Tryptophan in turkey has become almost as famous as the bird’s white and dark meat. So has the legend of its power to make people sleepy.
But does Thanksgiving turkey actually induce drowsiness?
“No more so than tuna fish. It’s a myth,” Dr. Marc Eisenberg, a clinical cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, tells TODAY.com.
“People are sleepy after Thanksgiving because of all the other stuff including the alcohol and just eating too much food.”
Still, the myth persists.
NBC News Health and Nutrition Editor Madelyn Fernstrom suspects it really took off after a 1997 “Seinfeld” episode that featured Jerry and George scheming to make a woman fall asleep so they could play with her antique toy collection.
After they treat her to a big turkey dinner, complete with a box of red wine and lots of heavy gravy, she’s soon snoozing on the couch.
Trytophan is specifically mentioned by the characters as “that stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy.” But that’s not quite accurate.
What is tryptophan?
Trytophan is one of the amino acids, which the body uses to make proteins to help it grow and repair tissue, according to the National Library of Medicine.
The body can’t produce tryptophan, so you must get it from your diet, it notes. Turkey is a good source, but so is cheese, chicken, fish, milk, peanuts, egg whites and soy beans. Tryptophan can also be found in sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds.
Amino acids do more than just build muscle — some of them are the “starter” compounds for brain neurotransmitters, Fernstrom says.
“Tryptophan can become serotonin — the brain chemical that calms, causes sleep, among other things — if the right enzymes are around to do so,” she notes.
The body also uses tryptophan to make melatonin, which helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Eating more tryptophan in…
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