Question

Your parents have probably advised you to eat your meals slowly, and chew your food well before swallowing. You always thought they said this out of love for you, but in reality they were just trying to reduce the food bill! Based on your understanding of the negative feedback mechanism, explain why this approach is better at reducing hunger (and thus reducing food intake) than gulping the meal quickly. Your aunt has told you that you should eat meals every 3 hours, with small protein-rich snacks in between, so that you are never hungry. In terms of food processing efficiency (energy gained from food divided by energy spent on digestion and absorption) is this a good strategy? Explain, keeping in mind how quickly/slowly food is processed in GI tract.

Answer 1

Ans: a. As we always listen from parents and elders that we should chew a bite at least 32 times. This will make your digestion Easier.

But, what actually happens when we eat food , usually our gut suppress a hunger hormone I.e Ghrelin..which cause suppression of hunger. There are also some anti hunger hormones like cholecystokinin(CKK), peptide YY (PYY), GLUCAGIN LIKE PEPTIDE(GLP), these all stop hunger and so eating.

When we eat too fast it gives no time to send brain the signals to release these hormones so lead to more amount of food we eat.

While if we chew slowly it will provide time to send signals earlier and stop hunger drive so we eat less amount of food.

B) proteins have a great thermic effect and they will increase metabolism as well. So eating more protein will increase more spent if calories and help in loosing weight . Also the increase proteins will lead to increase in release of anti hunger hormones described above so reduce hunger also.