Eat chips “without dipping,” say nutritionists

Trying to cut calories? Researchers say skipping this dip can make all the difference.

A new study conducted by researchers at the Penn State Sensory Evaluation Center reveals that combining chips and dip causes people to eat 77 percent more calories faster than eating chips alone. and others, while the number of chips eaten remains the same.

On average, in each eating session, participants ate 345 calories of chips and dip compared to 195 calories of chips alone.

“The most striking finding of our study is that people didn’t eat fewer chips when dip was available—they ate the same amount of chips, plus dip,” John Hayes, author of education and professor of food science at Penn State University, said in a statement. “This lack of comfort means that adding dip to chips can add a lot of energy without people realizing it.”

Logically, many would think that adding something like a dip to a snack would make people eat fewer chips to pay.

“But our research shows that’s not the case with chips and dip. Our participants ate the same amount of chips regardless of whether the dip was present, leading to more energy. strong when it was available,” he added.

Therefore, “using chips without dip may help individuals reduce their overall energy intake from snack foods.”

The study involved 46 adults who ate 70 grams of ranch-flavored chips, the equivalent of about 2.5 servings, with or without a cup of ranch dip during of two separate journeys.

Their intake was measured, and each portion of food was recorded and analyzed based on the number of bites and the time of active eating. The study authors used this data to assess various aspects of eating behavior, such as eating rate and bite size.

Research assistant Madeline Harper suggested that the increased consumption of chips and dip was due to the larger bite sizes made possible by adding dip.

About one in three adults in the United States is overweight and more than two in five are obese, according to the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Penn State’s Sensory Research Center is exploring ways to get Americans to eat more snacks.

Harper noted that the study was novel because there has been little research on whether external sources of oral lubrication, such as dips, affect the oral performance of salty snacks.

“Obviously, it has an impact on food intake, especially when it comes to snacking. However, in these chips-and-dip snacks, high intake results from the inclusion of “The dip may have been helped by a larger snack size, rather than a fast chip. Eating rate,” he said in a statement.

Despite providing nearly one-fourth of most people’s daily calories and being a major source of energy in the average American diet, snacking is still surprisingly rare, Hayes noted.

He stressed that having awareness about the ways to eat food that does not fall is important to solve the problems related to overeating and obesity.

“This research opens up new ways to explore how the physical properties of food can influence our eating behavior and ultimately, our energy. If we can reduce people, we can influence energy consumption without leave the pleasure of the food,” he said. .

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Food and Agriculture Organization supported this research. The full results of the study have been published in a peer-reviewed journal Food Quality and Choice.

Do you have any advice on science fiction that Newsweek should cover? Have a question about snacking or eating? Let us know at science@newsweek.com.