Thick and creamy drinks help banish food cravings 1260x542
6 Mar 2012

Thick and creamy drinks help banish food cravings

2 mins to read
The capacity for food or a drink to make you feel full, significantly impacts your kilojoule intake, and your body shape. Andrew Cate looks at some interesting ways to satisfy your appetite, and potentially keep food cravings at bay.


How fullness affects your body shape
With the worldwide increase in the prevalence of excess body fat, there is an important need to better understand the nature of satiety1. Satiety is a component of fullness, and reflects how long until hunger is felt again after a food has been eaten.2. This ultimately has an impact on your body shape, because it helps determine how long it takes before the next meal is consumed. The greater the satiety from food, the greater the potential to eat less kilojoules. Alternatively, foods that are less filling can leave you hungry and susceptible to food cravings. It’s thought that subtle differences in the physical and sensory qualities of food and drinks, and even the expectation of satiety could all have an impact on how full a food can make you feel.

The research
A study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that small changes in the sensory qualities of food may affect the appetite response1. Subjects were given a variety of pre-meal drinks to test the subsequent lunch intake and ratings of appetite in 36 healthy volunteers. The pre-meal drinks consisted of both high and low kilojoule versions, and also differed in their sensory quality, ranging from low to medium and high sensory options. The sensory manipulation added no kilojoules, and included factors such as sweetness, creaminess, pleasantness and thickness. While it was no surprise that the high kilojoule pre-meal drinks resulted in a lower kilojoule intake at lunch, there were also differences noted depending on sensory qualities. When it came to the high energy pre-meal drinks, the greater their thickness and creaminess, the greater the degree that subjects compensated by reducing their test meal intake. The researchers believe that that increasing the viscosity of drinks could enhance satiation by altering the gastric (stomach) emptying rate. They also theorised that drinks may be more satiating if they have sensory qualities that create an expectation of satiety.

Implications for your diet
Adjusting the thickness and creaminess of foods and drinks in your diet may increase satiety (fullness) without necessarily increasing your kilojoule intake. This may ultimately help to reduce your kilojoule intake if you can get maximum satisfaction and fullness from your foods and drinks. Getting maximum fullness from your diet even has the potential to help deal with food cravings, which can often be a real barrier to weight loss success. Adding foods such as psyllium husks to soups, stews and breakfast cereals is one practical way to increase the thickness and viscosity of your foods. The other interesting fact about this study, mentioned above, is the use of drinks, which often lack the sensory elements that generate satiety expectations. However, thick and creamy drinks could be perceived as more substantial and be better at satisfying your hunger. This could further demonstrate the benefits of using meal replacement drinks, such as Blackmores Super Fruit Smoothies, when trying to lose weight. The study also offers a potential serving suggestion for meal replacement drinks, where a thick and creamy drink consumed 30 minutes before a meal significantly reduced the kilojoules consumed at the meal.

References available upon request



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