A previous study had already shown that consuming a sip soup reduced the total amount consumed by 30%. Another, older, that fast eaters eat 90 grams of food per minute, compared to 70 g / min for gourmets. This more recent study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, confirms that eating slowly and especially chewing well helps reduce food intake by promoting appetite control.
Chewing well is recognized as an effective principle for reducing food intake and therefore the risk of being overweight, but few studies have specifically addressed the subject of chewing.
To study the effect of chewing on the importance of “eating,” these researchers from Texas Christian University followed 45 participants, aged 18 to 45, of normal weight, overweight or obese.
Chewing is eating slower and less: The researchers first assessed the importance of their chewing – before swallowing the food – then asked the participants to eat pizza while chewing “normally”, then more slowly chewing 50% more, then finally 2 times more than usual.
The analysis took into account body weight, average food intake, length of a meal, appetite / satiety at the end of the meal. Researchers find that
food intake is reduced significantly with the amount of chewing, by 9.5% and 14.8%, respectively, compared to the usual mode of consumption,
increasing chewing also prolongs the duration of meals.
However, the feeling of satiety is no different from one scenario to another.
Chewing your food well contributes to the nutritional balance by allowing control of food intake and contributing to the management of body weight. An interesting clarification also on the role of the speed of the meal on the quantity of food consumed.