The Benefits of Eating Slowly: 5 Reasons Why You Should Try It
Eating slowly and paying attention to your food increases mindfulness. You become aware of your hunger and fullness cues. It becomes much more difficult to overeat when you are present and in the moment.
If your lunch disappears within five minutes (whether you’re trying to hustle back to your work or you simply can’t resist bite after bite of that burrito bowl), you may want to stick a fork in your speed-eating habits.
A 2011 study on the relationship between eating speed and weight found that those in a fast-eating group put on more pounds, on average, than medium and slow eaters over an eight-year period.
The reason for this correlation is fairly simple: It takes the brain about 20 minutes to get the signal from the gut that you’re full. If you eat the entire plate of pasta within five minutes, you’ve likely eaten more than necessary because your brain didn’t register satiety — yet.
Slowing down your bites could make have a wide-ranging impact on your health. Here are 5 ways eating more slowly (taking smaller bites, chewing more, chatting with friends between forkfuls) could improve your physical and mental health.
1. Eating slowly helps you enjoy your food
This reason is just as powerful, in my opinion. It’s hard to enjoy your food if it goes by too quickly. In fact, I think it’s fine to eat sinful foods, if you eat a small amount slowly.
Think about it: you want to eat sinful foods (desserts, fried foods, pizza, etc.) because they taste good. But if you eat them fast, what’s the point? If you eat them slowly, you can get the same amount of great taste, but with less going into your stomach. That’s math that works for me. And that argument aside, I think you are just happier by tasting great food and enjoying it fully, by eating slowly.
Make your meals a gastronomic pleasure, not a thing you do rushed, between stressful events.
2. Eating slowly promotes weight loss
When you take longer to eat, you might find that you learn to stop eating sooner. You might notice that you are full and don’t need that extra bite.
In fact, slower eating is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI). Studies have found that eating slowly improves satiety (the feeling of fullness and satisfaction after a meal).
3. Eating slowly enables better food choices
When you slow your eating pace, you have more time to make more thoughtful food choices. This is good because the more you pay attention to your foods, the more you give yourself the opportunity to select nutritious, healthy foods.
Many empty calorie foods are heavily processed by food manufacturers. They are often high in sodium and added sugar. These foods are carefully designed by food engineers to taste great for the first three or so bites. After a few bites, many people say that their desire for more salt and more sugar increases. Studies have shown that people often eat more when they consume ultra-processed foods.
Natural foods, on the other hand, contain no added sugar or added sodium (unless you add them during meal preparation). They have simple, but delicious tastes and textures. A strawberry starts out with a burst of juice but then stays interesting as you chew. Oranges, nuts, and vegetables are the same.
4. Eating slowly could lead to improved digestion
Eating slowly also helps our digestion. Think of digestion as a chain reaction. As soon as we see, smell, or think about food (step 1), we start salivating to prepare for putting that food in our mouth (step 2). Saliva contains enzymes that break the food down, and moistens the mouth for easier swallowing.
Meanwhile, digestive steps 3, 4, 5 etc. have to get ready to go to work. Our stomachs start to secrete more acid. Our small intestine starts to get ready for some peristalsis. And so forth.
If we rush this process, we force our GI tract to deal with stuff before it’s fully prepared. Surprises are great on birthdays, not so great during digestion.
At the University of Rhode Island, researchers examined how eating speed affected the early stages of digestive processing by observing 60 young adults eat a meal.
- Slow eaters consumed 2 ounces of food per minute.
- Medium-speed eaters consumed 2.5 ounces of food per minute.
- Fast eaters consumed 3.1 ounces per minute. They also took larger bites and chewed less before swallowing.
This means that not only are fast eaters putting more food down in a given amount of time, that food isn’t as well-processed. Food is essentially landing in fast eaters’ stomachs in big ol’ lumps.
Digestion starts in the mouth, so large bites that are inadequately chewed will be more difficult for your stomach to turn into chyme — the liquid mix of partially digested food, hydrochloric acid, digestive enzymes, and water that passes through the pyloric valve on its way to elimination.
Food that isn’t properly broken down into chyme can lead to indigestion and other potential GI problems. And who wants that?
5. A slower meal may improve your mental health
A mindful meal can give you a break from the rest of your busy workday and help you reset. Even better? Share your lunch break with coworkers or sit down with the family for dinner. Setting down your fork between bites and chatting can help you feel connected to others, an important component to emotional well-being.
The value of slow food
We’re a rushed, distracted, and too-busy society. We rarely take the time to savor our food… or sometimes even to chew it properly.
We rush our food no matter who we are. Even if you’re a nutrition coach with many nutrition certifications. Like me.
For years, I wanted to gain weight. Eating quickly helped me do that. Shoveling down the food meant that I could sneak in a lot of extra calories before my stomach realized what was going on.
But now I’m older and simply trying to maintain my weight. I have to learn to eat more slowly again. It’s not always easy. But my wife and my waistline both appreciate it when I do.
And as I counsel my clients, learning to eat more slowly is one of the simplest yet most powerful things you can do to improve your overall health.
Tips to help you chew and eat slowly
When you have a hectic schedule, it can be tricky to find the time to chew and eat at a slower pace. Try these tips to help you slow down and enjoy not only your meal but also the health benefits that come with a slower approach.
- Avoid distractions like TV and phones so you can focus on your meal
- Sit down when you eat — this helps you relax as well as digest
- Put down your fork between bites
- Set a goal of chewing so many times before swallowing
- Eat at designated times and allow yourself at least 20–30 minutes
- Keep in mind that fresh fruit and veggies are high in fiber so they take more time to chew (hint, hint)
When you chew your food and eat slowly, you don’t just eat and stress less while enjoying your food more, but you also improve your overall health from head to toe.
