Slower chewing leads to increased calorie-burning: study
Want to shed a few kilos? You may wish to consider slowing things down at mealtime. With speedy eating leading to overeating, and therefore weight gain, a new study has shown that slower chewing also promotes increased energy consumption — meaning that more calories will be burned than if the same meal were to be eaten more quickly.
The study, conducted by a team of researchers led by Tokyo Institute of Technology Applied Health Sciences professor Naoyuki Hayashi, was announced in an essay published in a European journal on obesity studies.
The research in question was conducted on a group of 10 males, whose average age was 25. Each was given nutritional supplements of 300 kilocalories each, and their energy consumption was calculated by measuring the oxygen intake levels covering the period of time from 20 minutes prior to eating the meal until 90 minutes afterward.
In cases where the supplement was eaten as quickly as possible (on average, one minute and 43 seconds), the amount of energy consumed for the purposes of digestion and absorption averaged 0.4 kilocalories. By contrast, when the meals were eaten as slowly as possible (on average, 8 minutes and 17 seconds), the average energy consumption was far higher, at 10 kilocalories.
If these figures were to be converted to meals over the period of one year, they would represent a difference of 11,000 kilocalories — the equivalent of 1.5 kilograms of body fat.
In 2008, the research team announced its findings that the mere act of chewing led to increased blood flow to the digestive tract.
In the present-day study, the average number of times that food was chewed was 137 for the fast-eating meals, and 702 for the slow ones.
Such results, the researchers say, indicate that the act of moving the mouth through chewing stimulates improved digestion and absorption within the body — meaning that the more times one chews during a meal, the higher the level of energy that gets utilized.
“People tend to think that swallowing food without properly chewing it makes the gastrointestinal system work harder,” professor Hayashi commented, “but in fact, the opposite is true.”
“When putting together a plan for dieting,” he added, “it’s therefore also important to pay attention to the amount of time allotted for eating meals.”
Source: Mainichi
