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Subscribe to RSSBig bites lead to big bellies, researchers say, and they might have a solution: People take smaller bites of food when it's accompanied by stronger aromas, so infusing foods with strong aromas could get people to eat less.
We take bigger bites of foods we are familiar with and smaller bites of those that require more chewing. Those small bites are a good thing, as they actually make your stomach feel fuller faster, reducing the amount of food eaten and calories taken in, the researchers note.
To see how the smell of a food changes bite size, the researchers designed an interesting eating contraption to separate smell from other factors that affect how big of a bite participants take.
Participants were fed vanilla custard through a tube while "vanilla-custard" smells were delivered directly into the backs of their noses. They controlled the amount of custard fed into their mouth by pressing a button to stop the flow. The researchers weighed the custard cup before and after each "bite" to measure its size. Participants ate about the amount of a normal-size desert. [ 10 Tips for Sticking to Healthy Portions ]
The "back of the nose" presentation mimics the aroma during real eating, said Rene de Wijk, a senior researcher at the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands: "[these] presentations resemble the situation of normal eating whereby aromas travel from the food in the mouth," he said. "We cannot say whether smells in the room or on the plate have the same effect because we have not tested it."
The researchers found that when food was associated with strong aromas, even of the pleasant natural cream flavoring the researchers used, people took smaller bites.
"Our aroma was a pleasant smelling cream aroma presented at low levels of intensity," de Wijk said. "We have not tested other smells, but believe that effects can be expected when the aroma 'fits' the food, i.e., unusual combinations may not work."
The researchers think this is a feedback loop: when a strong smell is presented in the nose, the participants pared their eating to reduce the amount of flavor they experienced.
The researchers suggest that infusing foods with stronger smells could be used to control portion size: manipulating the odor of food so that it was more fragrant could result in a 5- to 10-percent decrease in food intake per bite. Combining aroma control with portion control could fool the body into thinking it was full with a smaller amount of food, aiding weight loss.
"Aromas added at relatively low levels to the foods may already have the effect," de Wijk said, though they didn't study directly if the individuals actually ate less of the custard in the end.
The study was published Wednesday in the journal Flavour.
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Leave a Comment:
Good thing this article pointed it out to me. I'd have never guessed.
I wish I had millions of dollars to waste on stupid stuff.
Well, John. whatever you spent on your education was wasted. That's a start.
Smokers regulate the volume of smoke to produce just the right nicotine kick. I think I would take a bigger bite to get the satisfaction of just the right amount of flavor. Eating Hershey's Kisses, I eat them at a rate that produces just the right balance of flavor, too much is as bad as too little. Why do you suppose we like spices?
BREAKING NEWS!!!!
People like food that tastes good.
Not true. People eat some of the crappiest crude ever concocted.
But, that doesn't make my statement "not true". It just means that people also like food that doesn't taste good as well.
Yes, that means anything that smells of garlic, onions or an oily fish is NOT appetizing...especially on an airplane!
Speak for yourself, and pass your onion/garlic fish this way...
Ray,
Can i get half?
@Jenny-1680959, i feel bad for the poor souls who have to suffer through boring bland meals with you 24/7!
So that's why I don't eat things like Curry, Chinese, Asian, etc.
New diet craze....the Limburger cheese diet
Hah! Lol!
So just put a bucket of fresh cow manure under the old kitchen table. Problem solved. You will be thin and appealing again in no time. Make sure to get rid of the bucket before having guests in.
A good portion of the meals I make have garlic, onions and green peppers in them. I love the taste combination and the aroma while it's cooking. I also tend to eat more when I use that combination.
"Smelly foods make you eat less"
You don't say.
Perhaps the purpose of this study is to find a way to make money selling yet more artificial additives to put into our foods, YUCK...this time, fake smells
Then explain why I have such a great time with my girlfriend!
Giggity
Super glue fat peoples mouths SHUT! Then they can smell the ROSES!
JUST what they want! A SHlTTY peanutbutter sandwich! You don't have to smell it! JUST TELL THEM!
HEY CHUNKIE! Smell this!
WE'd still have people feeding and farting! RIGHT CHUNKIE!
Barkin up the wrong tree! fat people don't smell when they eat! They INHALE when they EAT! PUT the clothespin on the LIPS!
PUT your money where your mouth is! THAT can smell pretty FUNKIE!
HEY CHUNKIE! If you NOSEbUtter you won't eat it! HOWS THAT!
And just when I came up with the idea that killing the sense of smell, as a recently taken off the market zinc spray cold medicine inadvertently did, would be a great way to discourage overweight people from overeating! I still think it's a great idea; providing the loss wasn't permanent. Or, even if it was. If I weighed in at three hundred, facing certain early death, I might be willing to give up smelling the roses.
CHrist! Use a BUTTPLUG! Then the least of your worries is smelling! Can't put in what you can't push out! NO MATTER WHAT it SMELLS LIKE!
GLUTTONY is a SIN! not SMELLING!
You think BULLS()(T pies gonna stop fat people! Noooo! Their gonnaGulp that down and Brush with Boston Creme!
Smellings like baseball to fat people! They'll lay off the stinky pitch, and walk the buffet bases when they SMASHMOUTH one!
Try living with a zinc and magnesium deficiency- that makes everything smell like nothing and makes you not enjoy eating at all, in addition to the nausea and offensiveness of food. So I don't see that stronger odors would outdo zinc deficiency.
Kimchi, nuoc mam, mam dem, balut, all stink to high heavens......but taste so yummy and oh so good for you. Love that Asian food.