Every year the debate arises just prior to thanksgiving, does turkey actually make you tired? There is belief that the tryptophan inside of turkey causes people to become exhausted. Tryptophan is an amino acid that is necessary in all human diets because one’s body cannot produce it. Along with turkey, it may be found in other meats, cheese, fish, and cheese. Its purpose is to help in producing a B vitamin known as niacin, which is used for digestion, and in forming serotonin. Serotonin plays a role in forming melatonin, which is a hormone that affects sleep and wake cycles. The tryptophan does play affect sleep, but is it enough to make people feel tired and drowsy after their thanksgiving feasts?

Scientists at the Cleveland Health clinic put this theory to the test. Their study had the hypothesis that an increase in turkey intake will proportionally increase one’s tiredness. They had 16 infants divided into two groups, giving one group baby formula that contained tryptophan and the other received a placebo formula. The same test was also conducted on a group of young adults. The infants who consumed the formula with tryptophan had better regulated sleep compared to the group that consumed the placebo. The young adults tested received different samples with different doses of tryptophan. The group who received the smaller dosage had better sleep than those who received a larger dosage. This could suggest the possibility that maybe tryptophan works like a dosage and a certain dosage affects one’s sleep the most.

Based off the information in this study, the average amount of turkey a person consumes at thanksgiving is not enough to cause drowsiness. Turkey contains less tryptophan than chicken. If tryptophan affected a person’s energy levels, chicken too would consequently make one tired. It may just be coincidence, but after a summer barbeque full of chicken, I cannot recall feeling drowsy or seen other people feel this way.

So if turkey may not be doing the trick, what is it that makes many people including myself fall asleep following the thanksgiving feast? Along with turkey other popular foods at thanksgiving include potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. If turkey does not cause
people to get tired what is the cause? According to Kim Sasso a nutritionist at Loyola also agrees it is not the turkey that causes the exhaustion, but instead it is the carbohydrates. Even if the tryptophan causes some drowsiness, there would be almost no affect after thanksgiving because of all the other transport and breakdowns going on throughout the body because of all the other foods consumed.

In conclusion to my research and the articles/studies I rejected the hypothesis that turkey, due to tryptophan, causes people to feel drowsy after their thanksgiving feasts. In order to prevent the post drowsiness feeling, cut down on the carbohydrates.

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