If Cookie Monster were into, say, carrot sticks instead of cookies, maybe he wouldn’t be having those anxiety-laden freak-outs.

Daniel Blanchflower of Dartmouth University conducted a study on 80,000 British citizens asking them how many servings of vegetables they ate a day and where they would rate themselves on a 10-point scale with overall life satisfaction. Those who ate eight veggie servings or more every day were 2.7 percent happier than those people who had none.

While one could suggest that wealthier people have better access to fresh produce and would therefore be more likely to eat it, Blanchflower says the study controlled for income in the study.

So far, the causal relationship is unknown. Do veggies make you smile more, or do happy people just like eating them more?

One suggestion is that eating a lot of vegetables could likely mean you abide by a typically healthier diet, which usually means lower blood pressure and heart rate. Blanchflower says happy people tend to have hearts that beat a little slower.

A lower pulse would definitely help Cookie Monster mellow out. But then, Carrot Stick Monster doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

Photo: cinnamon_girl/Flickr