
Study: Blended food prevented hunger for longer - borisjabes
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/03/smoothie-logic/518127/?single_page=true
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SiVal
My own experience is that I can get the same satiety for the same duration
with somewhat less food by taking smaller bites and spending more time
chewing. This takes longer, of course, so my assumption was that the mechanism
was simply that I would have eaten less by the time my blood sugar rose and
turned off my hunger.

But I suppose it's also possible that I'm making the solids and liquids harder
to gravitationally separate--essentially blending a smoothie with my teeth.

If so, just taking your time and enjoying the flavor of the food could be a
more convenient and appetizing alternative to a chicken-broccoli smoothie.

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magic_beans
I'm very guilty of not chewing very thoroughly, and it causes me all kinds of
digestive ails... But when I chew more than three times my JAW starts to get
sore. How can I fix this!

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cowpewter
Maybe you should ask your doctor or dentist to evaluate you for TMJ?

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AznHisoka
Why does the article assume its healthier simply because it prevents hunger
longer? Granted, people might eat less overall but that doesnt guarantee its
healthier.

~~~
singold
I think that's because two of the most important problems with food are
quality and quantity that people eat. I'm general terms we eata lot of bad
food, so if you have the same meal (so same quality) eating less (or only what
your body needs and no more) that should be healthier.

I think I get your point though and eating well is a lot more that eating good
food in adequate portions, and I agree, but for the general population over
eating and junk food are the worst problems right now imho.

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marcosdumay
Is there even any evidence that eating less this way leads to smaller nutrient
absorption by the body? This article does not seem to have any.

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sn41
Khichdi (and other forms - Bisi Bele Bath, Sambar sadam etc.) is a recipe of
rice, lentils and vegetables eaten by a lot of manual laborers (and babies) in
India. Perhaps due to the same reason.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khichdi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khichdi)

And in poorer times, rice was eaten as Congee. With increasing wealth, this
healthy food is now rarely served in homes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congee)

~~~
signal11
I think the issue with these is that they're very carb-rich.

I've bought one of the Nutri-bullet type blenders and quite enjoy home-made
smoothies; I eat far more fruit and veg than I'd have ordinarily.

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sn41
do you cook the vegetables? or are they blended raw?

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magic_beans
I like to blend raw spinach + raw kale + banana + apple + peanut/almond
butter.

Delicious.

If you're new to green smoothies I'd suggest:

1 cup raw spinach + 1 green apple + 1 banana + 1 tbsp almond/coconut/peanut
butter.

You won't even taste the spinach, I promise.

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adrianN
In unrelated news: chewing also increases satiety.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26188140](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26188140)

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peteretep
Putting together several ideas in this article, it should be possible to drink
a small amount of calorifically dense liquid that's heavier than and doesn't
mix well with water, and then a lot of water, to quickly kill off hunger.

Might be useful to stop binging before a meal out.

~~~
xinyhn
Not endorsing in anyway just had heard a similar concept before although it's
based on different reasons...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-
La_Diet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet)

~~~
beaconstudios
it reads like another fad diet with a magical "newly discovered science" (with
no studies) backing.

~~~
beagle3
The safety is trivial, the cost is minuscule. The worst thing the critics say
about it is that "it wasn't peer reviewed or done in a big study". Indeed, it
wasn't - but asking for it in this case is simply cargo cult.

Most diets, whether tested in a large scale study or a small one, don't work
equally well (if at all) on all participants - you'll notice that more often
than not the only thing reported is the average weight loss, and that's
usually because at least one participant didn't lose anything (or even
gained).

The Shangri-La diet actually followed from experimental results in rats and
people, which Roberts published, for free, on his own website[0], with all
rationale, all the references you can ask for, and a description of his
personal experience. This paper became very popular, but is too detailed for
most people, that a publisher approached Roberts with a request to write a
simplified version for lay people, and it is this book version that became an
NYTimes best seller.

"No backing studies" in this case is knee jerk reaction -- when you can just
try yourself at essentially zero cost and zero risk. Personally, it worked for
me when I tried it; Roberts collected anecdotes from people on his website,
urging anyone who tried to report starting and then their progress; IIRC, he
assumed anyone who started and didn't report progress (there weren't many) as
"didn't work", and after a year or so, it had ~80% success rate.

[0]
[http://media.sethroberts.net/about/whatmakesfoodfattening.pd...](http://media.sethroberts.net/about/whatmakesfoodfattening.pdf)

~~~
beaconstudios
the point of wanting independent studies is that I have no reason to trust
whatever this guy writes on his own website. Diets and nutrition are subjects
with a huge amount of bullshit and scams, often perpetrated by people claiming
phds or claiming on their website that "studies were conducted". Sure, the
risk of trying it might be quite low, but it's reasonable to be skeptical of
the claim that just eating olive oil between meals magically reduces your
body's "set point" of weight. If I try this diet and it turns out that adding
400 calories of extra intake a day increases my weight (in line with the
traditional understanding of metabolism) then the diet has proven counter-
productive and thus there's a real cost involved, even if it's not one of
being poisoned or suffering from malnutrition.

~~~
beagle3
You have no reason to trust anyone. Michael Pollen and Gary Taubes (to name
two writers) show how nutrition recommendations that are considered
trustworthy cannot, in fact, be trusted and are often perverted by special
interests or just wrong.

But if we use reputation is a proxy for trustworthiness (and we all do, for
luck of time and resources to verify every since thing ourselves), then Seth
Roberts has the credibility and reputation - he's prof emeritus of the Psych
department at Berkeley (which is not nutrition, but his work did touch on
similar issues with rats) , the paper about what inspired the diet contains
dependable (by standard metrics) references, and while it is not an
independent or double blind study, there are lot of independent testimonies of
success and failure, and they seem to track the 80% success quite well. One of
the problems with this diet is that there is no way to make money with it
(except for writing a book ... which he agreed to do after giving away all the
info for free), which means studies are unlikely to happen in a reasonable
time frame.

The traditional understanding of metabolism-at-large, by the way, is
incompatible with a lot of data; in the sense that while it reasonably
describes a good percentage of the population a good percentage of the time,
there are way too many repeatable counterexamples (some of which, especially
the peer reviewed works of Robert Israel and Michel Cabanac, are referenced
and elaborated on in the paper).

~~~
beaconstudios
I don't know why you think I should trust the credibility of a psychology
professor on the topic of nutrition - sure, his psychological study may have
"touched on" dietary issues but that hardly makes him an expert.

As for your suggestion of relying on uncontrolled anecdotes - there are far
too many variables to rely on people saying that a. they lost weight and b. it
was due to the diet specifically.

Bear in mind, I'm not saying all this as a way to declare that the diet
doesn't work. I'm just pointing out all the red flags for yet another false
diet. There are more red flags than most fad diets I've seen. Especially the
claim that you can still eat whatever you want at whatever portion and lose
weight.

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beloch
"Does blending fruits and vegetables ruin some of the fibrous benefit?"

“Blending won’t have a significant negative impact on fiber,” Spiller
reassured me. “Fiber is what’s responsible for the viscosity of a smoothie and
its impact on the bacteria of the large bowel. Mashing fiber up into small
pieces should only enhance its availability for the bacteria."

People have told me, here at Hacker News, that blending fruit into a smoothie
separates the sugars out and makes it like drinking coca-cola. It's nice to
see that ridiculous notion quashed.

~~~
mattmanser
Well, to add a counterweight to his assertions, the NHS advice directly
contradicts Spiller, they say only 1 smoothie OR juice counts towards your 5 a
day. And they assert that it does release the sugars.

And they've actually reduced this figure, they used to say you could drink up
to 2 of your five a day as a smoothie (mention of it in this article[2] for
example).

[1][http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/FAQs.aspx#juices](http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/FAQs.aspx#juices)

[2][https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/ma...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/may/13/do-
smoothies-count-five-a-day)

~~~
kenjackson
If you read the NHS FAQ page though it seems bunk.

 _This because fruit juice and smoothies don 't contain the fibre found in
whole fruits and vegetables._

Fruit juices don't contain the fiber, but smoothies do. Its almost like they
don't get the difference between a smoothie and fruit juice.

 _The sugars found naturally in whole fruit are less likely to cause tooth
decay because the sugar is contained within the structure of the fruit._

That also seems like BS to me. I'm flossing more apple out of my teeth after
eating an apple than after drinking a smoothie (where the fruit is going more
straight down). I think they think you are swallowing whole fruit and not
chewing it first.

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senectus1
anyone ever seen a guide to dairy free blended food recipes?

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fsloth
Can't you blend anything you want? If it's too thick just add water.

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toodlebunions
Anyone who has had a smoothie has experienced this before.

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plaguuuuuu
I've experienced the opposite before.. after having a smoothie with probably 5
bananas in it, I was hungry a couple of hours afterwards. Probably due to the
sugar content.

I don't think this makes banana smoothies healthy either. Just things like
congee, or like... blending steak and veggies into a drinking cup, or
something.

~~~
obmelvin
Bananas and smoothied are very good for you. But it partly depends what you're
doing. They're great for inclusion liver glucose levels to fuel a workout

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CuriouslyC
As far as fruit goes bananas are the least healthy. They don't have a lot in
the way of vitamins, and some people have a larger insulin response to bananas
than cookies.

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awqrre
You don't have to work as hard to break it down?

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ifend
RTFA, it has to do with how the food separates in the stomach.

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awqrre
are you re-wording what I said?

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savrajsingh
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