When most people ask for nutrition advice, their questions typically revolve around what to eat and when to eat it.
And that only makes sense. They’re the two main topics covered in the majority of nutrition books and articles. So they must be the most important factors to understand when trying to improve nutrition habits, right?!?
Well, kind of.
It’s obviously important to know that fruits & veggies are generally better choices than Twinkies (i.e. what to eat) and eating when we’re hungry is generally better than eating when we’re bored (i.e. when to eat). But a third, easily-overlooked factor exists that is at least as important as what and when we eat. And it becomes even more important when we inevitably make less than optimal what and when choices.
That third factor is how we eat.
Slow your (dinner) roll
Now you’re probably thinking: “Um, I know how to eat. I bring the fork, spoon, or handful of food to my mouth, chew and swallow the food, and then repeat. Do you want me to start eating like this?”
No, I don’t!
But that’s exactly the point: If you’re like most Americans, more often than not, you shovel food down your gullet just as quickly as the young pie-eaters in the picture above. You just do it in a more civilized manner by using utensils.
That fast eating can lead to a host of challenges such as indigestion, lower satiety, weight gain, and negative emotions regarding food, even when you choose the chicken, broccoli, and baked potato over the key lime pie.
While eating slowly probably sounds too simple to offer any significant benefits, the opposite is the case! Here’s how it can help:
Improved digestion
We take larger bites and chew less when we eat quickly. This leads to food being less broken down when it arrives in our stomachs and, subsequently, our small intestines. And that can lead to indigestion, bloating, and other GI problems.
Obviously, taking smaller bites and chewing more will have the opposite effect. It also means finishing a meal will take longer, which leads to…
Better hydration and smaller portions
In a study performed at the University of Rhode Island, researchers found that participants who were asked to eat to “comfortable fullness”:
- Consumed an average of 646 calories in 9 minutes when asked to eat as quickly as possible.
- Consumed an average of 579 calories in 29 minutes when asked to eat slowly and put down their utensils between bites.
- Consumed more fluid when they ate slowly. (This can improve digestion along with hydration status.)
Looking at the first two observations, that’s 67 fewer calories in twenty more minutes! This was attributed both to the participants consuming more water when eating slowly and to the characteristic of the digestive system’s satiety signals to take about 20 minutes to kick in and let us know we’ve had enough.
That may not be much of a difference for a single meal, but it adds up when it’s done multiple times per day for weeks or months…
Improved satisfaction and satiety
In a related study to the one mentioned above, researchers fixed the amount of food and water consumed during the meal but still asked participants to eat quickly or slowly. At the meal’s completion, participants in both groups reported similar ratings of appetite. However, an hour after the meal, those who had eaten slowly rated their feelings of hunger and interest in eating lower than those who had eaten quickly.
Putting it into practice
The first step in making any kind of change is to determine where you’re starting. So pick a meal that you typically eat at a relatively consistent time and place on a daily basis, and use a simple stopwatch to track how long it takes for you to eat.
When you eat that meal again the following day, use one, some, or all of the following strategies to slow yourself down:
- Take a breath after swallowing a bite of food and before taking another bite.
- Set down your utensils after taking a bite. Wait until after swallowing that bite before picking up your utensils for the next bite.
- Eat while sitting in a quiet spot with minimal distractions. In other words, not in front of the TV, in the car, or while scrolling through Instagram. Pay attention to the tastes and textures of what you’re eating.
- Choose foods that naturally require more chewing. Typically these types of foods are less processed and more conducive to achieving your goals anyway. Alternatively, count the number of times you chew your first bite of food. Then intentionally chew a couple more times with each bite of food after that. (This works equally well regardless of the quality of what you’re consuming.)
- If you typically share mealtimes with someone who eats slower than you, match each bite of food that you take to their pace.
Even if practicing these strategies slows your mealtime down by a single minute or enables you to comfortably stop eating a few bites sooner than you otherwise would have, that’s still an improvement!
And besides the weight management benefits that you’re likely to experience by consuming smaller portions and feeling fuller for longer, you just might enjoy your food more too.