Satiety, or a feeling of fullness after eating, holds an important place in both weight management and blood glucose level management for people with diabetes. For instance, we should feel full after eating a meal or snack. The body has a series of mechanisms that occur as we eat. The hypothalamus, a tiny area in our brains, regulates both our desire to eat and to stop eating. And there is a temperature component: When we eat, our body temperature increases, and we start to reduce the amount of food we’re eating.
Taking a deeper dive into our body’s mechanisms that relate to hunger versus satiety, foods that will be highly satisfying – and also filling – include:
- Foods high in fiber, low in energy (calories), high in protein and high in volume (large portion size but low in calories).
- Taste, smell and texture also play a role in level of satiety. For instance, the chewier a food – or the more chewing required – the greater feeling of satiety it offers.
Higher fiber foods add bulk to your diet, which helps increase satiety, as well as prolong that full feeling longer than other foods. For people with diabetes, higher fiber foods serve as an added benefit by helping slow down the absorption of carbohydrates. Foods that contain protein have been shown to increase satiety due to changing the levels of some satiety hormones.
Almonds vs. Crackers
A recent study published in Nutrients compared snacking between breakfast and lunch on a small serving of raw almonds versus a comparable serving of savory crackers. Essentially the study found that participants who snacked on almonds before lunch exhibited overall lower hunger, a less subconscious desire to consume other high-fat foods and ate fewer calories at lunch. And, of course, from my view as a diabetes care and education specialist and a person with diabetes, for diabetes management, the almonds contained only about one-quarter the carbohydrates of the crackers.
For example, my individualized snack, had I been a participant, would have been about 2 ounces of the snacks with 18 grams carbohydrate (crackers) or less than 5 grams carbohydrate (almonds). This is good news for people with diabetes. Consuming almonds as a snack versus crackers can reduce blood sugar rises due to the makeup of nuts, which are a lower-carb, high-fiber food choice.
Avocado
Hungry for more foods that can offer you satiety? A randomized crossover study involving healthy overweight participants looked at the effects on satiety, insulin levels and blood sugar response when one half of an avocado was added to the lunch meal. The results were positive just like the almond study. Avocado, which is high in fiber and low in carbohydrate, meets the profile of foods that will likely offer satiety.
Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate is also on the list of satiety boosters. We are talking dark chocolate as in over 85% cacao – yes, the bitter chocolate, not the Halloween candy. Bitterness has been shown to reduce appetite and offer the feeling of fullness attributed to the stearic acid in the dark chocolate. There’s also evidence that even smelling dark chocolate can elicit satiety. Yes please, but you will want to make sure to include the 1-ounce serving in your carbohydrate allotment.
Decaf Coffee
Choose coffee, preferably decaf, as your beverage when you are feeling a hunger pang. There have been several studies showing a decrease in hunger and increase in satiety levels for a three-hour period after a cup of decaf was consumed. How did this happen? The research showed there was an elevation in a gut hormone that resulted in satiety.
It’s important to me that the characteristics of foods that help us feel fuller (satiety) also fall into the category of healthy food choices for people with diabetes. It’s a win win. Foods that are high in fiber and contain a combination of complex carbohydrate, lean protein and healthy fat, will help balance blood sugar and make us feel fuller longer. Plus, a winter snack of almonds, dark chocolate and coffee sounds pretty tempting.
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