Does what you eat affect your mood? Obviously, devouring a bowl of chocolate ice cream or sinking your teeth into a thick slice of lavishly buttered toast feels good in the moment, but can your diet provide more than a quick hit of happiness? Could your food — and how you eat it — have lasting effects on your mental wellbeing? Scientists are beginning to think so. This is a relatively new area of research known as “nutritional psychiatry” and is part of the reason experts now refer to the gut as