Making this single change to your food can help you eat less overall how to do it

Red hot skinny peppers?Scientists at Penn State University’s Sensory Evaluation Center have discovered that a little heat goes a long way in limiting caloric intake at meal times.Their findings, slated to be published in the October issue of Food Quality and Preference, suggest that the “oral burn” left by spicy foods has a direct bearing on consumption habits, and adding slightly more spice to a meal can lead to eating less.

“We know from previous studies that when people slow down, they eat significantly less,” said Paige Cunningham, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author on the study who earned her doctorate in nutritional sciences from Penn State in 2023.“We suspected that making a meal spicier might slow people down.

“We thought, let’s test, under controlled experimental conditions in the lab, if adding a small amount of spice, but not so much that the meal is inedible, will make people eat slower and therefore eat less.”The research team conducted three experiments in which participants were served one of two meals: beef chili or chicken tikka masala in two versions, mild or spicy.Researchers found that increasing spice levels using dried chili pepper effectively slowed the eating rate and reduced the amount consumed without affecting overall palatability.“This points to added chilies as a potential strategy for reducing the risk of energy overconsumption,” said John Hayes, Penn State professor of food science and corresponding author on the paper.

“While portion control wasn’t the explicit goal of this study, our results suggest this might work.”Hayes noted that an intuitive explanation for the caloric discrepancy would be that spicy eaters drank more water, leading them to “fill up” faster.However, water intake proved consistent, whether participants ate mild or spicy meals.“This is why we need to do empirical studies of behavior, because what you might intuitively expect is often not the case,” he said.

The study ...