Nutrition: Food, Mood & Health
Happiness Encyclopedia V from the Happiness PhD Project...
If it doesn’t have a face or grow, don’t eat it…
The general advice here is to eat actual food. Have you ever considered that most of what we eat is not food? It’s some sort of hyper-industrial manufactured widget.
Take the humble fruit snack. What on Earth have we done? Instead of eating fruit, we decided to grow a bunch of different agricultural products, process them into raw materials, take some industrial waste to make Red 40 and other colorings, then use an injection molding system to recreate a cartoon caricature of the original fruit, wrap it in plastic, and sell that.
We could have just eaten the damn fruit!?
It’s ridiculous. So, suffice it to say, I recommend you eat mostly single-ingredient, unprocessed foods. Here’s a simple rule for weight loss and health: if it doesn’t have a face or it doesn’t grow, don’t eat it. Focus on eating things you would find outside or on a farm.
To this point, research by Dr. Felice Jacka and Dr. Ruut Veenhoven suggests that healthy eating (whole foods like fruits and vegetables) is associated with greater happiness. Dr. Jacka often explains it as the “food and mood connection.” (1)
So, taking our simple approach, let’s give some more research based guidelines.
There’s a lot of controversy in nutrition: should you do keto, paleo, vegan, or whatever? The research I’ve seen suggests simplicity wins again.
The common ground with many of these diets is more fiber and more protein. Just about every study of mortality risk and fiber finds that more fiber is better. More fruits and vegetables are great for your health, and one of the main reasons they’re so important is that they help you feel full. (2)
A major cause of the obesity epidemic is the proliferation of high–caloric-density foods. You could eat three Hershey kisses or you could eat an entire handful of grapes and get the same calories.
Even if you were to keep your same diet but, before each meal, drink a glass of water and eat one large apple, it could do wonders for you. You’ll feel fuller for longer and naturally limit your caloric intake.
The same pattern holds for healthy proteins. Not only does protein help you feel satiated, it’s important for maintaining muscle mass, and the creatine it contains supports brain health.
The ideal amount of protein is probably above the government’s recommended daily allowance and below the “golden rule of bodybuilding” of one gram per pound. Studies show that beyond about 0.69 grams per pound, the effects of additional protein on muscle protein synthesis are essentially nonexistent. (3) So, let’s say, aim for something like 0.7 grams per pound. If you weigh 150 pounds, that’s about 105 grams – that’s still quite a bit more than most people eat. Aim for roughly 35 grams per meal. That could look like five eggs for breakfast, a protein shake at lunch, and a chicken breast with dinner.
Once you use protein and fiber as your pillars, you can layer in your remaining calories with complex carbohydrates and healthy fats based on your ideal weight. You can go that route if you want, but keeping it simple, take your ideal weight and multiply it by 0.7 to get your protein target in grams. Then divide that by three for each meal. Eat that amount of protein with a generous serving of fiber (fruits and vegetables) at every meal, and you’ll go far.
For optimal health and happiness, you don’t need a fancy crash diet. Focus on eating real foods rich in protein and fiber, and ensure you don’t consume too many calories, as that undermines physical health.
On the hydration front, your needs will vary depending on your age, weight, activity level, indoor temperature, and a constellation of other factors. But 50 to 80 ounces of water per day is a good bet – roughly one and a half glasses with each meal.
Felice Jacka’s Lab FoodandMoodCentre.com
Ramezani, F., Pourghazi, F., Eslami, M., Gholami, M., Mohammadian Khonsari, N., Ejtahed, H.-S., Larijani, B., & Qorbani, M. (2024). Dietary fiber intake and all‑cause and cause‑specific mortality: An updated systematic review and meta‑analysis of prospective cohort studies. Clinical Nutrition, 43(1), 65–83. doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2023.11.005
Tagawa R, Watanabe D, Ito K, Otsuyama T, Nakayama K, Sanbongi C, Miyachi M. Synergistic Effect of Increased Total Protein Intake and Strength Training on Muscle Strength: A Dose-Response Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Sports Med Open. 2022 Sep 4;8(1):110.
