By Steven L. Hayes,
Director
For many of us, eating
turkey at Thanksgiving is a ritual that has been
passed down for generations. We thought
that you might enjoy learning some things about
turkeys.
* The male
turkey is called a tom and the female turkey is
called a hen.
* Wild
turkeys can fly up to 55 miles per hour for short
distances and can run 20 miles per
hour.
* Turkeys
are clever but not necessarily smart and can drown
if they look up when it is
raining.
* Fossil
remains of turkeys have been dated to ten million
years ago.
* It takes
75-80 pounds of feed to raise a 30 pound tom
turkey.
* United
States turkey growers will produce an estimated
269.8 million turkeys in
2007.
* Forty-five
million turkeys are eaten each
Thanksgiving.
* Twenty-two
million turkeys are eaten each
Christmas.
* Nineteen
million turkeys are eaten each
Easter.
* It is
estimated that 97% of Americans eat turkey at
Thanksgiving.
* The
heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about
the size of a large dog.
* A 15-pound
turkey usually has about 70 percent white meat and
30 percent dark meat.
* White meat
has fewer calories and less fat than dark
meat.
* Turkey is
low in fat and high in protein and has more
protein than chicken or
beef.
* As a
result of breeding turkeys with larger breasts,
the breasts sometimes grow so large that the
turkeys fall over.
THANKSGIVING
DAY
Although a day of
thanksgiving was celebrated by the early colonists
to America (the first recorded official holiday of
Thanksgiving was in July), it was not officially
recognized as a national holiday until Abraham
Lincoln, on October 3, 1863 issued a proclamation
setting aside the last Thursday in November as the
day of national thanksgiving. Of course,
since the Southern states did not recognize
Lincoln's authority at that time, it was only an
official holiday in 1863 in the
North.
OUR NATIONAL
BIRD?
Although he was unsuccessful,
Benjamin Franklin is known to have lobbied to have
the turkey, not the bald eagle, be the national
bird of the United States. Here is an
excerpt from a letter he wrote to his
daughter:
"For my own part I wish the Eagle
had not been chosen the representative of our
country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He
does not get his living honestly. You may have
seen him perched on some dead tree near the river,
where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches
the labor of the Fishing Hawk ... For the truth
the Turkey is in comparison a much more
respectable bird, and withal a true original
native of America ... He is besides, though a
little vain & silly, a bird of courage, and
would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the
British Guards who should presume to invade his
farm yard with a red coat on."
DROWSINESS
Many of us eat Thanksgiving dinner
and start to feel drowsy. We have
heard that turkey is high in tryptophan and
somehow this is the
reason.
WHAT IS
TRYPTOPHAN?
Tryptophan is an essential amino
acid.
According to the Encarta Dictionary, "Amino
acids make up proteins and are important
components of cells. Some can
be synthesized by the body (nonessential amino
acids) and others must be obtained through the
diet (essential amino acids)."
So tryptophan is an essential amino acid
because it cannot be produced by our bodies but
must be derived from foods we eat. Foods that
are considered sources of tryptophan are dairy
products, beef, poultry, barley, brown rice, fish,
soybeans, and peanuts and, in higher amounts,
turkeys.
WHAT DOES TRYPTOPHAN
DO?
Tryptophan is needed for the
body to make serotonin and niacin, a B
vitamin.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter (a chemical
that carries messages between different nerve
cells or between nerve cells and muscles). Serotonin
acts as a natural calming agent in the brain of
most people.
Serotonin is normally broken down by the
body to produce melatonin which helps us
sleep.
There is no test to determine how
much serotonin each of us needs to be calm. Scientists
know that it varies from person to person, but
generally it is thought that the more serotonin
produced the more calm a person will be.
Because turkeys are great sources of
tryptophan and because we eat a lot of turkey at
Thanksgiving, and because many of us feel like
taking a nap afterwards or fall asleep on the
couch, the turkey has been labeled as the cause of
this drowsiness.
IS THE TURKEY
RESPONSIBLE FOR FEELING DROWSY AFTER EATING YOUR
THANKSGIVING
DINNER?
Scientists now, in the main,
say no.
They point out that most people have lots
of carbohydrates and fats like dressing
(stuffing), cranberries, sweet potatoes, bread,
pies, cakes and whipped cream. In fact, the extra
high level of carbohydrates produce higher than
normal levels of glucose (the body's sugar) which
in turn triggers the release of high levels of
insulin (a hormone produced in the pancreas that
the body uses to regulate the level of
glucose in the blood) and this can lead to us
feeling tired.
Some also drink alcohol which is a
strong central nervous system depressant and will
likely have a sedative
effect.
It is also hard for the body to
digest all this food, so the body diverts blood
away from other parts of your body to your stomach
and this can have a sedative effect.
Finally, it appears that for most of
us, the actual amount of tryptophan that makes it
to the brain after a full Thanksgiving dinner will
be much less than the amount going to the brain if
you just ate a slice of turkey without all the
other trimmings.
The conclusion then is that it's not
the turkey but what we eat with the
turkey.
All of us at Novus wish you a great
Thanksgiving. We all
have much to be thankful for and as we eat we
should reflect on this, but don't blame the turkey
if you feel drowsy after eating your Thanksgiving
dinner.
