There’s a common dieting myth that if you drink a glass of water before you eat you will feel fuller for longer.
But is there any truth in this? We took it upon ourselves to put the water theory up against the latest idea in the science of dieting.
The new buzzword in dieting is satiety - it’s less about reducing your calorie intake and more about eating foods that will keep you satiated for longer.
To illustrate our study we conducted at Nottingham University we took two teams with a love for classic American automobiles and sent them on a road trip through the lonely Nevada desert to see which group would give in to their hunger pangs first.
Both teams were given an identical meal of chicken and vegetables with a glass of water. The only difference was that one team drank the water before they ate, and the other had the water blended with the meal to make a soup.
Then we sat back and waited for the hunger signals to kick in.
In the original study the group who ate the chicken and vegetable soup were satiated for 60 minutes more when compared to the group who drank the water before the chicken and vegetable meal.
"activating our satiety signals can reduce our hunger by up to a quarter"
But why? When we drink a glass of water with our meal our stomach is able to sieve the water from the solids passing quickly from our intestines into the stomach. However, when we combine the water and food in a soup this sieving is prevented and ensures that the water and the nutrients from the food stay together, homogenised, thus entering the intestine at the same time.
Because of the increased volume of the water and solid combined the food stays in our stomach for longer, activating our satiety signals and delaying emptying, which, according to the scientists, can reduce our hunger by up to a quarter.
No comments:
Post a Comment