Thanksgiving: Little Known Facts About Turkey Day

What does Thanksgiving mean to you? For me it's a day of over eating and football. But there's a lot more to this day then a turkey and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

As you probably learned in elementary school, the first Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621. Only half of the original Mayflower Pilgrims had survived by the fall. Thankful to be alive, they held a three day feast and invited the the neighboring Wampanoag Indians to the celebration. The pilgrims had a jovial celebration thanks to the beer they brought with them from England.

Everyone was partied out from that first celebration, so Thanksgiving took big break until George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in 1989.

Strangely as it may seem, there wasn't a set day for Thanksgiving until 1863. Up until then the president would issue a proclamation each year detailing what day the holiday would be observed. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the last Thursday of November.

For some reason no one respected Lincoln's proclamation after his death, and the country went back to the old yearly proclamation system until 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt returned the country to the fourth Thursday in November standard because it would lengthen the Christmas shopping season and hopefully boost the economy. In 1941, congress passed a proclamation officially setting in stone that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.

But that's just us. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving too, but on the second Monday in October.

But what about the traditions?

No one really knows why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving, but since 1621 that has been the tradition. Approximately 91% of people eat turkey adding up to the sale of over 280 million turkeys for Thanksgiving celebrations. That's about 7.3 billion pounds of turkey. What do the other people eat? On the west coast the Dungeness crab is a popular alternative to turkey.

Archeologists have found evidence that turkeys were roaming the United States 10 million years ago. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the largest turkey weighed 86 lbs. It won the Heaviest Turkey competition in London on December 12, 1989.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird, not the eagle. A wild turkey can run up to 20 mph if spooked. They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.

Probably the strangest thing you've heard about turkey is that it contains tryptophan, a natural sedative. While it is true that turkey contains tryptophan, it's a myth that you get sleepy from eating it. Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. Here's how it works:

Tryptophan is an amino acid that helps your body produce serotonin, a calming agent in the brain that plays a key role in sleep. So that seems simple enough? Tryptophan produces chemicals that make you sleepy so that is why everyone takes their post-dinner nap on Turkey Day. Wrong.

Pharmaceutical companies, learning that the chemical produced serotonin, started producing medication in the 1980s for insomniacs. In 1990 the FDA banned tryptophan supplements because the chemical lead to severe muscle pain and even death. While tryptophan does produce serotonin it takes a large of the amino acid to produce enough to knock you out. Unfortunately, that amount can cause serious health problems.

Here's why tryptophan in turkey doesn't make you sleepy. Number 1: Tryptophan levels in turkey are minimal, almost unrecognizable. Number 2: Tryptophan only works well on an empty stomach. When you have food in your system tryptophan has to compete with all the other amino acids in your system, so an even less amount makes it to your brain.

Sorry guys but this is just an urban legend. The real reason you get sleepy is simple. You over eat. The average meal contains 3000 calories, most of which are carbohydrates. This means your body is working overtime to digest everything causing that post-meal lethargy.

Alright, but there's more to Thanksgiving than turkey. There's also the Macy's Parade, which has been held annually since 1920. It's so prominent in New York that Thanksgiving is referred to in NYC as Macy's Day. The end of the parade signals the beginning of the Christmas Season, consummated by Black Friday where shoppers officially begin the holiday rush.

The Thanksgiving Classic football game was first organized by the Detroit Lions in 1920 to boost ticket sales. Since then teams traditionally wear throwback jerseys to commemorate their team's history.

The day before Thanksgiving is the largest day in for bar sales in the United States. New Years Eve holds a close second.

Around 78% of employees get paid leave Wednesday through Friday of Thanksgiving Week. It is also one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

So here are some little known things about a well known holiday. You can wow you're relatives at the table with your knowledge of the holiday. Just make sure you do some exercise the next day as the average American eats a day and a half worth of calories in one meal. It would be a good idea to join the holiday shopping rush on Black Friday. 10 hours should do it. Shopping burns 300 calories an hour.