Don't Worry, B Happy
Say bye-bye to mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and brownies. There's a new kind of comfort food in town.
To feel better, eat plenty of foods rich in B vitamins. It can help stoke your feel-good fires, making it less likely you'll be moody, irritable, impatient, or depressed. Here's where to get your Bs.
Benefits of B Abound
Along with reversing moodiness, irritability, impatience, tension, anger, and depression, B vitamins may increase energy and promote a sense of well-being, writes Jack Challem in The Food-Mood Solution. (Browse the book online.)
You can get all the B you need from a B-complex supplement or a multivitamin. (Find out the RealAge Optimum dose for each B vitamin with this online tool.) Or stock up on some of the best food sources of B:
- For B1 (thiamin): wheat germ, peas, long-grain brown rice, lentils, pork, and whole-wheat bread
- For B2 (riboflavin): fortified cereals, milk, almonds, and broccoli
- For B3 (niacin): tuna, chicken, salmon, fortified cereals, and peanuts
- For B5 (pantothenic acid): yogurt, avocadoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and chicken
- For B6: fortified cereals, bananas, salmon, and spinach
- For B12: chicken, turkey, milk, and eggs
- For folate: fortified cereals, lentils, garbanzo beans, orange juice
The Food-Mood Solution. Challem, J., New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
