Which foods satiate and which hijack our appetite?

Protein is often described as the most satiating macronutrient. People often report feeling fuller after eating a meal high in protein, compared to a high carbohydrate or high fat meal. However, does that feeling of fullness last? For weight loss, you need to look at not only the satiety ratings but if this resulted in consuming fewer calories consumed later following the meal. Contrary to what is the common belief, research shows that actually the protein consumed in a meal doesn’t tend to end up cutting calories later on.

So what foods can suppress our appetites? Food rich in fibre have been shown to suppress appetite and reduce subsequent meal intake more than 10 hours later.

Fiber-depleted foods get rapidly absorbed early on, though, so much of it never makes it down to the lower gut. So, if you are eating food low in fiber, you will be constantly hungry and overeating. Without sufficient fiber transporting nutrients all the way down our digestive tract, we may never be fully satiated.

We appear to have two separate appetite control systems: the homeostatic system and the hedonic system. The homeostatic pathway maintains our calorie balance by making us hungry when energy reserves are low, and abolishes our appetite when energy reserves are high. In contrast, our hedonic or reward-based regulation can overwhelm our homeostatic pathway in the face of highly palatable foods. This makes total sense from an evolutionary standpoint. In the rare situations in our ancestral history when we’d stumble across some calorie-dense food, like a cache of unguarded honey, it would make sense for our hedonic drive to jump into the driver’s seat to gobble up the scarce commodity. Even if we didn’t need the extra calories at the time, our body wouldn’t want us to pass up that rare opportunity. Such opportunities aren’t so rare anymore, though. With sugary, fatty foods around every corner our hedonic drive may end up in perpetual control, overwhelming the intuitive wisdom of our bodies.

So, what’s the answer? Never eat really good-tasting food? No, but it may help to recognize the effects hyperpalatable foods such as processed cereals, cakes and sweets can have on hijacking our appetites and undermining our body’s better judgement.