Will chewing food less slow its energy release?

TerryMyfitbitsnbobs
TerryMyfitbitsnbobs Posts: 238 Member
edited November 16 in Health and Weight Loss
Some say chewing each mouthful a hundred times helps you eat less. Maybe because the second mouthful will be cold and the last stale. I have a theory that chewing less will slow the bodies ability to break into the calories and so slow down the rate that the energy is released into the blood stream. A bit like fruit is ok if you are diabetic, but fruit juice is a huge no no.
Am I right, or wrong?
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Replies

  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    In my non-expert opinion, no.

    Why would you think barely chewing your food will slow down your body's ability to get nutrients/energy from said food?

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  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
    Nope: If anything chewing will increase energy absorption speed*. For example, the sugars in blended fruit drinks are released faster because the blending breaks up the fiber chains, making the drink a mix of shorter length fiber chains (complex carb chains reduce absorption speeds of simple sugars).

    * note that the total energy released will be the same - it's just the speed of absorption.

    The concept of chewing more to eat less is, I believe, related to the fact that slower eaters tend to eat less because their "I'm full" signalling (Ghrelin suppression?) kicks in before they have crammed the whole meal down their pie hole.
  • size102b
    size102b Posts: 1,370 Member
    It's takes 20 minutes for your stomach to register you've eaten from chewing and swelling so I effect you will fill full if you chew slower as you'll eat less if your chewing slow
    Say you normally eat a large dinner in 10 minutes down size that dinner and chew slowly make it last 25 minutes see if there's a difference ?
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    TerryMyfitbitsnbobs wrote: »
    Some say chewing each mouthful a hundred times helps you eat less. Maybe because the second mouthful will be cold and the last stale. I have a theory that chewing less will slow the bodies ability to break into the calories and so slow down the rate that the energy is released into the blood stream. A bit like fruit is ok if you are diabetic, but fruit juice is a huge no no.
    Am I right, or wrong?

    The idea behind chewing so much is to slow down so your body has time to register fullness and you do not take more food than you need. I don't think you have to chew 100 times each bite but just try to eat slower if you tend to overdo it... 20 minutes instead of 5 minutes to eat a meal perhaps. You might slow down by drinking a full glass of water, more conversation at the table or a timer instead of chewing more.
    The speed at which you take in calories probably doesn't matter if you ultimately stick to your calorie goal. It might change how you feel but not change the number of calories you take in that day.


  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
    TerryMyfitbitsnbobs wrote: »
    Some say chewing each mouthful a hundred times helps you eat less. Maybe because the second mouthful will be cold and the last stale. I have a theory that chewing less will slow the bodies ability to break into the calories and so slow down the rate that the energy is released into the blood stream. A bit like fruit is ok if you are diabetic, but fruit juice is a huge no no.
    Am I right, or wrong?

    Chewing only breaks food down so it is easier to swallow. The stomach grinds food in to small particles so digestion and nutrient extraction will occur in the small intestine. The calories are absorbed no matter if you chew them or blend them and drink them. The reason fruit is good and juice is not is because fruit contains fiber which is not just beneficial to the digestive track, but also helps with satiety. Juice is essentially flavored water from the fruit/vegetable it was extracted from with minimal nutritional benefit.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    It takes less time to digest food that is chewed completely and there are some foods that may pass through your system without being completely digested if you don't chew them. But I doubt it is worth considering because some foods will digest completely whether you chew them or not and it requires calories to chew your food. It is probably just a case of trading calories one place for calories in another.
  • markrgeary1
    markrgeary1 Posts: 853 Member
    Given your stomach acids can dissolve concrete and metal I don't believe it would do anything.
  • tmoneyag99
    tmoneyag99 Posts: 480 Member
    this sounds like a fun experiment. How about for the next week, you eat nothing but snickers bars chopped up in swallowable pill sizes without chewing. Make sure you are at least 1000 calories over your daily limit and then report back.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,463 Member
    ???
  • inertiastrength
    inertiastrength Posts: 2,343 Member
    Since your stomach acid could probably digest bones with the same ease, i think chewing your food less should probably not be part of your weight loss plan.
  • Larissa_NY
    Larissa_NY Posts: 495 Member
    Have you ever watched an obese person eat? The ones who are like the obese people in my family, at any rate, inhale food like they just want it to sort of wave at their taste buds in passing. Chew once or twice, bam, down the hatch to make room for the next bite. My mother and grandmother could clean their plates and go back for refills while my aunt was still halfway through and my cousins and I were still working on the meatloaf. In order of degree of obesity, we ranked (grandmother & mother) > (aunt) > (me and my cousins).

    If your theory were correct, fat people who eat like my mother should be as thin as rails. I can't imagine chewing my food a hundred times, because ew, but I'm pretty sure that eating like a fat person is not the way to get thin.
  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    If you swallow a porterhouse whole, it will likely have to sit in your stomach a little while longer than fruit juice. But chewing that steak is highly enjoyable and you'll probably feel a lot better having chewed it.

  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited March 2017
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    I eat my food whole... like a snake. That's why snakes are so skinny.

    Seriously, there is a diet like this. Snake diet. Just saw a post about it. Unfrikkenbelieveable.

    the human race is doomed

    EDIT - although we are still probably doomed, the "Snake Diet" that I saw at least has you chew. It is more about eating one big meal a day. I guess just a marketing name for intermittent fasting. Is there another one? Maybe we could try to convince them to swallow a watermelon.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    I eat my food whole... like a snake. That's why snakes are so skinny.

    Seriously, there is a diet like this. Snake diet. Just saw a post about it. Unfrikkenbelieveable.

    the human race is doomed

    EDIT - although we are still probably doomed, the "Snake Diet" that I saw at least has you chew. It is more about eating one big meal a day. I guess just a marketing name for intermittent fasting. Is there another one? Maybe we could try to convince them to swallow a watermelon.

    I see this more as Darwinism at work. We pass seat belt laws to protect the stupid - nature responds accordingly with the Snake Diet and Hydroxycut.
  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    edited March 2017
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    I eat my food whole... like a snake. That's why snakes are so skinny.

    Seriously, there is a diet like this. Snake diet. Just saw a post about it. Unfrikkenbelieveable.

    the human race is doomed

    EDIT - although we are still probably doomed, the "Snake Diet" that I saw at least has you chew. It is more about eating one big meal a day. I guess just a marketing name for intermittent fasting. Is there another one? Maybe we could try to convince them to swallow a watermelon.

    Snake diet sounds a little more like how it would come out the next day.
  • Larissa_NY
    Larissa_NY Posts: 495 Member
    CorneliusPhoton wrote: »
    Larissa_NY wrote: »
    Have you ever watched an obese person eat? The ones who are like the obese people in my family, at any rate, inhale food like they just want it to sort of wave at their taste buds in passing. Chew once or twice, bam, down the hatch to make room for the next bite. My mother and grandmother could clean their plates and go back for refills while my aunt was still halfway through and my cousins and I were still working on the meatloaf. In order of degree of obesity, we ranked (grandmother & mother) > (aunt) > (me and my cousins).

    If your theory were correct, fat people who eat like my mother should be as thin as rails. I can't imagine chewing my food a hundred times, because ew, but I'm pretty sure that eating like a fat person is not the way to get thin.

    I inhale my food. Always have. I stop when I have eaten enough.
    "Eating like a fat person" does not mean eating quickly. Eating too much is why we get fat.

    Eating too fast and eating too much go hand in hand. You know you've eaten enough when your body starts sending you hormonal signals that you've eaten enough, and that takes time. There's a reason eating slowly helps a lot of people lose weight, and it's not because there are a ton of people in the habit of swallowing their bites whole and then waiting long enough between bites to tell if they're full or not.

    If we're exchanging anecdata, I have never seen a thin person who wasn't a teenage boy inhale their food, and I have never seen a non-dieting obese person who didn't. So until someone breaks out the actual empirical data on eating speed, my anecdata are just as good as your anecdote.
  • Asher_Ethan
    Asher_Ethan Posts: 2,430 Member
    My understanding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is chewing your food slowly is just another way to trick yourself into being in a calorie deficit.
    It'll take you an hour to eat your oatmeal instead of 10 minutes, by the end of the hour you're bored and you want to do something else instead of counting how much you chew.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited March 2017
    The benefit of consuming your foods more slowly is that you're giving your brain time to register the fact that there's food incoming, so it can switch off the "I'm starving!" signal before you've had the time and opportunity to overfeed yourself. :)
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Also, the difference between fruit and fruit juice for diabetics is the juice quantity. It takes several oranges to produce a cup of orange juice so the calories and sugars are higher if you drink juice compared to eating an orange.
  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
    Cherimoose wrote: »
    CorneliusPhoton wrote: »
    "Eating like a fat person" does not mean eating quickly.

    Here's an interesting study on buffet patrons that disagrees.

    Patrons with higher levels of BMI were more likely to be associated with using larger plates vs. smaller plates (OR 1.16, P < 0.01) and facing the buffet vs. side or back (OR 1.10, P < 0.001). Patrons with higher levels of BMI were less likely to be associated with using chopsticks vs. forks (OR 0.90,P < 0.05), browsing the buffet before eating vs. serving themselves immediately (OR 0.92, P < 0.001), and having a napkin on their lap vs. not having a napkin on their lap (OR 0.92, P < 0.01). Patrons with lower BMIs left more food on their plates (10.6% vs. 6.0%, P < 0.05) and chewed more per bite of food (14.8 vs. 11.9, P < 0.001).
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18670421

    And another one...
    Compared with lean participants, obese participants had a higher ingestion rate and a lower number of chews per 1 g of food. However, obese participants had a bite size similar to that of lean subjects.
    Regardless of status, the subjects ingested 11.9% less after 40 chews than after 15 chews. Compared with 15 chews, 40 chews resulted in lower energy intake and postprandial ghrelin concentration and higher postprandial glucagon-like peptide 1 and cholecystokinin concentrations in both lean and obese subjects.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21775556

    That second one showed that chewing slower led to fewer calories consumed. :+1:

    But those studies are eating ad lib. That is not applicable to the MFP sub set who calorie track.

    In other words, If it takes you 3 nano seconds to inhale your calorie controlled lunch it's the same as it taking 30 mins.

    Having said that, if you're attempting to move to intuitive eating, then this sort of approach would be useful.
  • Larissa_NY
    Larissa_NY Posts: 495 Member
    StealthHealth wrote: »
    Cherimoose wrote: »
    CorneliusPhoton wrote: »
    "Eating like a fat person" does not mean eating quickly.

    Here's an interesting study on buffet patrons that disagrees.

    Patrons with higher levels of BMI were more likely to be associated with using larger plates vs. smaller plates (OR 1.16, P < 0.01) and facing the buffet vs. side or back (OR 1.10, P < 0.001). Patrons with higher levels of BMI were less likely to be associated with using chopsticks vs. forks (OR 0.90,P < 0.05), browsing the buffet before eating vs. serving themselves immediately (OR 0.92, P < 0.001), and having a napkin on their lap vs. not having a napkin on their lap (OR 0.92, P < 0.01). Patrons with lower BMIs left more food on their plates (10.6% vs. 6.0%, P < 0.05) and chewed more per bite of food (14.8 vs. 11.9, P < 0.001).
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18670421

    And another one...
    Compared with lean participants, obese participants had a higher ingestion rate and a lower number of chews per 1 g of food. However, obese participants had a bite size similar to that of lean subjects.
    Regardless of status, the subjects ingested 11.9% less after 40 chews than after 15 chews. Compared with 15 chews, 40 chews resulted in lower energy intake and postprandial ghrelin concentration and higher postprandial glucagon-like peptide 1 and cholecystokinin concentrations in both lean and obese subjects.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21775556

    That second one showed that chewing slower led to fewer calories consumed. :+1:

    But those studies are eating ad lib. That is not applicable to the MFP sub set who calorie track.

    In other words, If it takes you 3 nano seconds to inhale your calorie controlled lunch it's the same as it taking 30 mins.

    Having said that, if you're attempting to move to intuitive eating, then this sort of approach would be useful.

    Yes, of course, but that's not what anyone was talking about. The OP's post wasn't about calorie counting, it was about whether or not chewing your food less would somehow make you absorb fewer calories from it. The post this one is responding to was about whether chewing less was associated with eating more. Eating a calorie-controlled meal is a different topic altogether.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,487 Member
    That is a very unique theory. But no.
  • Asher_Ethan
    Asher_Ethan Posts: 2,430 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    Asher_Ethan wrote: »
    My understanding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is chewing your food slowly is just another way to trick yourself into being in a calorie deficit.
    It'll take you an hour to eat your oatmeal instead of 10 minutes, by the end of the hour you're bored and you want to do something else instead of counting how much you chew.

    If you need to chew your oatmeal, you've made it wrong. And I say this as a person who loves thick-as-mortar oatmeal.

    hahaha, I was trying to think of an example and oatmeal was right next to me.
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