The Satiety Index ranks foods according to how filling they are for a set number of calories.
Weight-loss is most effectively and easily achieved when we eat foods which are more filling for less calories.
This is the basic principle behind nearly all of the popular diet crazes.
However, all of these diets have only grasped part of what makes individual foods more or less filling/fattening and they do not give a complete enough guide for evaluating and comparing accurately individual foods, according to their fattening potential.
You can read more about The Satiety Index in my other posts.
From the data and analysis of the data from the Satiety Index, I have compiled a list of snack foods, in order of effectiveness, from most to least filling.
Some of the choices are not good choices, but I’ve put them in the list for you to see how each snack food option compares to the other options, which may be available or which you may fancy at the time.
1) Soup (My favourites are Cup-A-Soups; Cream of Vegetables With Croutons and Cream of Mushroom With Croutons – quick to make and very tasty!)
2.) Oranges (because fruit is low in calories – you can eat as manyhigh soluble fibre fruits as it takes to satisfy you and FILL YOU UP!!)
3.) Apples
4) Popcorn
5) Egg on toast with reduced- fat butter or low- fat cheese spread and baked beans.
6) Egg on toast with reduced fat butter.
7) Cheese sandwich on whole-meal bread with low fat spread.
8) Fish-finger sandwich with ketchup (no butter)
9) Hummus with french bread or wholemeal bread toast.
9 (again) Sugar Puffs (HoneySmacks) with fresh berries.
10) Honey Smacks
11.) Custard with fresh fruit (not bananas though!)
11.) Custard with tinned fruit in juice.
10) Cookies (!)
11) Bananas
12) Cornflakes
13.) Low- Sugar Jelly and Reduced-Fat Ice-Cream
14) Jelly Beans
14) Reduced- Fat Ice Cream
18) Yogurt – low sugar preferably.
the following are not good snack choices, but I’ve put them in the list to show how they rank compared to other snack choices and how even the worst choices rank compared to each other.
19) Peanuts
20) Mars Bar
21) Doughnuts
22) Cake
23) Croissant
SUPER SOUP!!!
Although the Satiety Index has not given a ranking to soups; from my own experience, the absolute best snack for filling you up for the fewest calories and reducing further sugar/sweet cravings is soup.
My quick and easy favourite soup snack is cup-a-soup, ‘Cream of Mushroom, With Croutons’ and ‘Cream of Chicken and Vegetables With Croutons’.
Although they aren’t top of the list for perfect pure ingredients, I like them because they are nice on their own, without the need for bread and butter, which can ruin the low calorie-ness of a soup snack.
Also, I find them quite delicious and ready to eat in the time it takes to boil a kettle.
And truly – I find these to be the absolute best snack option for taking away cravings.
Research which Supports The Effectiveness Of Soup As A Low Calorie Snack to Fill You Up!
In a yearlong study of overweight people on a reduced-calorie diet;
- snacking on soup each day led to more weight loss than snacking on a calorie-equivalent amount of energy-dense snack foods.
The key difference: even though the soup and the high-energy snack had the same number of calories, the soup took up more space in people’s bellies. Thus, the soup eaters felt less hungry later and ate less over the course of the day.
In another study of overweight and obese people, those who ate two servings of low-energy dense soup per day as part of a reduced-calorie diet, lost an average of almost 16 pounds over the year long study period.
The people who ate two servings of high-energy dense snack foods per day lost an average of just over 10.5 pounds — 35 percent less weight-loss than the soup-snacking group .
If you find that the non-sweet snack choices listed above don’t kill off the craving and you absolutely must have something sweet.
Some fruit would obviously be your best bet. Sweet popcorn would be your next best bet, ( due to it’s volume which makes you feel fuller).
However, if you really don’t fancy that; make sure that you choose something sweet and low fat. Most of the sweet food options are low in protein and fibre, so the best way to limit the damage would be to choose sweet foods which are lower in fat, such as low fat ice-cream, rather than a chocolate bar, honey- smacks (sugar puffs) rather than a chocolate brownie etc.
Although you do have to be careful that low-fat versions of foods have not had so much compensatory sugar added that the energy density is actually more or the same than the full fat version.
You can check and compare the energy densities of different foods by comparing the number of calories per 100g .
Also, surprisingly, dry foods are more satiating than wet foods, so cookies are actually superior in their filling potential than a bowl of cornflakes!
I would also recommend highly, though not included in the Satiety Index ranking, but from experience, low- fat and sugar chocolate – flavoured hot drinks.
These will often satisfy cravings for something sweet at the end of a meal or before bed, without contributing much in the way of calories.
But the absolute best way to fight off cravings for sweet and fatty foods is to;
- eat filling meals in the first place!!
This will save you many many calories, as filling meals will satisfy you and fill you up for fewer calories than will most of the snack food options.
If you fill up on lower calorie, more filling meals, you will reduce the occurrence of cravings for sweet and fatty foods between meals.
Tips For Making Meals More Filling and Satisfying (and Reducing Between-Meal Cravings For Snacks) For Fewer Calories:
1) Include as many vegetables as you can creatively incorporate into your meal.
2) Serve meals with a salad
3) Absolute top of the tree (for ‘fillingness’), are potatoes (make quick and easy low- fat chips, using an Actifry).
4) Try to eat fish frequently – it is the most filling protein.
5) Always try to include protein foods in meals, as they are more filling than most carbohydrate foods, apart from potatoes.
In order of ‘fillingness’; fish, beef, baked beans, eggs, cheese.
6) Reduce the amount of added fat; use lower fat spreads, sauté vegetables in water rather than frying them, where possible, use lower fat cheeses, use reduced fat minces etc.
You can find more tips on how to reduce the fat content of meals and snacks in my post; ‘ Ten Ways To Reduce The Fat Content Of Your Diet’.
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