Are Fruits and Veggies the Key to Happiness?

Although modern medicine honors the words of Hippocrates, “first do no harm,” It’s been less inclined to consider one of his other pieces of advice. “Let Foods be your medicine.” New research, particularly in biology departments throughout the world, is proving, however, the wisdom of Hippocrates second bit of advice – at least when it comes to brain health, mental and emotional disorders.

Consider this recent major study out of Great Britain on the determinants of life satisfaction and happiness.  In this study Sarah Stewart-Brown, MD, professor of public health at WarwickMedicalSchool in the England, and her research associates analyzed the dietary habits of 80,000 men and women from three different surveys in Wales, Scotland and England. Each was a random sample of the population of their respective countries.

The men and women surveyed answered questions about their on exercise habits, their employment, and whether they smoked daily, as well as their intake of fruits and vegetables. They then reported on their levels of life satisfaction, mental well-being, any mental disorders, happiness, nervousness, and feeling low. 

So which of these variables would you say, would be most closely associated with life satisfaction, and mental well being?  Since this is a book on the impact of food on thought and feeling, and you must be a smart person already or you likely wouldn’t be reading this, you likely chose intake of fruits and vegetables as the most impactful variable. If so you were right!

The optimal portions of fruits and vegetables appear to be about seven per day. At least the researchers found that the well being scores appeared to peak at that number. It appears, as another researcher, Andrew Oswald, PhD, noted in a WebMD article on the study, that ”the more you go from zero to seven or eight, the happier you will be.” ¹  (For the surveys, a portion was defined as about 3 ounces. A small apple, for instance, is about 5 ounces.)

The study didn’t distinguish between types of fruits and vegetables, although Dr. Oswald noted French fries did not count as a vegetable, as it has in some US studies.

Of course this was a study of correlations and did not prove a cause effect relationship, but interestingly this relationship between produce and happiness held even when exercise habits were taken into account.

Dr. Oswald noted he was now trying to eat more fruits and vegetables.”I am keen to stay cheery,” he stated.  He also expressed the hope that “researchers from the biochemistry field will take up the question of how fruits and vegetables may boost well-being.” Well fortunately they have! And in the coming weeks and months we will share with you some of the biological basis for these findings.