Taking Longer To Consume A Meal Has No Apparent Effect On Later Snacking

Research conducted in The Netherlands has found that extending the time it takes to eat a meal doesn’t seem to affect after-meal snacking. In the study, 38 men and women consumed the same meal in a controlled test kitchen on two different days. For one meal, all of the courses – salad, macaroni with meat sauce, vegetable lasagna, raspberry pudding dessert – were consumed sequentially in 30 minutes. The other, however, was “staggered:” 20-25-minute breaks were taken between courses. After 2-1/2 hours, all were offered snacks. Participants who ate the drawn-out meals at first reported greater satiety. But when offered snacks later, the slow diners ate only 10 percent fewer snack calories than those who ate more quickly.