Happiness comes from within, or so the saying goes. Many would suggest we take this phrase in its literal form, by taking a good, hard look at the food we eat on a daily basis. And anyone suffering from the "blues" this winter (or at any other time of the year) could be well-advised to take note: there is such a thing as a meal that makes you happy, experts say.
We're not talking about meals commonly available in fast-food chains. According to nutritional experts, types of "happy" food would look less like a burger, chips and a fizzy drink and more like turkey or wild salmon, dark green vegetables, and sweet potatoes or basmati rice for the main course. For dessert it would be citrus fruits, raw chocolate, berries, nuts and seeds.
What makes this meal "happy" is the collection of nutrients it packs: tryptophan (turkey), omega-3 (salmon), vitamin B12 (turkey and salmon), folate (green vegetables), niacin (brown rice), vitamin B6 (nuts), phenylalanine (nuts and seeds), magnesium (chocolate) and vitamin C (citrus fruits).
When combined, they spark the necessary chain of events that allow us to release more of the "happy neurotransmitters" produced in our bodies, such as serotonin and dopamine.
The route to plentiful serotonin namely lies in a tryptophan-rich diet, but the essential amino acid can only do its job when combined with other key nutrients, says Bernice Cheung Ho-ki, dietitian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Centre for Nutritional Studies.
"The conversion of tryptophan to serotonin is a two-step process [which] requires catalysts like vitamin B6, folate, niacin and B12," she says.
