Craving Carbs on an Empty Stomach

Craving Carbs on an Empty Stomach

A new study shows that people who sit down to eat after an overnight fast are more likely to ignore protein, fats and vegetables and head straight for high-calorie carbohydrates and starches first.

Researchers have discovered that you are more likely to crave bread and other carbohydrates when you are hungry.

Have a habit of skipping meals? A new study shows that people who sit down to eat after an overnight fast are more likely to ignore protein, fats and vegetables and head straight for high-calorie carbohydrates and starches first.

The news may not come as a surprise to long-term dieters, or anyone used to bingeing on pasta or potato chips on an empty stomach. But the study also revealed some telling details about food choices and the order in which we eat different kinds of foods. When given the opportunity to eat a salad and a plate of French fries, for example, people who started with the starchy food downed significantly more calories per meal than those who did the reverse.

The findings have implications for people who regularly miss meals, whether because of hectic schedules or for the deliberate purpose of losing weight. Nationwide, about 15 percent of adults say they have fasted to slim down, and a number of popular diets encourage intermittent fasting.

“I think this emphasizes the importance of controlling your environment as far as the types of foods you’re exposed to when you’re hungry and how much of them you can get,” said Aner Tal, a postdoctoral research associate in the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell and lead author of the study, published in Archives of Internal Medicine. “Because otherwise, you will mindlessly choose foods that are less healthy for you.”

Over the course of 12 weekday lunches, the researchers studied the students as they arrived at the lunch table. The subjects had their pick of starches, including dinner rolls and fries, as well as vegetables, beverages and proteins like chicken and cheese. To prevent the foods’ placement from influencing the results, the researchers rearranged the items at each meal. They also measured the amounts the subjects served themselves, using scales embedded in the tables.

Those in the group that had fasted, it turned out, were more likely to begin their meals with starches, eating the bread or French fries before anything else about a third of the time, compared with just over 10 percent of the time with the control group. Those who fasted were also less likely to eat vegetables first. Only a quarter of them did so, compared with about half of the people in the control group.

“Importantly,” the researchers wrote, “starting their meal with a particular food led all participants to consume 46.7 percent more calories of it” compared with other foods. They also found that people who chose not to eat the vegetables first consumed about 20 percent less of them. Those who went straight for the starches ultimately ate about 20 percent more calories over all than their peers.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/category/eat-well/weigh-in/