Ever spent time with a cranky child – or adult – after they’ve eaten too much candy? If you have, you definitely know how food can affect a person’s mood.<\/b><\/p>\n
Though we often crave sweets and comfort foods when we’re feeling down, the truth is that sugar usually makes things worse. Spikes and crashes in blood glucose levels leave us feeling irritable, anxious, and tired just a few short hours after we indulge. And now, new research suggests that unhealthy eating habits may even diminish your mental acuity and decision-making abilities.
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\nThe benefits of cutting down on refined sugar are well-documented. But what if there were foods that could actually boost your psychological well-being over the long term? According to a recent study from the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College, the answer is surprisingly simple: you need <\/b>look no farther than the produce section at your grocery store or farmers’ market<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Researchers analyzed the eating habits of about 80,000 people and found that the more fruits and vegetables people ate, the happier they were.<\/b> Controlling for other variables (such as the remainder of subjects’ diets and a range of demographic, economic, and social factors), researchers found that emotional health rose with fruit and vegetable consumption in a dose-response pattern, meaning each additional portion of fruits and vegetables contributed to an increase in life satisfaction.<\/b><\/p>\n
The sweet spot, so to speak, was about seven servings a day:<\/b> and what does that mean? Basically some fruit or vegetable with every meal or snack, or as a beverage (and that means in a whole or cooked form, not just flavored to mimic the taste of a real fruit or vegetable).<\/p>\n
Even more surprising in the research was how huge the improvements were: eating more fruits and vegetables corresponded with an increase in .25 to .33 life-satisfaction points. If that sounds small to you, here’s some perspective: being unemployed produced a loss of .9 life-satisfaction points. In other words, eating lots of fruits and vegetables affects your mental health and well-being one-third as much as losing your job!<\/b><\/p>\n
It’s still unclear exactly how this works, and in scientific terms correlation definitely doesn’t necessarily imply causation. But the mental and physical benefits of eating fruits and vegetables<\/b> are so overwhelmingly conclusive that this study should only act as further encouragement to fuel up on produce throughout the day. Your body and your brain will definitely thank you!<\/p>\n
Information courtesy of The Institute for Integrative Nutrition<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever spent time with a cranky child – or adult – after they’ve eaten too much candy? If you have, you definitely know how food can affect a person’s mood.Though we often crave sweets and comfort foods when we’re feeling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n