It’s Not The Tryptophan; It’s The Blather About Tryptophan

And now the news: the reason you want to take a nice nap after the Thanksgiving meal has nothing to do with tryptophan, the amino acid that is the usual suspect. Thanksgiving know-it-alls, -every family’s got em- seem determined, once a year, to share their knowledge of the physiological consequences of ingesting tryptophan, which, yes, is found in turkey, and yes, does play a role in the regulation of serotonin and melotonin, which influence sleep. But as nutritionist Joan Salge Blake points out in her blog, Nutrition and You, chicken has more tryptophan than turkey. In Salge Blake’s opinion, it’s far more likely that the culprit is the sheer amount of food we eat on Thanksgiving, which requires our digestive systems to do the kind of heavy lifting they are unaccustomed to, or it could be the nice Pinot Noir that Aunt Jane polished off just as you were reaching for it. And of course, it could be all the blather about amino acids.