The biggest problem with nutritional studies based on "low carb" or "high carb" or "high protein" is that they are extremely vague and totally negate the impact of food processing that can potentially skew total energy intake per meal/day along with enhancing or inhibiting absorption of nutrients by disrupting the structure of the food. This kind of processing can happen even in home cooked meals(eg. soups) and various recipes from the internet or in cookbooks. What happens to your hunger and fullness when you either consume solid and liquid foods in isolation OR you blend them together into a homogenized product? Interestingly, based on this study(1), the subjects were given a solid/liquid or homogenized(blended) meal consisting of cooked vegetables (250g), cheese(35g), croutons(50g) and olive oil(25g) and with water(300ml).
Surprisingly, the blended mixture had a higher rating of satiety and fullness compared to the food in its original solid/liquid form! This was explained by the slower rate of gastric emptying and delayed release of CCK(Cholecystokinin, a satiety hormone that stimulates the digestion of fats and proteins). However, if the food is all ready in its solid form and you blend it to its liquid form(whole fruits/veggies to smoothies), the satiety actually goes down(2).
OUR TAKEAWAY
The takeaway here seems to be that if you have to consume both liquid and solid food components, homogenizing them together by blending or mixing will potentially make them more filling or satiating than consuming them individually. This is one processing method that can be used to increase the satiety value of foods. We also think that this may also explain why our Energy Pods may exert a higher impact on satiety than consuming individual ingredients by themselves.
FAHAD AHMAD
Fahad is the founder of Ketogeek and hosts the Ketogeek Podcast, a world class health show about food, nutrition and health. He is into resistance training, Ashtanga yoga, calisthenics and various forms of training styles. Armed with a idealistic goals distilled in a world of realism, his goal is to help the world make a better place. He leads a life of extreme generalism or as he describes it, 'The Renaissance Lifestyle'.
“It never ceases to amaze me how prosaic, pedestrian, unimaginative people can persistently pontificate about classical grammatical structure as though it's fucking rocket science. These must be the same people who hate Picasso, because he couldn't keep the paint inside the lines and the colors never matched the numbers.”
― Abbe Diaz