Thanksgiving Day Truth

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a great time doing whatever you’ll be doing, whether it’s spending time with your family or sitting in your underwear watching Dumb & Dumber on cable tonight (It’s on Comedy Central). We’re spending time with some of Lizzie’s family here in Minneapolis today, so there’s not a lot of traveling involved this year which is good. You see, I spend so much of my time in my car that I don’t always consider getting in it and driving for several hours a great vacation. However I will miss my family this year and usually the long drive is more than worthwhile. I will get to visit most of them over Christmas, so I have that to look forward to.

Like every year, I’m sure that in nearly every household the family know-it-all will tell everyone that the reason they’re so tired after the feast is due to all of the tryptophan in the turkey. Everyone will go “Hmm, how interesting!” even though they’ve heard this over and over for years. Guess what? It’s a myth! The tryptophan in turkey does not make you sleepy. Now it’s your turn to be the know-it-all.

From National Geographic:

Purified tryptophan is a mild sleep-inducing agent. That probably spawned the idea that turkey and other foods heavy in tryptophan cause drowsiness.

But tryptophan can’t get to the human brain in large amounts when ingested as part of a massive Thanksgiving feast—it needs an empty stomach.

Turkey isn’t even unusually high in tryptophan. Many foods, such as beef or soybeans, boast higher concentrations.

“Think about how much turkey you have in a turkey sandwich without getting tired,” said Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation. The Washington, D.C. nonprofit represents the turkey industry.

So why the traditional Thanksgiving nap?

The slumber may be caused by the stressful hustle and bustle of the holidays, alcohol consumption, and the massive caloric intake of the year’s biggest feast.

So there you have it, the only reason you’re sleepy is because you just inhaled 2-3 times more calories than your body is used to. Finally this broken record can be put on the shelf for good.

I’ll be extra tired after today’s meal, the holiday season already has me exhausted. It really has come up on me quite fast this year. The last two months have felt like one long week, it’s all just gone by so fast. As for “Black Friday,” I’ll be working. No dashing off to the stores to get that extra 10-50% off. I probably will stop by the Mall of America this weekend, but only to see the world’s largest plasma TV and world’s largest gingerbread house. I guess unnecessarily over-sized stuff is the theme this year at the unnecessarily over-sized Mall of America.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy, safe, and filling Thanksgiving!