It is proven: eating cheese before sleeping contributes to a better night's sleep
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: Eating cheese before bed contributes to a better night's sleep.
Cheese is addictive (yes, really!) delicious. We prefer to end every dinner with cheese-dessert-cheese and enjoy cheese fondue every weekend. But besides being tasty, cheese also helps against the deterioration of our memory, attention, and concentration. And now it turns out that cheese also helps you sleep better. A wonder product, that cheese.
There are many folk tales that eating cheese before bed would have negative effects on our sleep. It would cause stomach and intestinal problems, nightmares, and insomnia. But there is good news: there is hardly any scientific evidence for this. On the other hand, there is evidence that it does contribute to a good night's sleep. Hooray!
The research
Researchers from the British Cheese Board examined insomnia versus cheese a few years ago to see if there was indeed a connection between the two. And there wasn't. The research even showed the opposite. The majority of people who participated in the study reported having slept excellently after eating cheese.
This is how it works
The reason cheese helps you sleep better and not lie awake all night is due to the substance tryptophan, which promotes the production of serotonin, necessary for the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Additionally, cheese also contains a lot of calcium, which is said to be good against stress and can therefore help you fall asleep more easily.
Sweet dreams are made of cheese
Tryptophan is present in higher amounts in some cheeses than in others. Especially low-fat cheeses have a high tryptophan content. This means that you might want to skip the brie, 48+ cheese, and Roquefort from the cheese board and opt for cheeses like cottage cheese, mozzarella, 10+ cheese, and soft goat cheese to then fall asleep like a cheese block.
Cheese festival
Want to know more about cheese and especially taste a lot of cheese? Then come to the first Amsterdam Cheese Festival, which takes place on Sunday, October 24, and Monday, October 25, 2021. Here you can eat unlimited cheese from all over the world, and moreover in a fantastic location. So mark this date boldly in your calendar.
