After a large holiday meal, it’s not uncommon to feel like it’s time for a nap.
For years, many have blamed the turkey on the dinner table and the tryptophan contained within it — an amino acid that plays a role in making serotonin, which works to also create melatonin, a hormone that is linked to sleep.
But Christian Euler says it’s high time the “mythology around turkey” gets settled and he says rather than curbing your turkey intake, you should actually eat more of it.
Euler is an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo who researches metabolic engineering and has a background in biochemistry. He says where there’s protein there is tryptophan.
“Pork and beef may be higher in tryptophan [than turkey]. And for the vegetarians out there, tofu and quinoa have more tryptophan than turkey, but we get it from a wide array of nutritional sources, including dairy and fish as well,” he told Craig Norris, host of CBC Kitchener-Waterloo’s The Morning Edition.
So what is causing the post-meal sleepies?
“We often pair our turkey with some really carby sides, right? We have mashed potatoes and stuffing and bread and it’s actually these things that make us feel tired or can make us feel tired after a big holiday meal,” he said.
Euler explained after people eat starches, they get broken down into sugar in the guts and that sugar then enters the bloodstream. Then, the body has an insulin release, which allows the sugar to be taken up by the cells and used for energy.
“So if you take a bunch of carbs all at once, that insulin spike is going to be pretty strong and there’s going to be a big fluctuation in the the blood sugar. So it’s going to come up and then it’s going to really crash and that crash is what causes us to feel quite tired,” he said.
‘We all like to sleep’
The idea turkey makes you sleepy is a long-held belief, but one that researchers worked to debunk in December 2007. Indianapolis-based researchers Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll identified seven widely held health beliefs in need of critical review, including that turkey causes fatigue. Their findings were published in the British Medical Journal.
“These medical myths are a light-hearted reminder that we can be wrong and need to question what other falsehoods we unwittingly propagate as we practice medicine,” the authors said in the journal article.
They note food fatigue, and perhaps a glass of wine with dinner, may lead people to feel tired.
Michael Edwards, director of strategic initiatives and exhibits at Science East in New Brunswick, told CBC New Brunswick it can be easy to blame the turkey because “we all like to sleep after we eat to excess over the holidays so we kind of like to give that excuse.”
Euler says to combat the nap, eat more turkey.
“Actually having more turkey on your plate is going to help you feel a little less tired after that meal,” he said. “Turkey is full of protein and we know that taking some protein with your carbs really helps level out that blood sugar fluctuation and can make you feel a little less sleepy after that meal.”
Or, he said, a more simple way to think of it: “More turkey, less sleepy.”
LISTEN | Want to avoid a food coma this holiday season? Eat more turkey says this metabolic engineering researcher from UW:
The Morning Edition – K-W4:36Want to avoid a food coma this holiday season? Eat more turkey says this metabolic engineering researcher from UW
We’re talking turkey. More specifically, the turkey coma many people get after a big holiday meal. But you’d be surprised to know the post-meal sleepies isn’t the fault of the bird. We’ll speak to a metabolic engineering researcher from the University of Waterloo to break down the science behind the food coma.