RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—According to breaking research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the "sweet smell of success" for dieters who want better appetite control may actually be what food scientists refer to as "retronasal aroma release"—a food property that can trigger feelings of fullness and actually prompt you to stop eating.
THE DETAILS: Researchers from NIZO, a contract research company located in Ede, Netherlands, work for food, beverage, and ingredients companies all over the world. A NIZO team led by lead study author Rianne Ruijschop, PhD, a food technologist specializing in flavor-texture–related health, studied the possibility of using aroma as a trigger for inducing or increasing satiation (fullness). While their research methods are confidential, their findings are not—and what they found was, in its own way, both fascinating and delicious: They demonstrated that certain aromas that flow from the mouth to the throat (via swallowing) to the nose as you consume food and beverages (called "retronasal aroma release") accelerate the feeling of satiety and can even precipitate the end of a meal.
Read on to find out how to take advantage of satiating smells.
WHAT IT MEANS: Aroma can obviously enhance hunger (think burgers on a grill), but as it travels through your body via retronasal aroma release, it can also end hunger. "The same aroma can trigger both satiation and hunger, depending on the way it's engineered to release flavors and aromas,” explains Ruijschop. "Food scientists have the tools to fine-tune flavor release so that it either enhances satiation or oppositely, enhances hunger. The same flavor can thus be engineered in both ways," potentially helping, for instance, to curb the rise in obesity or, by contrast, to help elderly people to gain weight who, because they have sensory impairments, otherwise run the risk of suffering from malnutrition.
Until foods engineered for fullness hit the market, here's how to hasten that feeling yourself:
• Take smaller bites. "Taking smaller bites and/or simply chewing more may prolong the amount of time the satiation-enhancing odors have to take effect,” says Ruijschop.
"They're strategies that may enhance retronasal aroma release and, thereby, satiation."
• Choose foods with complex aromas, as opposed to simple aromas. The former are inherently more filling. "Classic examples of this range are mature/aged cheese (complex) versus young cheese (simple)," says Ruijschop, "or a more expensive wine (rich, complex flavor bouquet) versus a cheap wine (quite bland and simple), or a ripened fruit (complex) versus an unripened fruit (simple)."
• Eat solids. Solid foods that required chewing give aromas more time to take effect than liquid foods. "Strictly from a sensory point of view, it is better that the texture properties of a food or beverage are more solid than liquid, to enhance satiation," says Ruijschop.