Research
Adherence
Increasing food texture (harder, chewier, or more viscous) reduces meal size and improves satiety by slowing eating rate and increasing oral processing time, independent of caloric content.
Make your food harder, chewier, or thicker without adding calories. For example, choose whole fruits over juice, or add thickeners to soups/beverages. This slows your eating rate and increases satiety, helping you eat less without feeling deprived.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Viscous, chewy and hard foods are consumed more slowly and are consistently ingested in smaller quantities than foods and beverages with softer textural characteristics... This reduction is independent of reported palatability and occurs with little or no awareness as people eat in response to the textures served, by taking smaller bites and chewing for longer.
Why this rating
Supported by multiple laboratory studies cited (118-124, 147-149) showing consistent reductions in intake.
Source
Sensory influences on food intake control: moving beyond palatability
Keri McCrickerd et al. · Obesity Reviews · 2015
DOI 10.1111/obr.12340
narrative_reviewCited 411×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Increasing taste intensity (e.g., saltiness) while maintaining palatability reduces meal intake by approximately 9% through enhanced satiation, independent of how much the food is liked.Good
- Visual cues, particularly portion size and perceived volume, significantly influence food intake and post-meal satiety, often overriding physiological feedback.Good
- Umami taste (savoury) enhances the satiating power of protein-rich foods, leading to greater compensation at subsequent meals, but has no effect on carbohydrate-rich or low-energy foods.Moderate
Related findings · Adherence
- Regular physical activity (at least 150 minutes/week of moderate-intensity) reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality by 20-30% and lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25-35%.Strong
- Increasing physical activity from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one in middle adulthood significantly reduces the risk of coronary events compared to remaining sedentary.Strong
- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →