Naturally Sweet and Savory Mood Booster

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Preparation time: 15 minutes

Servings: 2–4

If you’re low in serotonin, the happiness hormone, your body may signal you with cravings for sweets and starchy foods (bread, bagels, cookies, and the like). In order to make serotonin, your brain needs your body to deliver to it the essential amino acid tryptophan. However, because other amino acids compete to get into your brain, the only way to deliver tryptophan to it is if you have insulin in your blood. This means you need a starchy snack.

Unfortunately, most people reach for unhealthy starches, which can fuel addiction, candida, and an eventual blood-sugar crash. Instead, you can support your body with a healthy starchy snack to boost serotonin without the crash.

This dish is designed for a meal or snack that is delicious, helps boost serotonin faster than grains, and doesn’t feed candida. If you’re having a stressful day, you may want to have this with your grain meal or as a late-afternoon or evening snack.

Heather used this recipe when she was transitioning to healthy eating because it was a great bridge from the taste of packaged foods to the taste of healthier foods. Your taste buds do change as your diet changes, and this recipe can help move you in the right direction!

INGREDIENTS:

4 red-skinned potatoes, cubed

4 carrots, sliced

¼ cup onions, diced

1 tsp. thyme

1 Tbsp. curry powder

1 tsp. Herbamare herb sea salt

2 tsp. ghee

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a saucepan, melt 1 tsp. ghee. Add spices and onions and sauté for 1 minute. Add 1½ cups water and bring to a boil. Add potato and carrots and cook until all ingredients are tender. Add additional ghee at the end of cooking. Serve with cooked greens, like the Green Beans and Leeks recipe earlier in the chapter, or place over a raw spring-mix salad.