When our food tastes better, we might eat less. Maybe that doesn't
sound logical. But a new study of 2,436 overweight or obese people
shows that at least some things that stimulate our sense of taste can
help us to lose weight, which almost everyone with type 2 diabetes wants to do.
Alan Hirsch, MD, studied a
variety of calorie-free seasonings and sweeteners that that can
stimulate the sense of taste. Dr. Hirsch, the founder and neurological
director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in
Chicago, presented his findings at the recent annual meeting of The Endocrine Society.
The
people in the study sprinkled savory or
sweet crystals on their food before eating their meals during a
six-month study period. While they knew that the flavors were either
salty or sweet, they didn't know anything more about them.
These hidden
savory flavors were cheddar cheese, onion, horseradish, ranch
dressing, taco, or Parmesan. The hidden sweet flavors were cocoa,
spearmint,
banana, strawberry, raspberry, or malt.
A
control group of 100 people didn't use these flavors. By the end of the
study the treatment group lost an average of 30.5 pounds, while the
control group lost just 2 pounds.
How could
these flavorings possibly work so well to help people to lose weight?
The flavorings made them feel full faster, so they ate less, Dr. Hirsch
thinks. But because the flavorings improved the taste of bland but
healthy foods -- like tofu and some veggies -- the people in the study
may have started eating a more healthy diet.
We
can't yet buy non-caloric flavorings like Dr. Hirsch used in his study.
But all of us can use flavorings to enhance our senses of smell and
taste in order to lose weight.
"Sniff your food before
you eat it," Dr. Hirsch advises. "Chew it a lot. And choose
low-calorie foods and season them."
All
of us have our favorite low-calorie flavorings that we can use more of
to eat less. Mine include mustard and jalapeño peppers.
But if you want to sleep soundly, skip the spices at dinner. It turns out that Tabasco
sauce and mustard taken with the evening meal markedly disturbed sleep
of people in one study. As soon as I learned about this study and began avoiding highly spiced dinners, my sleep greatly improved.
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