Creating Serotonin - What Should I Eat?

Since we know that tryptophan is the building block for serotonin, that would be the first thing we need to produce serotonin. Most of us are familiar with one source of tryptophan - turkey! We all get very relaxed and sleepy after that big Thanksgiving turkey dinner. This is related to the tryptophan in the turkey. In this case however, the tryptophan goes to the pineal gland and melatonin is produced which makes us sleepy. Not the serotonin we were hoping to produce.

This is a complex issue, because the amino acids in proteins can get in the way of the tryptophan and keep it from converting to Serotonin. To help you understand this, if you are depressed and your Serotonin levels are low, you will crave and eat simple carbohydrates like sugar and sweets. This gives you a short burst of Serotonin but it is not sustained and requires more within an hour or two at most. We all know what eating sugar or sweets every 1-2 hours will do to your waist line. Complex carbohydrates will raise Serotonin levels to a lesser extent because they contain protein amino acids which get in the way.

To clear the protein amino acids, you need to have foods which stimulate the production of insulin which will clear the proteins out of the way. Best foods for this are whole grain breads or raw fruits.