Eggs could make people more charitable!

Want to get more from your donors? Invite them to breakfast and treat them with eggs before asking them for money.A new research into how diet affects behaviour says starting the day with a three-egg omelette is likely to make people more charitable, ‘The Independent’ of the UK reported Sunday.Eggs provide us with every vitamin we need, except vitamin C.The research at the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition in The Netherlands found tryptophan or TRP in eggs act on brain chemicals making people donate twice as much to charity.TRP is an essential amino acid that plays a key role in producing serotonin, a brain chemical involved in mood and social behaviour including cooperation and amicability.Low levels have been associated with social isolation and aggression, The Independent added.“For the first time, we investigated whether the administration of a compound contained in food such as fish, eggs, soy and milk, can promote charitable donating,’’ the Dutch research team was quoted as saying.“Our study is the first demonstration that charitable donating can be enhanced by serotonin-related food supplements.’’Researchers put a group of men and women through a number of tests and examinations. Half of them, who were given roughly the same amount of TRP found in three eggs, donated twice the amount to charity than the other group.But it is unclear just how TRP could have such an effect. One theory says it is because of oxytocin, the ‘cuddle hormone’, which promotes pro-social behaviour.The researchers point to the closeness of the areas of the brain associated with serotonin and oxytocin, the report added.“It may be likely that the willingness to donate money to a charity is modulated by the effect that serotonin exerts on oxytocin levels,” ‘The Independent’ quoted the researchers writing in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.“Our results support the materialist approach that ‘you are what you eat’.”