It’s the never-ending debate in the nutrition world: should you focus on quantity of calories or quality of calories?
The answer, of course, is that they both matter.
But in a world where 99% of all weight loss advice is “eat less and exercise more,” it’s important to take a look at the other side of the coin. By focusing on where the calories come from, you can lose weight with less effort by simply changing the type of food you eat.
One of the biggest leverage points in eating lots of unprocessed meat, vegetables, eggs, and fruit is that, calorie for calorie, they fill you up more than refined foods.
Food vs Food Products
Here at LMVM, my goal is to help you become more attractive, higher status, with increased energy levels and effectiveness, and an extended lifespan as easily as possible. As much as I’d like to say you can do that by eating just fast food and microwave dinners, I believe that what you lose by switching from primarily real food to mostly food products does not make up for the time and money you may save in doing so.
Although I analyze my diet on occasion using a tool like FitDay, the fact of the matter is that I do not count calories at all during my everyday life, yet I am in much better shape than during the days when I obsessively tried to track every unit of energy that entered and exited my body. The key to this is that I eat food that makes me feel full.
The Satiety Index
One of the coolest things I found recently was a study on the so-called “satiety index,” a proposed measurement of the ability of different foods to fill you up on a calorie-for-calorie basis.
Dr. Susanne Holt performed an experiment where she gave students 240-Calorie portions of food, asked them to rate their feelings of fullness every 15 minutes, and watched how much food they later ate from a buffet table. They compiled this data into an index of satiety, with white bread given a reference value of 100%.
So the higher the value, the more a food fills you up, even though it contains the same amount of calories as the other foods!
Here are the results:
Bakery Products
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| Croissant | 47% |
| Cake | 65% |
| Donuts | 68% |
| Cookies | 120% |
| Crackers | 127% |
Snacks and Confectionary
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| Mars Candy Bar | 70% |
| Peanuts | 84% |
| Yogurt | 88% |
| Chips | 91% |
| Ice Cream | 96% |
| Jelly Beans | 118% |
| Popcorn | 154% |
Breakfast Cereals
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| Muesli | 100% |
| Sustain | 112% |
| Special K | 116% |
| Corn Flakes | 118% |
| Honey Smacks | 132% |
| All Bran | 151% |
| Porridge / Oatmeal | 209% |
Carbohydrate-Rich Foods
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| White Bread | 100% |
| French Fries | 116% |
| White Pasta | 119% |
| Brown Rice | 132% |
| White Rice | 138% |
| Grain Bread | 154% |
| Whole Grain Bread | 157% |
| Brown Pasta | 188% |
| Potatoes | 323% |
Protein-Rich Foods
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| Lentils | 133% |
| Cheese | 146% |
| Eggs | 160% |
| Baked Beans | 168% |
| Beef | 176% |
| Fish | 225% |
Fruits
| Food | Satiety Index |
|---|---|
| Bananas | 118% |
| Grapes | 162% |
| Apples | 197% |
| Oranges | 202% |
My Thoughts…
Even though this data is rough and preliminary, I’m going to make a couple of observations about it anyways. Snacks and confectionary and bakery products had the lowest satiety index, indicating that people are more likely to overeat these foods. With the large amount of sweets and refined carbs that most people are eating these days, it makes sense to me that these foods are simply not filling and thus lead to overeating.
The foods with the highest satiety index are those high in protein, fiber, and water. By eating fruit, meat, eggs, dairy, and starches in their unprocessed forms, you maximize the amount of these nutrients that are found in the food, making it much easier to simply eat until you are full and not have to worry about incurring a caloric surplus.
Or as I like to call it, the lazy man’s way to a lean physique! This is certainly one of the best “hacks” at your disposal to get the body composition you’ve always wanted.
I'm a science geek, food lover, and wannabe surfer.
{ 13 comments }
Potatoes scored the highest- nice! One of my favorites. Also love oatmeal, popcorn, beans, and eggs, so this is very cool.
Looks like there’s a glitch under the fruit category. I’m curious to see which fruits are most satiating. I would guess apples would do well, but maybe that’s just because they take a while to eat. lol.
An excellent point…high fiber foods generally keep you fuller meaning you’ll eat less. I also consider volume of food. Sometimes people like to eat just to eat. A full salad bowl may satisfy that need better than a single cookie.
P.S. Do cake and donuts qualify as Fruits? 😉
Darrin,
This is an important concept that is not discussed enough. I like to base my diet around low calorie foods that keep me full for a long time. I’ve noticed that I can eat a huge veggie omlet (less than 500 calories) and not be hungry again for a few hours. On the other hand, I can also eat a whole box of cookies (maybe 2,000 calories or more?) and still feel like I can eat a regular meal after that.
Alykhan
Fantastic that you provided those tables I would never have guessed that Popcorn and Jellybeans rate high in their class and that fish is higher than meat!
I only heard of the satiety index but now I’ll definitely look into that more … for me I hate it when I eat a huge meal and I still feel hungry, in fact I feel guilty but maybe I’m just on the wrong side of the index?
Raymond
There needs to be more research about this! The findings are really interesting, though I’d be curious to know about the population she studied. I’m very curious as to how crackers are more filling than cake, for example. Perhaps the bloat from the salt?
@Dave, of course, as long as you eat the fruit cakes and jam doughnuts :]
@Raymond, Yeah I was surprised too. I mean popcorn is satieting??? What?
@Alykhan, me too dude. Well I tend to stay away from the cookies these days (though rarely Yorkie cookies (double chocolate) sadly still get me) but looking back certainly.
@Darrin, great post! I’m curious as to why white bread was used as the base. I also thought cheese would score far higher considering it’s fat content.
@Jordan:
Hey, wuzzup dude? I am a huge fan of the taters (and most other roots as well) and am happy to see they scored so high as well. Potatoes don’t get much love from the health community these days, which is a shame.
@Dave:
Haha, I keep telling myself that cake and donuts are fruit, it makes me feel less guilty. I’ve reloaded the correct table now!
@Alykhan:
This was one of those things I just bumped into roaming around the interwebs. Definitely not being studied enough.
@Raymond:
Just remember to eat foods high in water, fiber, and protein at every meal and it looks like you should be all set!
@Mimi:
Yeah, this is some really cool stuff. Especially for health geeks like me, haha. I don’t think we should read TOO deeply into the results, however. This is some very preliminary data from a small group of people eating a small variety of foods, and they are subjective rather than objective values (the glycemic index has the same problem). Ultimately, everyone should focus on eating more of the foods that fill them up without overeating, whatever they might be on a case-by-case basis. But it is interesting to note the pattern that unprocessed foods tend to have higher SI values than highly refined ones.
@Steve:
Good question. White bread is cheap and basically the same everywhere. Also, white bread is often used as the reference for the glycemic index. Must be due to its ubiquity and uniformity.
Yeah, potatoes are very underrated, thanks to the current Paleo trend. Hopefully over time we’ll move away from a strict definition of “Paleo” and put the focus back on simple, whole foods of all kinds. Another underrated non-Paleo food: beans! High in fiber and protein, low in calories- sounds like a winning combination to me! 🙂
Thanks for reloading the fruits table. I knew apples would do well! lol. Another one of my staples.
@Jordan:
I’ve got a lot of love for Paleo. It’s the soundest dietary advice yet – focus on eating the foods you adapted to over eons of evolution. However, I do take issue with some of the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand, specifically the big “low carb” push. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate every root, tuber, and berry they came across. Yeah, potatoes weren’t there, but the people who look down their noses at taters are the same who don’t think twice about eating tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
Bah. I say mow down every veggie that you come across. Beans, on the other hand… well, I’m not a big fan. Give me a plate piled high with meat and veggies for my protein and fiber any day of the week! 🙂 Beans just seem to pale in comparison. Plus, the issue with phytic acid blocking the absorbtion of all the nutrients beans are touted to contain. They’re good if you’re on a budget and don’t mind spending a day or two soaking, but I guess this guy’s just a bit too lazy for that!
I like beans because they’re great during a calorie deficit. I can get a lot of fiber and protein in one shot. Yes, meat provides a lot of protein, but no fiber. If I’m eating a small volume of food, I don’t want a large percentage of that food to be low in fiber. I want to keep things moving, so to speak. I had an issue with that a few months ago. Once I upped my fiber, it’s been smooth sailing. lol. So I like small servings of meat or dairy, like Greek yogurt, alongside other foods, but it can’t be the bulk of my diet.
I like vegetables, particularly broccoli, sweet potatoes, green beans, and baby carrots. But I think I would enjoy them less if I had to eat a ton of them. Sustainability is key. I’d rather mix them up with grains, beans, and fruit, to get not just a variety of sources of fiber, but a variety of foods I enjoy eating, as well. I don’t see vegetables as “bulk foods,” so to speak. But that’s just my personal preference.
Peas are also very underrated. A serving of split peas is 110 calories, 11 grams of fiber, 11 grams of protein! Wow!
Not worried about phytic acid.
Darrin,
I am amazed that fish was so high! I wonder what other types of seafood would rate at. After reading Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint, I was very intrigued by the paleo type diet. I have found it to be great in most aspects, but I am not following it 100%.
My diet was a nightmare for so long, so compare it to now and I am doing fantastic. The path to a lean physique has been kind of a zig zag for me. I usually eat decent and then when I indulge, I let intermittent fasting rescue me and get me back on track. I just like to have fun and do not want to be too rigid with my diet. Keeping my carbs pretty low and using fasting has worked great for me, although I guess everyone has there own way to go about it.
-Kelly
@Jordan:
Legumes are definitely firmly in the “decent” category in my mind. But unless I am eating Central American or Middle Eastern food, I rarely eat them. One of my requirements for what I eat is that it has to be delicious – and to my tastebuds, roast beef and roots beat out a bowl o’ beans any day of the week. I’ve also found that meat and veggies fill me up before I overeat, also likely keeping hormones such as insulin and leptin in check to ensure I store energy as muscle rather than fat. (This is further backed by the results of the study in this post, foods with a higher SI value are theoretically those best suited to incurring a caloric deficit.)
The issues due to phytic acid are definitely worth considering, especially for anyone who eats large amounts of beans for an extended period of time. It blocks the absorbtion of crucial nutrients and could lead to deficiencies and subsequent poor health. But compared to, say, sugar, the problems with antinutrients in legumes are negligible due to the fact that most people eat so little of them. (Plus, I seriously doubt that there are any foods that are “100% healthy.” In actuality, all foods have both pros and cons to them. The key is to find those that are a net positive.) As you said, sustainability is key, but it is different for every person. Sounds like you found something that works for you, which is awesome! 🙂
@Kelly:
It looks like minimally-processed foods high in protein, fiber, and water are those that score high on the SI, so I’d imagine other seafood would rate high as well. Like everything else, I eat seafood to satiation and have had nothing but positive results. Although I’m pretty durned Paleo, I make several tweaks that others likely rarely do. I eat cheat meals since I don’t want to feel “restricted” by my diet – which is always a recipe for disaster. I’m also “carb agnostic” – I avoid grains and legumes, but eat lots of veggies (including starchy roots, tubers, and squashes). These are particularly helpful when it comes to post-workout meals. Basically, I never stick with a “method” for very long before I start experimenting and making tweaks to try to perfect it for myself, haha!
Great post, man. Popcorn is one of my staples, even when I’m trying to get super-lean. A little bit really does go a long way.
-Drew
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