{"id":152,"date":"2013-11-04T08:17:57","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2013-11-04T08:37:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:37:57","slug":"satiety-and-food-is-it-about-structure-not-composition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=152","title":{"rendered":"Satiety and food… is it about structure, not composition?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While preparing for my Progressive Australia<\/a> speech<\/a>\u00a0on healthy food yesterday, two factoids caught my attention:<\/p>\n

1. The amazing Credit Suisse trashing of the sugar industry<\/a> notes that calories derived from drinks (i.e. liquids) are not recognised by the body as contributing to our satiety. Hence, the body continues to seek and consume food as if calories from soft drinks, fruit juices etc. had not been consumed:<\/p>\n

“Liquid and solid sugar calories are\u00a0handled differently by the body. The\u00a0energy that is obtained through beverages is interpreted and processed differently\u00a0by our body from energy that is\u00a0obtained through solid foods, even if\u00a0the overall quantity of calories consumed\u00a0is the same. Sugar by itself is a\u00a0poor source of calories as it provides\u00a0little nutritional value. Not surprisingly,\u00a0the public debate has centered on soft\u00a0drinks and the role they have played in\u00a0this issue.”<\/p>\n

2. Michael Moss’ NYT article on addictive junk food<\/a>\u00a0refers to Vanishing Caloric Density in Cheetos:<\/p>\n

“To get a better feel for their work, I called on Steven Witherly, a food scientist who wrote a\u00a0fascinating guide for industry insiders titled, \u201cWhy Humans Like Junk Food.\u201d I brought him\u00a0two shopping bags filled with a variety of chips to taste. He zeroed right in on the Cheetos.\u00a0\u201cThis,\u201d Witherly said, \u201cis one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in\u00a0terms of pure pleasure.\u201d He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain\u00a0say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff\u2019s uncanny ability to melt in the\u00a0mouth. \u201cIt\u2019s called vanishing caloric density,\u201d Witherly said. \u201cIf something melts down\u00a0quickly, your brain thinks that there\u2019s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it\u00a0forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put together with the phenomenal success of lap banding*, this suggests that satiety is mediated by mechanical receptors at the top of the stomach. I’m sure this isn’t rocket science and could be found in any physiology text book, but its unusual that it hasn’t made it into the public discourse.<\/p>\n

It explains why fruit, but not fruit juice, is good for you – it is to do with fibre, but only when it persists in a structure, and nothing to do with its ability to magically slow absorption of sugars into the body etc.<\/p>\n

It explains why most junk foods are melt in your mouth – so that by the time it hits the stomach, it’s in too much of a liquid form to stimulate the stomach’s mechanical receptors.<\/p>\n

Again, unless you’re putting lap bands into people, the only way to profit for this is by recommending people eat solid foods which fill them up.<\/p>\n

* Lap Bands must make it easier for any food (including liquids) to trigger the mechanical receptors in the stomach.<\/p>\n

Credit Suisse Investment Report on Sugar:\u00a0<\/span>Credit Suisse – document-1022457401<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Moss’s NYT Article:\u00a0The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food – NYTimes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While preparing for my Progressive Australia speech\u00a0on healthy food yesterday, two factoids caught my attention: 1. The amazing Credit Suisse trashing of the sugar industry notes that calories derived from drinks (i.e. liquids) are not recognised by the body as contributing to our satiety. Hence, the body continues to seek and consume food as if … Continue reading Satiety and food… is it about structure, not composition?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool","category-healthy-habits","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}