanksgiving.
·
There is an Unthanksgiving day. It occurs on the
island of Alcatraz to honor of the survival of Native Americans after the
influx of the Europeans.
·
The first Thanksgiving football game was in 1876
in which Princeton played Yale.
·
Only male turkeys gobble.
·
The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving actually lasted three
days, and included fifty pilgrims and ninety Wampanoag Indians. There menu was
different from the modern Thanksgiving feast, and included berries, shellfish,
boiled pumpkin, and deer.
I'm sleepy after eating on Thanksgiving period. It would be interesting though to see if eating turkey is truly the cause on this day.
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome to hear biology debunking a common myth that tons and tons of people believe is true!
ReplyDeleteUntil today, my whole family believed the whole "tryptophan from turkey makes you sleepy" myth!! I had to explain to them almost exactly what you mentioned here (I googled it for them as proof) and that the real culprit is the sheer amount of food that is consumed and how the body shuts down to direct energy towards digesting all that food! (I was about to write about this until I saw your post lol)
ReplyDeleteI always feel super sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner, good to know that it's not the turkey. It's probably all those rolls (O_O).
ReplyDeleteMichelle: Your family is more dedicated to fact-based inference than mine.
ReplyDelete