Food & Diet In Diabetes Cyber Kitchen Satiety IndexBy Rick Mendosa and John Walsh, P.A., C.D.E.How full did that meal you just ate make you feel? Did it satisfy your hunger or did you feel like you needed to snack later? Now a new tool for measuring hunger and helping with blood sugar control is available. Studies by Australian researcher Dr. Susanne Holt at the University of Sydney have developed one of the most exciting diet concepts ever. Called the "Satiety Index", it was developed by having students come in the morning and eat 240-calorie portions of a specific food. Then they rated their feelings of hunger every 15 minutes, and over the next two hours, students could go to a buffet table and eat as much as the liked, all under the observation of researchers. Using white bread as the baseline of 100, they scored 38 different foods that were given to the students. Foods scoring higher than 100 were judged to be more satisfying than white bread, while those under 100 were less satisfying. Foods that have a higher satiety index keep hunger down longer, and would be better choices for those who want to lose weight. A fascinating finding of Dr. Holt's study is that some foods like croissants are only half as satisfying as white bread, while potatoes are more than three times as satisfying, but French fries did not score well! As a group, fruits ranked at the top for foods to choose with a satiety index 1.7 times higher than white bread.
Using this study, the May 1996 issue of the "University of California-Berkeley Wellness Letter," gave suggestions for weight-watchers trying to get the most satisfaction from the fewest calories:
Holt's Food Satiety Index is the first of its kind demonstrating that foods with a high-fat content create almost instant cravings for more of the same. Croissants, for instance, had the lowest score of all the foods tested, even though most people think of them as filling. Chips gave almost twice as much satisfaction as doughnuts, and popcorn scored higher than All-Bran. The very best thing to eat is potatoes, which gave much more satisfaction as the same number of calories in the form of white bread. "Fatty foods are not satisfying, even though people expected them to be", says Dr Holt. 'We think the reason is that fat is seen by the body as a fuel which should be used only in emergencies - it stores it in the cells instead of breaking it down for immediate use. Because it doesn't recognise the fat as energy for immediate use, the body does not tell the brain to cut hunger signals, so we go on wanting more. Carbohydrates are the opposite - they raise blood glucose so the body knows it has got enough fuel to be going on with.' Overall, the carbohydrates deter nibbling best, while protein-rich foods such as cheese, eggs, baked beans, meat and fish come second, and fruit third. But there are big differences between the satisfaction value of foods within the same group. "We found that bananas are much less satisfying than oranges or apples, and that wholemeal bread is half as satisfying again as white bread. And a diet which simply recommends cereal for breakfast overlooks the fact that muesli is only half as satisfying as porridge." "One thing that I am concerned about, is that many people do not know how to interpret these findings properly. The SI scores reflect the total amount of fullness produced by the set 1000 kJ portions of the test foods over 2 hours - ie short-term satiety. Although most foods with high SI scores kept fullness realtively high for the whole 2 hours, there were a few exceptions. The fruits were served in very large portions, but fullness dropped off quickly towards the end of the 2nd hour, reflecting the rapid rate of gastric emptying (oranges and apples and grapes are mainly sugar and water)." "Many "health-conscious" dieters will eat a meal based on several pieces of fruit and some rice cakes (in Australia anyway) and then wonder why they feel ravenous a few hours later. These kind of extremely low-fat, high-carb meals do not keep hunger at bay because they are not based on slowly-digested carbs and probably don't contain enough protein. A dieter would be better off eating a wholesome salad sandwich on wholegrain bread with some lean protein like tuna, or beef and an apple. This kind of meal can keep hunger at bay for a very long time." One thing that makes a food satisfying is its sheer bulk. 'You can eat an awful lot of popcorn without taking in a lot of calories,' says Dr Holt. 'It may not weigh much, but it makes your stomach feel full just because it takes up so much space. Oranges come out very high on the index for the same reason - but orange juice probably wouldn't, even though it has the same number of calories.' Chemical constituents of foods also make a difference. 'Beans and lentils, for example, contain anti-nutrients which delay their absorbtion so they make you feel full for longer,' says Dr Holt. 'Roughly speaking, the more fibre, protein and water a food contains, the longer it will satisfy. but you have to look at each foodstuff individually - and that is why we think our index will be so useful.'
In general, the more satisfying a food felt, the more effective it proved as a nibbling deterrent. But even here there were surprises. Volunteers fed jellybeans did not feel satisfied, yet they ate very little afterwards. This resulted in the sweets getting a satiety rating of 118 - higher than muesli and yoghurt, and almost the same as white pasta. "I suspect the reason that the jellybeans came out so well was that they made our volunteers feel slightly nauseous,' said Dr Holt. 'We'll be doing some research on that one - if we can persuade people to act as volunteers!" Of all the foods tests, boiled potatoes are easily the most satisfying. Since beans and lentils are slowly absorbed, they are among those foods that many you feel fuller longer. Other factors may also be operative. Doug Skrecky(email) thinks that one of these could be viscosity: "I am currently analysing the results of this index with respect to known determinants of satiety," he writes me. "Preliminary findings indicate that in their explanations for the various SI ratings the authors have ignored at least one important factor which accounts for many of the otherwise unexplainable results: Viscosity effects. Dry foods, such as cookies are more satiating than moist foods like donuts. Foods with high moisture binding capabilities such as cheese, porridge and potatoes can also increase viscosity of stomach contents."
A recent message from Dr. Holt gave this advance information: "I'll let you know about any additional results we get. We've just done a short study comparing the satisfying power of different breakfasts. Two high-fat breakfasts of fried eggs and bacon and toast or croissants and jam were much less filling than two equal-calorie high-carb breakfasts which were either rapidly-digested (cornflakes with sugar and toast and jam) or slowly-digested (All-Bran with banana slices, toast and marg)." "I am also interested in how foods affect mood and alertness. The two high-carb breakfasts tended to improve alertness to a greater extent than the two high-fat breakfasts. Also, because the subjects were not completely satisfied by the two high-fat meals, they tended to be grumpy and a bit more aggressive/disappointed. "I will be doing a satiety study with children soon." Bibliography:
The Satiety Index Elsewhere on the Internet:
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