You’ve been looking for happiness in all the wrong places.  You’ve searched high and low thinking it’s just around the corner, only to be disappointed when it evaporates before your eyes. 

Yet, I can guarantee there is one place you have completely overlooked for your source of bliss and contentment.  One place we’ve all walked by without realizing that the root of happiness, in all its glory of vibrant colors, shapes and sizes, is staring right back at you – the produce section at the grocery store. 

Yes, fruits and vegetables may be the fountainhead of happiness. Who would of thought! If it was that simple, why hasn’t this been discovered long ago?

It took a research team from Queensland, Australia to go on the hunt for happiness exploring if increasing fruit and vegetable intake improved psychological well-being.

In this study, approximately 12,385 randomly sampled Australian adults kept food diaries recording their food intake over 2007, 2009, and 2013.  Over the course of the study, in addition to writing down their food choices, participants also reported on their overall mental and emotional health.  Adjustments were made for the effects on happiness and life satisfaction according to changes in income and personal life circumstances. 

Low and behold, what rose to the top of predicting happiness was an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables.  Participants who had the highest intake of produce revealed feeling happier with a greater life satisfaction than those who rarely ate fruits and vegetables.  In fact, if a participant had increased their portions of fruits and vegetables from zero to eight a day, the emotional equivalent was on the same level as finding a new job. 

The participants who had not increased their fruit and vegetable portions experienced just the opposite.  Their level of happiness decreased during this same time period and was equivalent to losing a job.

Researchers have cautioned that the study is not able to prove a cause and effect that adding more produce to your diet is a guarantee to improving happiness.

So what is the reason for the improvement in well-being when a person consumes more healthy foods than when they don’t?  The conclusion from the study has to do with whether a person feels or experiences immediate feedback from doing a certain action.  Sort of like when you are thirsty you drink water experiencing immediate positive reinforcement.

When we tell people that in order to improve their health, they need to make certain lifestyle changes, they know in the back of their mind it’s true, but it’s going to take a while before results are seen.

We want results right away. The motivation to make those changes is blunted when people realize it could take months or years before they actually see the benefits to their physical health.  It’s one of the reasons why people are so attracted to weight loss diets promising you’ll lose 15 pounds in one week – immediate, quick results despite the extremely high likelihood of keeping the weight off long-term.

If the need for immediate gratification wasn’t so alluring, we’d all be practicing the health advice we’re given.  But according to this study, there is something special about fruits and veggies providing that extra boost of joy making you feel happy.  Maybe it has to do with some of the following reasons:

·         Which one makes you feel better physically – a large piece of chocolate cake or a plate of fresh fruit?

·         Eating produce rarely causes you to feel stuffed.

·         After eating a healthy salad, you just have that “clean’ feeling compared to when eating greasy French fries and a double cheeseburger.

·         Short-term improvements include better bowel functioning (less constipation) and digestion whereas long-term improvements include clearer skin and healthier hair.

·         This is little to no guilt involved when making a healthy choice of choosing more fruits and vegetables added to your diet.

·         Increasing consumption of produce is basically saying ‘I value myself.”

·         Lastly, maybe you’re making the decision to eat a healthier diet because you are already feeling happy and optimistic – you foresee a future ahead for yourself and you want to be as healthy as you can when it arrives. 

So, for those of you thinking life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re going to get, start thinking of life as more like a bowl of cherries brimming with happiness.