Are people who eat with chopsticks thinner? Research: It’s true!

The staple food of Asian countries is almost always rice, and the dietary characteristics of Taiwan are also mainly carbohydrates! Interestingly, people in Malaysia and India are used to eating with chopsticks and spoons, while people in Malaysia and India are used to eating with their hands or spoons. But does using different utensils to eat or eat really have an impact on eating? Let’s keep watching.

Among the Southeast Asian countries, Singapore is the most representative. It is mainly composed of three major ethnic groups: Indians, Malays and Indians. Due to the large number of ethnic groups, Singapore often becomes the representative country of the Eastern ethnic groups when discussing Eastern and Western eating habits.

So there's a very interesting study out of Singapore. The researchers recruited 11 healthy subjects (BMI 18.5-24.9kg/m2; blood pressure 110-120/75-85mmHg; age 21-50 years old; fasting blood glucose 72-108mg/dL; no prescription drugs, no smoking, no genetic or metabolic diseases, no dentures, and the subjects can choose to use chopsticks, spoons or hands to eat). They were required to return to the laboratory once on six non-consecutive days to conduct six different experiments, including eating with chopsticks, spoons or hands, and drinking glucose solution three times as a baseline value for comparing the glycemic index (GI). Both rice and glucose were given 50g of carbohydrates.

The experiment will monitor fasting blood sugar before meals, blood sugar response and chewing parameters 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes after meals. Studies have shown that the degree of chewing of food significantly affects blood sugar response, and whether the food is chewed soft or not is related to the amount of food held in different utensils and the chewing time.

The results showed that the total time people who used chopsticks to chew each mouthful of rice (12 seconds) was significantly shorter than that of people who used spoons (20 seconds). Therefore, the chewing rate when eating with chopsticks was significantly faster.

The subjects were provided with the same amount of rice weighing 150 grams. Although each bite was chewed faster when using chopsticks, the amount of each bite was smaller. The subjects took 43 bites to finish the meal (683 seconds, 4 grams per bite), while they only took 20 bites when using a spoon (418 seconds, 8 grams per bite), which is similar to the 17 bites when eating with hands (459 seconds, 9.5 grams per bite). Therefore, eating with chopsticks takes the longest and slowest time!

Studies in Japan have also shown that men who eat faster have a higher risk of developing diabetes, while men who eat slower have a lower risk of developing diabetes.

The GI of rice when eating with chopsticks is 68, which is significantly lower than that of rice when eating with a spoon (81). This can reduce the blood sugar response after a meal. Studies have shown that this may be due to increased secretion of GLP-1 by eating slowly, and can induce a satiety sensation in the hypothalamus, thereby suppressing appetite and controlling weight. Understanding the GI value of food is a good way to control prediabetes, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Therefore, if you like to eat, put down your spoon and pick up chopsticks! Change the GI value of rice to control blood sugar.