Dieuwerke Bolhuis, researcher at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, studies our eating behavior. Her latest publication focuses on bread.
‘We knew from previous research that the size of the surface of a product influences how much sauce or toppings you eat with it,’ says Dieuwerke Bolhuis. ‘Sauce and toppings are often high-calorie products. In addition, people eat faster if the food is soft or spread more with, for example, butter or jam. And if you eat faster, you often eat more. All that got me thinking.’
Bolhuis asked participants to come to her lab for breakfast three times. There they were given three different bread products to eat: sandwiches, large or small buns. The toppings that Bolhuis served were always the same: four different types – jam, syrup, egg salad and cream cheese – with comparable calorie densities. ‘They were allowed to choose which topping they wanted to spread on the bread products and they could eat as much as they wanted.’ Bolhuis then looked at how much bread and toppings the test subjects ate for each bread product and also how quickly they finished their breakfast.
More toppings
‘Participants spread 36 percent more toppings on a sandwich compared to a small sandwich. The spreadable surface of a sandwich was approximately three times as large, while the weight of the bread products was almost the same: 36 and 34 grams. This confirms what we already thought; more surface area leads to more toppings.’ Yet at the end of each breakfast (whether they ate sandwiches, small or large sandwiches), the subjects had consumed the same number of grams and calories, but in different proportions of bread versus spreads and different proportions of macronutrients.
The results offer opportunities, says Bolhuis. ‘By changing the form of a food product that is eaten with sauce or toppings, this unconsciously leads to more or less intake of the high-calorie toppings. This allows you to create meals or products with different macronutrient compositions or more or fewer calories.’
Challenge
The ultimate challenge for the future is to create food products with structures that are tasty, but at the same time you don’t eat too much of them. ‘For example, think of a product that you eat slowly, but which remains tasty in the meantime. Many products do not become tastier if you chew them for a long time. Then they become boring.’
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2024-02-28 13:44:02
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