Here’s a breakthrough in the scientific community: if you eat slower, you’ll eat less. Fascinating.
In a recent study, scientists found that when a group of subjects were given the same serving of ice cream on different occasions, the subjects who ate it in 30 minutes released more “feeling full” hormones than those who ate the ice cream in five minutes. (Why ice cream, though? Wouldn’t it melt after 30 minutes?)
The scientists took blood samples and measured hormones before, during and after the subjects savored their ice cream. They found that the two hormones that cause you to feel full — glucagon-like peptide-1 and peptide YY — were more pronounced when food was eaten slowly.
This falls in line with a 2008 study published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association that reported subjects consumed roughly 10 percent fewer calories when they ate slower.
So, if you eat slower, you are going to eat less. I think we knew this one already — it’s sage dieting advice that it takes 20 minutes for your belly to tell your brain you are full, but now you have some scientific jargon to solidify it for you.
But, again, I don’t think that most people actually stop eating when they are full, and getting full isn’t really anything America needs help with; we are pretty good at stuffing ourselves. Even if people did eat slower and consume 10% fewer calories, with the way America eats, 10% isn’t going to do much in terms of weight loss and health.
My cutting calorie advice? Don’t go out to eat every day, don’t hit drive-thrus and cut out the junk.
But then again, I’m no scientist.
Photo via istock
