Trouble Sleeping Eat a Fresh Spinach Salad

What foods can you eat that will help you fall asleep easy? According to Dr. Axe it's foods with tryptophan. What is tryptophan? Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that acts like a natural mood regulator, since it has the ability to help the body produce and balance certain hormones naturally. Supplementing with tryptophan-rich foods or taking supplements helps bring on natural calming effects, induces sleep, fights anxiety and can also help burn more body fat. Tryptophan has also been found to stimulate the release of growth hormones and even reduce food cravings for carbohydrates and help kick a sugar addiction in some cases.

What foods are high in tryptophan? Well the food with the highest concentration of tryptophan is on the endangered species list and that would be the stellar sea lion. 

The Japanese still eat seal meat🙁

The stellar sea lion kidney contains 2580 mg of tryptophan, while just the meat has 1322mg. Next comes elk meat with 742mg, then seaweed and soy protein isolate. Number 7 on the list is fresh spinach with 690mg and cooked spinach with 594mg. I don't know about you, but that's something I can eat. The spinach salad below also has sunflower seeds and hard boiled eggs that also have some tryptophan. If you don't have champagne vinegar substitute with white wine vinegar. One stalk and bulb of spring green garlic is equivalent to a small onion, or a leek and one clove of mature garlic.

Ingredients

Vegetarian, Gluten free, Paleo

Produce

• 1 Garlic, stem green
• 4 cups Spinach, lightly packed
• 1/4 cup Sun-dried tomatoes

Condiments

• 1/4 cup Black olives
• 1 tbsp Honey
• 2 tsp Lemon juice

Baking & Spices

• 1/4 tsp Black pepper
• 1/4 tsp Salt

Oils & Vinegars

• 2 tbsp Champagne vinegar
• 1/4 cup Olive oil

Nuts & Seeds

• 3 tbsp Sunflower seeds, roasted

In a bowl, toss together the spinach, sunflower seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, and black olives. In a blender, pulse the green garlic until in small pieces. Measure in the remaining dressing ingredients and run the blender until the dressing is smooth and emulsified. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as desired.