Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Eat slowly.....

This is one that sounds like the advice you mother used to give, but there are lots of reasons why eating more slowly and deliberately can be a good thing, including allowing the saliva to get at the food to let it start digestion and better chewing to break it down and increase the surface area for the digestive enzymes to work on.

Anyway, this is worth thinking on:  

studies found that men eat significantly faster than women, heavier people eat faster than slimmer people, and refined grains are consumed faster than whole grains, among other findings.

 (Not to promote whole grains or anything).  It would be interesting to think of how all this feeds (sorry for the pun) into the idea of food reward as a primary driver of obesity, as Stephan has been writing about.

2 comments:

J. Stanton said...

Speed of eating is known in the literature as OPT, "Oral Processing Time". I explore this in depth as part of my article on satiation:

When Satiation Fails: Calorie Density, Oral Processing Time, and Rice Cakes Vs. Prime Rib

The interesting question, of course, is "Is eating quickly a cause or an effect?" Are people obese because they eat quickly, or do they eat more quickly because they're obese?

JS

Chris said...

Thanks JS - your series on satiation has been fascinating. Hope you are enjoying your mountains.