Food Myths: Does Turkey Make You Sleepy?

(light music)

(sigh)

[Voiceover] I love Thanksgiving.

But there's one thing that gets me.

[Voiceover] What?

[Voiceover] The turkey.

It always makes me sleepy.

[Voiceover] Okay, what?

I'm sorry.

But did you just blame your post-Thanksgiving sleepiness

on the turkey?

[Voiceover] Yeah, turkey has a bunch of tryptophan in it.

The stuff that makes you super sleepy.

[Voiceover] What?

I'm not so sure about that.

I mean, let's talk about this.

Is it really the turkey

that makes you so tired on Thanksgiving?

True or false?

[Voiceover] My money's on true.

[Voiceover] Well, okay.

You're right that turkey has tryptophan in it.

But so do a lot of high-protein foods.

Did you know, for example, that cheese actually has more

tryptophan than turkey?

Tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin.

[Voiceover] That's the neurotransmitter that gives you

happy feelings right?

The chemical that's released in the brain,

if you have sex or do drugs?

[Voiceover] Yeah, it's responsible for the warm and fuzzy

feels, but also it gets converted into melatonin, which

is the chemical that makes you sleepy.

[Voiceover] Ah, so it does make you sleepy?

[Voiceover] Well, yeah it can.

But no more than other protein-rich foods, though.

The reason why it makes you extra sleepy on Thanksgiving is

because you eat that turkey with a whole bunch of carbs.

All of those carbs speed up the process of converting

that tryptophan into melatonin.

So you get sleepy faster.

Thanks to the carbs.

Plus, you've just eaten a crazy amount of food, right?

So your body is slowing down to try and digest it all.

[Voiceover] Oh, God.

Not to mention all of the wine.

[Voiceover] I mean, it's really just a perfect storm

for the melatonin factories in your brain to just kind of

go wild and flood your system with sleepiness.

[Voiceover] Ugh, I can't just blame it on the turkey?

[Voiceover] No, girl.

You can't just blame it on the turkey anymore.

It's the whole shebang.

I'm sorry.

It's a food myth.

It's false.

(upbeat music) (drums)