The satiety index (or the don’t go hungry chart)

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In 1995 Susanna Holt of the University of Sydney Australia conducted a research experiment to compare the effects of different foods on short-term satiety and appetite levels.

She prepared 240 cals portions of 38 different foods. These foods ran the gamut from yogurt to Mars Bars, to eggs, fruits, cheese, brown rice, ice-cream. She recruited volunteers and asked them to eat a single, 240 calories portion of each of the 38 foods (on separate occasions).

After consuming each food, participants were asked to rate their hunger levels every 15 minutes, for the next two hours. At that point, the participants were led to a buffet where they could eat as much or as little as they desired. Holt then counted the number of calories the participants then ate in these follow-up meals and she then combined this with the data she recorded regarding their previously reported hunger ratings from the 240 calories-level consumption of these other foods previous to the buffet.

She then Used all this to create a “satiety index” for each of those 38 foods she was looking at. Now, just like the glycemic index, she also used white bread as her reference food and assigned it a score of 100. From here she summarised a food’s satiation value which I’ve broken down into the chats below:

As you can see boiled potatoes don’t just win here but they dominate in terms of satiety, so their defiantly a carb source you should be adding to your diet if you find yourself going hungry often.

Belt.

Holt, S H et al. “A Satiety Index of Common Foods.” European journal of clinical nutrition 49.9 (1995): 675–690. Print.

2 comments

  1. Hi, Thank you for this article.
    But I do not understand one thing. How the participants rate their hunger level? What were the questions there to be filled by the participants. Looking forward for an answer.
    Thank you

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