Scientists believe they have developed a way to make common foods like cake and bread make us feel fuller for longer. The process is extremely simple and the team from the Institute of Food Research at Nottingham University say that all is needed is to modify a commonly-found ingredient present in nearly all processed foods.
Most processed foods used emulsifiers and stabilisers to prevent fat and water in products from separating. Some of those additives break down when they mix with stomach acids, but researchers believe that by choosing the stable version of the ingredient, the stomach will take double the time to break down the food, meaning that it will take double the time for people to feed hungry again.
Volunteers were fed a test meal of a coffee-milkshake style drink made from olive oil and water, of the same volume as a conventional meal. One group’s drink contained a stabiliser called Tween 60, often found in cakes and pastries , while the others were given Span 80, which allows water and oil to break up in the stomach.
The volunteers were monitored to see how full their stomachs were, how full they felt and how hungry they were every hour for twelve hours, with scanners and interviews. After one hour, the volunteers who had taken the Tween 60 had twice as much volume in their stomachs and overall reported feeling fuller, less hungry and with a reduced appetite.