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Big bites lead to freehanded bellies , researchers say , and they might have a solvent : People take smaller bites of food when it ’s accompanied by hard scent , so infusing foods with firm aromas could get hoi polloi to eat less .

We take bigger bites of food we are intimate with and smaller bites of those that ask more chewing . Thosesmall bitesare a good thing , as they actually make your stomach sense fuller quicker , reducing the amount of food for thought eaten and calories take in , the researcher note .

Skinny woman with a whole chicken on her plate stuffing herself with french fries.

Stop exercising, eat as much as you want … and still lose weight? It sounds impossible, but researchers have made it happen in the lab.

Custard contraption

To see how the smell of a nutrient changes bite size , the researchers design an interesting eating gizmo to separate scent from other factors that affect howbig of a biteparticipants take .

Participants were feed vanilla custard through a metro while " vanilla - custard " smells were delivered directly into the back of their nose . They command the amount of custard flow into their mouth by compact a button to quit the flow . The researcher press the custard cup before and after each " bite " to measure its size of it . Participants ate about the amount of a normal - size desert . [ 10 Tips for Sticking to Healthy Portions ]

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The " back of the nose " presentation mimic the fragrance during substantial eating , sound out Rene de Wijk , a fourth-year investigator at the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands : " [ these ] presentation resemble the situation of normal feeding whereby aromas journey from the food in the mouth , " he said . " We can not say whether smells in the room or on the collection plate have the same effect because we have not examine it . "

secure smells

The researchers set up that when food was associated withstrong aromas , even of the pleasant natural ointment flavoring the research worker used , citizenry necessitate smaller bite .

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" Our aroma was a pleasant smelling pick aroma presented at low level of strength , " de Wijk said . " We have not tested other tone , but consider that effects can be expect when the fragrance ' fits ' the food , i.e. , unusual combination may not work . "

The researchers think this is a feedback loop : when a strong olfactory modality is presented in the nose , the participant pare their feeding to reduce the amount of flavour they experienced .

The investigator suggest that infusing food with stronger olfaction could be used to controlportion size : manipulating the odor of intellectual nourishment so that it was more fragrant could result in a 5- to 10 - percent decrease in food for thought intake per pungency . Combining aroma control with portion control condition could take in the body into recollect it was full with a small amount of food , aiding weighting red ink .

a cat making a strange face with its mouth slightly open

" Aromas added at relatively gloomy levels to the solid food may already have the effect , " de Wijk said , though they did n’t canvass directly if the individualsactually ate lessof the custard in the end .

The survey was published today ( March 21 ) in the journal Flavour .

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