Want to cure that snack habit? Eat more protein as too little makes you hungry

Too little protein in your diet makes you feel hungry and reach for fattening snacks, an international study shows. Eating more than the average amount of foods such as meat, fish, eggs and nuts can stop you gaining two pounds a month. Researchers found that those whose meals were ten per cent protein consumed 260 more calories a day than those on 15 per cent protein. 

 Not only did they eat more but 70 per cent of the extra calories they ate were between snacks between meals rather than at mealtimes. Raising consumption to 25 per cent – as advocated by the Atkins Diet – was no extra help in halting over-eating.

An average British adult eats around 12 per cent protein, but for many people this has gone down as a result of diluting their protein intake with lots of carbohydrates from processed foods.

The researchers from Cambridge University and the University of Sydney recruited 22 volunteer, all of a healthy weight and aged between 18 and 51, to live and eat in a science facility.

While the foods looked the same, they had different protein levels. Typical meals were a savoury muffin for breakfast, and tuna bake with salad for lunch and beef pasty or spaghetti bolognaise with vegetables and a dessert for dinner. 

The amount of fat remained constant at 30 per cent of the total calories in a meal but the carbohydrate was adjusted to either 45, 50 or 60 per cent of the meal. 

Volunteers all took the same amount of exercise – a one-hour supervised walk per day – and did the same activities to avoid them eating out of boredom or stress. People who consumed ten per cent protein a day ate on average an extra 1,036 calories over a four-day period compared with those who ate a 15 per cent protein diet. 

Over a year that would be enough to gain two stone. Each was asked to rate how hungry they felt at one-hour intervals and those who ate 15 per cent protein felt fuller two hours after a meal than those on the 10 per cent protein diet while at 25 per cent the difference was no higher.

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