Whole Foods and Your Appetite
Want to feel more satisfied with more energy for longer? Prioritise whole foods!
Whole foods beat processed foods for appetite regulation!
Amy tells us more about what whole foods are and why basing your diet around them will have a positive impact on your appetite.
What are Whole Foods and Processed Foods?
Whole foods are unprocessed or minimally processed foods. This means that they have not been through a large amount of manufacturing processes which may have affected their nutritional value. It can however be beneficial for foods to be minimally altered by removal of inedible parts, drying, crushing, roasting, boiling, freezing, or pasteurisation, to make them suitable to store and safe to eat. Although on the whole an easy way to think of it is, the less processed a food is the closer to its natural state it is, and the more vitamins, minerals and fibre it is likely to provide. Whole foods are foods such as fresh fruit, unsalted nuts, oats, fresh vegetables and raw meats etc.
Processed foods, best described as ultra-processed foods (UPFs) for the purpose of this article, are foods that have been through rigorous processing, often losing a lot of nutritive value along the way. They most likely have many added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, and artificial colors or preservatives. UPFs are foods such as frozen meals, hot dogs, cakes, pastries, cereals etc.
Wholefoods are therefore hailed as healthier foods than UPFs because they are higher in nutrients AND displace UPFs from the diet. Interestingly, they also seem to help you to naturally regulate your appetite. People who eat mostly whole food diets seem to naturally eat less food (without trying!) and are generally leaner than their UPF eating counterparts. Why is this?
Basically
Whole foods are unprocessed or minimally processed foods close to their natural state. Processed foods have gone through rigorous processes often detracting from their nutritional value and adding less healthy ingredients. Wholefoods seem to also be able to help with appetite regulation.
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Read on to find out more about the benefits of incorporating more whole foods into your diet!
Why Whole Foods are Better for Appetite
Satiety:
Whole foods, such as wholegrains, will usually have more fibre due to keeping the fibrous husk of the wholegrain intact. Fibre helps to regulate appetite by slowing digestion and creating stretch in the stomach as it expands to tell your brain that you are full. This feedback reduces the amount that you consume. Whole foods are also generally higher in protein than UPFs. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient and therefore consuming whole foods naturally high in protein such as meat, fish, dairy and legumes will leave you feeling fuller for longer.
Reduced Cravings:
Cravings are triggered by the brain reward system. Typically the right concoction of sugar, salt and fat triggers this reward system and suddenly you can’t get that UPF off your mind. We are way more likely to trigger this brain reward system with UPFs than whole foods and then our brain starts romanticising, the taste, the packaging, the people, the environment involved and this association gets stronger. There is nothing wrong with indulging in some UPFs but cravings can lead to what feels like an out of control appetite. Filling up on whole foods is a great way to avoid this. Actually, a good way to increase your ‘craving’ for whole foods is to work on getting your brain to associate whole foods with happy times and pleasure. Instead of family fish and chip nights having family home baked pizza nights?
Reduced Palatability:
UPFs have been created by design for ultimate tastiness, specifically with ideal ratios of fat, sugar and salt. We perceive them as extra palatable as our brains hone in on them as ‘survival’ foods that will help us weather the storm. And by storm I of course mean impending famine that luckily never arrives for most of us. We can definitely derive pleasure from our whole foods but it seems they don’t get locked in the brain as a ‘survival’ food as often as UPFs. This means we can generally enjoy whole foods and let them go when we are full instead of eating past fullness because of the perceived tastiness (perceived key to survival), which can look like a binge.
Sensory Properties:
Whole foods seem to give us more sensory feedback as we eat them. We need to work harder to prepare or to attain the food, for example, in the form of cooking a meal or manually deshelling nuts etc. Whole foods are more fibrous and therefore generally require more chewing and digestion. This increased time spent with the food provides a longer time for the body to feedback fullness. Often less is eaten because it is harder to get as much food into your body as quickly, as it is with UPFs.
Basically
Whole foods can help to regulate appetite by increasing feelings of fullness, reducing cravings, reducing risk of binge eating and improving feedback of fullness.
Let’s Sum It Up
Whole foods and unprocessed or minimally processed foods that are close to their natural state. Ultra processed foods (UPFs) are highly processed foods that often lose nutrients during processing and have other ingredients added to them. Whole foods can help to regulate appetite by increasing satiety, decreasing cravings, reducing palatability and improving fullness feedback. There are also other new and interesting theories around why whole foods have such a positive effect on our appetite!
For a more in depth discussion on other interesting theories around whole foods and appetite regulation, listen to DediKate Eat Great Ep #44 - Whole Foods and Appetite.
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