Eating eggs will make you a nicer person
A study has found that eating eggs activates serotonin – the happy hormone. And furthermore, it can turn you into, well, a good egg as it might also activate your charity instinct.
In an unusual study, researchers decided to find out how much more charitable we become after eating eggs.
The researchers already knew that serotonin not only helps to maintain mood balance and our sense of happiness but it’s also associated with social behaviour – acts of generosity and kindness, for instance.
Those behind the study also knew that an amino acid, called tryptophan (TRP) – found in whole eggs, poultry, beans, oats, fish, cheese, tofu, seeds and nuts – converts into serotonin in the body.
The researchers from Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition in The Netherlands have now found out that eating foods full of tryptophan can increase our willingness to give to charity by as much as double.
“For the first time, we investigated whether the administration of a compound contained in food such as fish, eggs, soy and milk, can promote charitable donating,” said the Dutch authors.
“Our study is the first demonstration that charitable donating can be enhanced by serotonin-related food supplements.”
The team behind the study took 32 healthy students and gave half the group a placebo and the other half the equivalent TRP of three eggs.
All participants were instructed not to eat or drink anything other than water the night before the experiment mornings. They were also required to refrain from alcohol or drug use for the duration of the study's period.
The students were given $15 each for their participation in the study and were asked whether they would like to leave any of their reward to charity.
Those who took the TRP donated, on average, double the amount donated by the placebo participants.
The study was admittedly small and the authors acknowledged that more research was needed to see if the results could be replicated.
Their results however, support the idea that “you are what you eat”, they said.
“[This is] the idea that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind,” the authors concluded.
“The food we eat may thus act as a cognitive enhancer that modulates the way we deal with the ‘social’ world.”