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Protein not carbs could be causing your food coma

Author Damien Wilde
Posted On 18th January 2017

Protein-not-carbs-could-be-causing-your-food-coma

Carb loading can cause you to get sleepy, but wait, we’ve got more information and food advice that contradicts almost everything we have been taught or learnt.

This time we’re being told that it’s probably the protein in our diet that is causing our afternoon energy slump.

And here we were, thinking that a big bowl of carbohydrates was destroying our late afternoon energy levels.

Boffins from the Bowling Green State University – wonderful name – Ohio and Florida’s Scripps Research Institute used fruit-flies to investigate the neurobiological links between eating and sleep patterns.

The study found that proteins and salt were actually the reason for causing what we commonly know as a ‘food coma’.

Whilst we don’t resemble fruit flies – well most of the time – the information has human application and connotations. With the research scientists finding that salt and protein are the actual devil when it comes to putting us into a ‘food coma’.

It turns out that salt and proteins take much more energy to digest and therefore our bodies have to work harder to extract the valuable nutrients within them, causing a dip in energy levels if you indulge in too much meaty, salty foods.

It's not exactly a 'lite-bite' but steak is the new devil.

It’s not exactly a ‘lite-bite’ but steak is the new devil.

Carbohydrates didn’t have the same effect, which contradicts what various dieticians have been claiming for years, that carb-rich foods make us sleepy. The same can be said of sugars, again, not the root cause of a ‘food coma’.

This information changes the way in which we are being told to approach our meals! So to keep you powering through the day, we should be looking to have something resembling a pasta salad.

“During the food coma, the flies remain still for a certain amount of time and they are much less responsive to any kind of other cues than they would normally be,” study author Dr. Robert Huber revealed to Science Daily.

“There’s clearly something very potent about sleep itself,” he added.

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