Which foods have the highest satiety factor for you?

[Roo]

20 years ago, a bunch of nutrition scientists studied what they called the satiety index [PDF]. They created the index by looking at the nutrition of the food along with how long it kept the person full for a given amount of food.

They came up with some surprising results. Although it would seem intuitive that high fat foods keep you full longer, the study shows that they don't. But of course, high sugar foods might make you full when you eat them, they also cause a sharp crash not too long later. They also found that sheer bulk can make you feel full. Foods like popcorn don't have a lot of fat or calories, but it can fill people up just by the sheer bulk of it.

10 years later, they've been revising and updating their findings. Someone did a quick update of one of the scientist's new work.

She also noted:

Holt is concerned that there may be some confusion in the interpretation of her study's findings. "The Satiety Index scores reflect the total amount of fullness produced by the set portions of the test foods over two hours—i.e. short-term satiety. Although most foods with high Satiety Index scores kept fullness relatively high for the whole two hours, there were a few exceptions," Holt notes.

"The fruits were served in very large portions, but fullness dropped off quickly towards the end of the second hour, reflecting the rapid rate of gastric emptying (oranges and apples and grapes are mainly sugar and water)," she adds.

Recently, I saw this infographic done in 2012 of some of the highest satiety index foods. Some of the highest rated foods were fish, popcorn, oranges, apples, beef, grain bread and all-bran.

The infographic also showed the glycemic index along with the satiety index. For example, bananas have a high glycemic index and high satiety index, so for less sugar crash for as much fullness, an orange is preferable over a banana.

What are some foods that keep you full the longest?

[Chacoguy]

Ice water.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

I like nuts.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

And, I also really like jerky...jerky nutz..

[stormie]

Whoa, this is interesting. I think of a meal rather than an item, and mass may be affecting my decision. I have never felt particularly full after fish. Of meat, I feel fullest after steak, and a petite fillet mignon is enough for me. But it rarely comes by itself. There is the potato. Potatoes make me feel fuller than rice or bread. Then other veg hardly do anything. And fruit? I don't get it. A raw potato is more filling than an apple; a big ol' slice of sweet potato pie more than of apple.

[Panacea]

Oatmeal - seems like it kind of expands in your tummy.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

Baby Cereal, mixed.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

I like rice and pork.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

I made homemade hamburger meat loaf today, with mashed potatoes, homemade gravy....brussels sprouts and broccoli. Grands Flaky tube biscuits, with butter.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

...it was pretty fuckin' satisfyin'.

[Roo]

Originally Posted by stormie

Whoa, this is interesting. I think of a meal rather than an item, and mass may be affecting my decision. I have never felt particularly full after fish. Of meat, I feel fullest after steak, and a petite fillet mignon is enough for me. But it rarely comes by itself. There is the potato. Potatoes make me feel fuller than rice or bread. Then other veg hardly do anything. And fruit? I don't get it. A raw potato is more filling than an apple; a big ol' slice of sweet potato pie more than of apple.

You're absolutely right. This was just a study on individual foods, but people don't eat like that.

The author added:

"Many 'health-conscious' dieters," she continues, "will eat a meal based on several pieces of fruit and some rice cakes (in Australia anyway) and then wonder why they feel ravenous a few hours later. These kinds of extremely low-fat, high-carb meals do not keep hunger at bay because they are not based on slowly-digested carbs and probably don't contain enough protein. A dieter would be better off eating a wholesome salad sandwich on wholegrain bread with some lean protein like tuna or beef and an apple. This kind of meal can keep hunger at bay for a very long time."

It's really the mixture of foods that can keep a person full longer.

I also agree with you about the fish and the beef. I seem to recall that a fish meal didn't satisfy me for very long. I went to look at the graph again, and I think I'm reading it right. The fish looks to me like it scores higher on the fullness scale and lower on the glycemic scale. I can't explain why that would be.

One other quirky note from that study was that jelly beans kept the people in the study full longer even if it's total sugar and carbs. The researchers theorized that's because jelly beans made people nauseous, so they didn't feel much like eating soon.

For this thread, I was more curious about individual foods because mixed foods are more difficult to compare. I was also interested because the participants in that study may not have been representative, like in the fish/beef example, for instance. I'm also looking for ideas about foods that would keep me full longer.

[Roo]

Originally Posted by NinetyWt

Oatmeal - seems like it kind of expands in your tummy.

That's one of my favorite foods for keeping hunger at bay. But I notice that when it wears off, and I get hungry, I'm hungry all at once instead of gradually. It's still one of my favorite foods for staving off hunger. It's supposedly pretty nutritious too.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

Is paste really nutritious or filling? Even heart doctors recognize it as sop to fats.

[Blind Mellow Jelly]

A particular kind of fiber.

[LonelySock]

Angus bacon cheeseburger from Kwik Trip.