SSS2 Episode 7- Emotional eating, plant proteins and the myth of variety.
Have you ever felt that you were full after a good meal? And then your host says..."How about some dessert?" And you respond "Of course - we all know that we have an extra dessert stomach!"
Well it turns out that we don't actually have a separated dessert stomach, but our brains do have a way of making us think we do. It's called sensory specific satiety, and it means that when we have lots of different flavours we tend to eat more. ( Well duh....who hasn't gone overboard at the buffet...?)
In this episode we talk about this phenomenon. We also cover the big food groups - carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and how lentils and beans are your new friends. They are your friends because they will produce the highest level of satiety - fullness - from th eleast number of calories.
And we look for clues that our eating may be emotional - how to recognise this form of non hungry eating.
Clues are:
Sudden hunger; sudden hunger for a particular food, particularly a sweet, comforting food; failure of the food to fill you up; feelings of guilt or powerlessness associated with the food and of course relationship to a stressful event, memory or thought.
Here is a link to research about the benefits of plants high in protein ( like lentils and soybean- tofu)
In this article they are trying to work out if it is more a thought process or a hormonal one that effects our satiety.