For ages, mothers have admonished children to slow down and chew their food. It turns out they’re onto something.
Researchers have found evidence that when people wolf their food, they end up consuming more calories than they would at a slower pace. One reason is the effect of quicker ingestion on hormones.
In one recent study, scientists found that when a group of subjects were given an identical serving of ice cream on different occasions, they released more hormones that made them feel full when they ate it in 30 minutes instead of 5.
In other words, it can’t hurt to slow down and savor your meals.
For example, chewing your food twice as long as you normally would will instantly help you control your portion sizes, which naturally decreases calorie consumption.
Another benefit of chewing longer is that your food is digested better. The majority of your digestive enzymes are actually in your mouth, not in your stomach. Therefore, chewing your food longer allows it to be broken down better.
You’re also likely to find that you actually enjoy the taste of the food more.
Studies Confirm Mom’s Advice is Right on the Money
As reported by the New York Times, there are a number of studies confirming the wisdom to chew your food well.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism last year found that subjects given identical servings of ice cream on different occasions released more hunger-regulating hormones when they ate it in 30 minutes instead of five. So although the serving size remained the same, they felt fuller after savoring the ice cream compared to when they wolfed it down.
In another study from 2008, subjects also reported feeling fuller when they ate slowly. Interestingly, they also ended up consuming about 10 percent fewer calories when they ate at a slow pace as opposed to when they were rushing.
The Best Way to Cut Excess Calories from Your Diet!
Cutting calories by eating slower will have little impact unless you also pay attention to the single largest source of calories in the typical American diet, namely fructose!
While chewing slowly will increase the release of some satiety-inducing hormones, ingesting fructose will clearly counteract this benefit.
Fructose diminishes your feelings of fullness because it does not stimulate a rise in leptin, one of the most powerful hunger- and fat storage regulators in your body. Fructose also reduces the amount of leptin crossing your blood-brain barrier by raising triglycerides.
Leptin resistance, in turn, is perhaps one of the most significant factors underlying human disease. For example, it plays a significant if not primary role in the development heart disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and perhaps the rate of aging itself.
Additionally, whereas glucose suppresses ghrelin (also known as “the hunger hormone,” which makes you want more food), fructose, again, does not.
Fructose also increases your insulin levels, interfering with the communication between leptin and your hypothalamus, so your pleasure signals aren’t extinguished. Your brain keeps sensing that you’re starving, and prompts you to eat more.
As you can see, consuming fructose suppresses feelings of satiety in several ways, which eventually will have serious consequences for your weight and overall health.
As a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.
However, for most people it would actually be wise to limit your fruit fructose to 15 grams or less, as it is virtually guaranteed that you will consume “hidden” sources of fructose from just about any processed food you might eat.
That said, avoiding as many processed foods as possible should be at the top of your list. For example, just ONE can of soda contains about 40 grams of high fructose corn syrup, which is already well over any kind of healthy limit!
Reducing your fructose consumption also includes carefully measuring your fruit intake to make certain that you’re not inadvertently consuming too much fructose.
source: foodconsumer.org
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