Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Sep 03, 2025

Do some foods fill you up for longer?

Do some foods fill you up for longer?

Some foods promise the ability to stave off hunger pangs. Can any foods really suppress our appetite?

It's likely that your weekly shop is packed with packaging promising that the food inside will taste great, stay fresh and be good for you. You might also find some products telling you they'll fill you up for longer. But is it really possible for a food to suppress our appetites?

While some research suggests that consuming some foods, such as chilli peppers and ginger, can make us feel less hungry afterwards, these studies often use large quantities of foods and test the effects on animals, says Gary Frost, lead of the Imperial Nutrition and Food Network at Imperial College London. Translating these effects over to humans hasn't happened, he adds.

But one study looked at the appetite-suppressing properties of capsaicin in chilli peppers, (the active ingredient that gives chillies their heat) using quantities that more closely resemble an average human diet. Mary-Jon Ludy, associate professor of food and nutrition at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, US, experimented first at home, by adding chilli to her meals until she decided what was a palatable and realistic amount for someone living in the US Midwest.

She then invited 25 people into her lab six times, and she fed them bowls of tomato soup. After the soup, they stayed in the lab for four-and-a-half hours so their appetite and energy expenditure could be regularly measured. They were then served another meal and told they could eat as much as they wanted.

When they consumed soup containing 1g of chilli, the participants burned an extra 10 calories in the four-and-a-half hours afterwards. Participants who usually only ate chilli once a month reported having fewer thoughts about food afterwards, and ate 70 calories less when served the second meal, compared to those who usually ate chilli three times a week or more.

Ludy ran the same experiment with chilli in a capsule instead of soup, but the increase in fat-burning was only found after they ate the chilli-tomato soup.

"This says something important about experiencing the oral tingling/burning sensation," she says.

Consuming some spicy food, such as curries with capsaicin-containing chilli, could help curb appetite later on


However, burning 10 extra calories after a spicy meal is minute, and won't have any long-term effects. Frost points out that studies like this, showing short-term effects on appetite, haven't been able to show any long-lasting effects.

In accordance with this study, a review of 32 studies found that chilli, as well as green tea, hasn't been consistently found to suppress appetite.

Another staple in our diets that's been rumoured to make us less hungry is coffee. Matthew Schubert, assistant professor in the department of kinesiology at California State University, reviewed what research has been done so far to see if there could be something in coffee that suppresses our appetite.

Some studies found that drinking coffee led to a slightly faster rate of gastric emptying, which is the time it takes for a meal to move from the stomach to the small intestine and is associated with increased hunger. But no studies showed anything specific happening physiologically that could dampen appetite.

Fibre is known to make us feel fuller for longer


Even if future research does uncover a way that coffee supresses our appetite, it would probably only translate to consuming 100 or 200 fewer calories a day, Schubert adds, which isn't significant.

Aside from specific ingredients, researchers have also looked at macronutrients, and how they might influence our appetites. Fibre is known to make us feel fuller for longer, and some population studies show that as people eat more fibre, their weight gain slows down – but this is only when they're eating really high amounts of fibre, says Frost.

"It's recommended we consume 30g of dietary fibre per day, but most people in the UK consume around 15g. If you push it up to 30g you'd get an effect [on appetite] but it wears off after a while," he says.

Eating more protein has been found to decrease appetite, but this was only found in a very small trial.

Green tea has long been thought of as an appetite suppressant, but evidence hasn’t been consistent


There has been a lot of research trying find out which macronutrients make you feel more full, but there's no clear answer. Findings seem to suggest that protein is more likely to satiate you, but they're not so clear and usually the effects are tiny, and it's hard to compare across different types of macronutrients," says Yann Cornil, associate professor of marketing and behavioural science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Instead of looking to specific foods to decrease our appetites, we should make sure we're drinking enough water, since this briefly pauses our appetite, says Martin Kohlmeier, professor of nutrition at Gillings School of Global Public Health in North Carolina, US.

Research has found that people who drink two glasses of water before eating end up eating less.

If there was a food component that suppressed appetite, to survive you'd need to totally avoid it – Gary Frost


But any changes to our appetite on a physiological level will be small and short-lasting, Frost says, because it doesn't make physiological sense that there would be a food that drives us to eat less.

"It's only very recently that in our Western society we've had excess food," says Frost. Throughout evolution we lived with very little food, and it came in fits and starts. Our physiology is geared to driving us to eat.

"If there was a food component that suppressed appetite, to survive you'd need to totally avoid it."

Another reason that no food or drink could substantially suppress our appetite long-term is because our bodies are designed to maintain a near-constant weight, says Kohlmeier.

"The body has mechanisms that defend weight viciously. From an evolutionary perspective, the biggest risk to humanity was starvation, not just because it'd kill you but because it also weakens the body and makes you more vulnerable to infectious diseases," he says.

Instead of looking for foods to curb appetite, we might be better off ensuring we’re drinking enough water, studies suggest


The system used by the body to regulate how much we consume is one of the most complex systems in the body, Kohlmeier adds.

"If you see the body as a big machine, with all the different components that need to come from the outside; you need to get enough water, macronutrients and micronutrients, on top of knowing what not to eat."

There are several nutrients that will drive our appetite if we're deficient in them, he adds.

"It's a whole system you need to loop and rebuild constantly. How should anyone know what they need and what's in which foods? There are very powerful important systems in place that drive appetite."

Hunger is driven by beliefs, expectation and memory


Therefore, the best way to manage appetite is to have a balanced diet, so the body isn't driven to eat more to make up for any deficiencies, Kohlmeimer says.

The loophole here is how our appetite can be influenced psychologically, which has interested researchers for decades. A paper from 1987 explained that seeing and smelling food sends signals to the body to prepare to digest it. Food will have the biggest effect on appetite when we expect it to satiate us, the paper states.

Hunger is driven by beliefs, expectation and memory, says Cornil, mostly by how well you remember what you've eaten. This means that we eat less following what we perceive to be a bigger meal than if we believe we've eaten a smaller one.

One study found that labelling a meal as "filling" has been found to influence us to eat less compared to when the same meal is labelled "light".

Your weekly shop might contain foods that promise to fill you up for longer, but it seems there's only one way to work with your body's evolutionary processes: eat a balanced diet filled with all the nutrients and water you need.

While you can't cheat nature and stave off hunger for long, you can try to avoid craving those extra calories required to make up any nutrient deficiencies.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
Eurozone Inflation Rises to 2.1% in August
Russia and China Sign New Gas Pipeline Deal
China's Robotics Industry Fuels Export Surge
Suntory Chairman Resigns After Police Probe
Gold Price Hits New All-Time Record
Von der Leyen's Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Interference in an Incident Believed to Be Caused by Russia or by Pro-Peace or by Anti-Corruption European Activists
UK Fintechs Explore Buying US Banks
Greece Suspends 5% of Schools as Birth Rate Drops
Apollo to Launch $5 Billion Sports Investment Vehicle
Bolsonaro Trial Nears Close Amid US-Brazil Tension
European Banks Push for Lower Cross-Border Barriers
Poland's Offshore Wind Sector Attracts Investors
Nvidia Reveals: Two Mystery Customers Account for About 40% of Revenue
Woody Allen: "I Would Be Happy to Direct Trump Again in a Film"
Pickles are the latest craze among Generation Z in the United States.
Deadline Day Delivers Record £125m Isak Move and Donnarumma to City
Nestlé Removes CEO Laurent Freixe Following Undisclosed Relationship with Subordinate
Giuliani Seriously Injured in Accident – Trump to Award Him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
EU is getting aggressive: Four AfD Candidates Die Unexpectedly Ahead of North Rhine-Westphalia Local Elections
Lula and Putin Hold Strategic BRICS Discussions Ahead of Trump–Putin Summit
WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that looks a lot like Telegram.
Investigations Reveal Rise in ‘Sex-for-Rent’ Listings Across Canada Exploiting Vulnerable Tenants
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
×