FOODS THE CONTROL YOUR MOOD

Sometimes self control can make me cranky. I found out I’m not alone. According to Northwestern psychologists David Gal and Wendy Liu, exerting self control makes people chose anger related movies and have a preference for looking at angry faces. They conducted studies in which people were given a self indulgent option, a candy bar or a gift certificate for a spa treatment, and a responsible one, an apple or a gift certificate to a grocery store. Those who made the responsible choices were markedly more likely to chose the anger visuals. What’s our take away from that? Eat, drink and be merry or tomorrow we go postal? My guess is if we were controlling our food cravings we might actually chose the apple and be happy. Chronic dieting, as you now know, can create terrible cravings for high calorie, high carbohydrate, high fat foods but here are some healthy foods and herbs that can actually diminish food cravings. Foods: Molasses Eggs Apricots Dates Prunes Onions High fiber foods, particularly non starchy vegetables Carbs that also have high protein content: legumes, tofu, sesame seeds, brown rice Foods containing essential fatty acids: olive oil, salmon, etc… Herbs: Bayberry Black Cohosh Goldenseal Parsley Licorice Thyme Cardamom Cayenne Cinnamon Ginger Green Tea Mustard Fennel So put some onions, parsley and thyme in your whole grain stuffing, have a cup of green tea with your apple-apricot, pie and be happy this holiday season.