Eating this food will change your mood

Fruits and vegetables are even better for us than we originally thought, with a new study revealing that eating more fruit and vegetables can significantly increase our happiness.

Soon to be published in the American Journal of Public Health, the study is the first of its kind that has explored the psychological effects of fruit and vegetables on humans.

Researchers from the University of Warwick, UK, and the University of Queensland, Australia, followed 12,385 randomly selected Australians as they kept food diaries.

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The scientists measured their psychological well-being many times throughout the two-year study and found those who consumed up to eight portions of fruit and vegetables per day experienced a substantial increase in happiness levels compared to those who ate none.

These findings come as a surprise to the scientific community since they go beyond the traditional findings that fruit and vegetables can improve one’s physical health.

Professor Andrew Oswald said, "Eating fruit and vegetables apparently boosts our happiness far more quickly than it improves human health. People's motivation to eat healthy food is weakened by the fact that physical-health benefits, such as protecting against cancer, accrue decades later. However, well-being improvements from increased consumption of fruit and vegetables are closer to immediate."

Dr Redzo Mujcic from the University of Queensland says these findings can be used by health professionals to encourage people to eat more fruits and veggies.

"Perhaps our results will be more effective than traditional messages in convincing people to have a healthy diet. There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables — not just a lower health risk decades later," he said.

Although the authors found healthy foods correlated with satisfaction with life, they made sure to take into account people’s economic and personal circumstances.

While it is still early days, the study is a positive step in the right direction and may be linked to current research about antioxidants, which suggests optimism and carotenoid in the blood are connected.

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