Sweet…
Dark chocolate can help you eat less by curbing your cravings for sugary, fatty, or salty foods, say researchers from the University of Copenhagen.
Their study set out to find whether eating milk or dark chocolate had any effect on hunger levels and on the amount of food eaten. Sixteen men were enrolled in the test. They had to fast for 12 hours and then they were offered 100 grams of either dark or milk chocolate; the kilojoule content of both sorts of chocolate was the same.
The men had to describe their level of hunger and what sort of food they were craving every 30 minutes for five hours afterwards. Finally, they were given pizza, and told to eat as much as they liked, until they felt full. The results showed that those men who had eaten the dark chocolate were less likely to experience either hunger or cravings for specific foods and, when they did eat the pizza, their kilojoule consumption was 15 per cent lower. The milk chocolate group did not demonstrate this effect at all. The jury is out on exactly why this happens, but it’s possible that dark chocolate’s more bitter taste controls hunger pangs; another reason is that the cocoa butter in dark chocolate may help you to feel satisfied and full for longer.
… and sour.
Turns out that vinegar – a pantry staple and a time-honoured folk remedy for everything from arthritis to dandruff – might hold the key to lasting weight loss. A Japanese study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry presents intriguing evidence that vinegar may help slow or even prevent weight gain.
In the study, laboratory mice were fed a high-fat diet combined with acetic acid, which is the main component of vinegar. The results indicated that they developed far less body fat than mice that did not eat the acetic acid – a remarkable 10 per cent less, in fact. How does it work? The researchers speculate that the acetic acid activates two particular types of genes, those which produce proteins required for breaking down dietary fats, and also those which affect fatty acid oxidation and increase fat-burning by the liver. Together, they work to suppress body fat accumulation. Acetic acid is also thought to have a regulatory effect on blood sugar levels, with a previous study, reported in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showing that dieters had fewer cravings and did not experience blood sugar ‘spikes’ after eating food that contained vinegar.
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