Nutrition News

Original here. (Ellipted for space and relevance)
 


Researchers with the Unilever Food & Health Research Institute examined the effects of gas-filled liquid foods on the appetites of 24 overweight adults.

The study participants received a gas-filled liquid meal or a standard liquid shake, either as a single large serving (1,000 milliliters for the gas-filled liquid, 325 milliliters for the standard liquid), or as two half-servings given two hours apart. The total calorie count from the drinks was the same. Participants reported feelings of hunger and fullness for four hours after drinking the shakes.

The experiment showed that both the full- and half-size gas-filled liquids significantly reduced appetite ratings when compared to the standard liquid meals.

But one might wonder: Could a belly full of gas lead to a big bellyache? Researchers noted "increased reports of gastrointestinal complaints" among those who received the large gas-filled liquid meals.


Let’s break this down. There has been a lot of nutritional research that suggests that eating soup before a meal causes you to eat fewer total calories than if you just ate the meal itself or ate it with a big glass of water. I’m not familiar with the “adding air” experiments.

Unilever makes slim-fast, so that’s almost definitely the “liquid meal” in question. They have somehow turned it into a fizzy lifting drink, which sounds absolutely revolting because I hear “gas in liquid” and immediately think “soda,” but it turns out that the actual mechanism they used is closer to whipped cream. (According to Agence France Presse.) So that’s less gross, but I can’t quite picture it as a drink.  Apparently, soda doesn’t work because the gas isn’t stable enough (i.e. it won’t make you feel full because it’s gone by the time the drink hits your stomach).

Still, even if the whipped slim-fast isn’t completely foul, it’s going to give you a GI incident…which is just as gross. How many of those low appetite ratings actually meant “please don’t make me drink any more of this?”

My take? DIY and see how you feel. Buy a regular diet shake, pour half of it into a pint glass and hit it with an immersion blender. (or pour it into a regular blender, but I think that will take longer to form stable bubbles.)
If you feel befouled, don't do it again.