Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and with the holiday comes food, food, alcohol, and more food. Eating on Thanksgiving day requires a full-blown strategy and execution: In order to eat a little bit of everything, you need to map out the holding capacities of your plate. But for many people, Thanksgiving is as much about drinking as it is about eating. That's why you're better off knowing ahead of time about the foods that help hangovers, especially on an eating extravaganza like Thanksgiving.
The four main causes of a food hangover are sugar, fat, salt, and carb-rich foods. Combined with the standard alcohol hangover, Thanksgiving is poised to be a potential nightmare for the whole body — but it doesn't have to be that way. Eating the right breakfast, filling your plate with veggies, and hydrating your body properly will all contribute to a hangover-free day after Thanksgiving is over. This might be especially important if your alarm is set for 4 a.m. to snag all of those Black Friday deals.
Like any exercise or meal, there's a way to give your body exactly what it needs while still genuinely enjoying yourself. You can have it all — as long as you add in some helpful hangover-fighting tools along the way. Here are eight hangover-fighting foods to incorporate into your Thanksgiving celebration this year.
Starting your day off with a big bowl of oatmeal is the best way to fuel up for the marathon that is Thanksgiving day. Oatmeal is a starchy carb, which is simple to digest, but keeps you full for a long time, making it the perfect breakfast to keep you from picking at food and filling up before Thanksgiving dinner even starts.
What's more, oatmeal's starchy carbs will trigger the release of serotonin in your system, which is always a good thing during the holidays, or any time of year, for that matter.
Before you dig into your Thanksgiving feast, grab a scoop of whatever seasonal salad is on the table. Eating a salad filled with fiber is a great way to stuff your stomach with all the right nutrients before you bring in the heavier foods.
Drinking water throughout the day is a great way to hydrate your body amidst all of the alcohol and appetizers you'll be enjoying. Not only will water keep you from getting an alcohol-induced hangover, but it will also help your body digest the truckload of food you're working through on Thanksgiving day, keeping stomach aches as far away as your hangover.
Asparagus is one of those miracle leafy greens that will help ward off hangovers. Make sure to load up your plate with a handful of asparagus spears; extracts from this veggie help boost the enzymes in your body that break down alcohol.
Eating healthy fats like nuts is an excellent way to counterbalance whatever alcohol you might drink during the holidays. Nuts work to absorb the booze in your stomach so that your body doesn't have to, thus making you less intoxicated than you would've been on an empty stomach.
Milk's specific combo of fat and protein is the perfect hangover helper. Milk works to line the stomach, and actually slows your body's absorption of alcohol, which is always a good thing.
Spinach is filled with folic acid, sulfur, and vitamin C, all of which combat hangovers pretty efficiently. Spinach is also filled with fiber, which will help limit your alcohol and carb intake overall on Thanksgiving.
When the day after Thanksgiving rolls around, the first thing you should do is toss back a glass of tomato juice. When you drink alcohol, your body can be too busy metabolizing the booze for it to work on maintaining a proper blood sugar balance. Drinking a glass of tomato juice, though, will give you a boost of healthy, simple sugars, and it'll get rid of whatever residual headache you have from that game of karaoke you played 'til midnight the night before.
