Don't believe everything you read, really.
Scientists are not perfect.
First of all "Purified tryptophan is a mild sleep-inducing agent and that probably led to the idea that foods containing heavy doses of the chemical
cause drowsiness."
This sentence is entirely contradictory! so Tryptophan is a mild sleep inducing agent, but earlier they say it doesn't cause drowsiness?
What do they think a mild sleep inducing agent is! Granted, they did say "purified tryptophan" but then go on to say that purified tryptophan is the
same thing you see in the foods as well.
So how is it that "a mild sleep inducing agent" in "high concentration" in foods, leads to simply an IDEA of the chemical causing drowsiness? that
makes no sense. They've just explained how it DOES cause drowsiness.
With that said, regardless of Tryptophan being the 9th amino acid, I must tell you something. I'm a nutritionist, that's what I majored in school.
We don't often get as much of the 9th amino acid as we should, as many foods such as peanut butter LACK the 9th amino acid but contain enormous
amounts of the other proteins (amino acids).
Therefore, we get full on all these other amino acids much more regularly than we do tryptophan. While turkey, chicken, and even most if not all
meats contain some tryptophan, it's mostly turkey that has large large amounts of it.
So, around thanksgiving time, after the whole year of unknowingly mis-nutritionalizing (made up word) ourselves with the incorrect balance of
proteins, our body is FINALLY balanced out by being given more and as much as it really needed Tryptophan.
Once it hits our systems, the long missed protein creates such a feeling of relief from having our proteins imbalanced, that it causes us a pleasant
drowsiness, because this is the system wanting to shut down and repair after finally getting the proper nutrition.
Also at thanksgiving, it's really the time of year you catch up on a good abundance of ALL the foods you missed in a rounded out sort of way all at
once.
So, it's not just the turkey that makes you drowsey, it's the other foods as well. Plus, eating a lot makes you tired.
Many of us eat Turkey sandwhichs often, but if you think about it, I bet you'll find most of us do not pick turkey or turkey sandwhiches that often.
Those of us that do eat a lot of them, will naturally get less tired at thanksgiving than the rest of us.
Although turkey sandwhich seems like a common food, when you do eat one, you don't eat all that much turkey usually, and if you were to think about
it, I bet you don't eat that much turkey.
Hope this shed the light on ya a little bit.
Don't give in to all "scientific" studies so readily.
Tryptophan definitely makes you sleepy in multiple ways!
That's not an imagined effect you have when you eat too much turkey at thanksgiving. You are really being 'drugged' (in a good way) down with quite a
drowsiness inducing chemical.
Plus who can eat a bunch load of pumpkin pie and a beer and not pass out
edit on 20-2-2013 by pgobbs2277 because: (no reason given)