Find your tummy grumbling just an hour or two after a main meal? Here are five foods that might be worth including in your diet to keep the hunger pangs at bay. By Nutritionist and GoodnessMe Box Health Editor Melissa Fine.
1. Soup
A bowl or cup of soup is a great way to begin a meal. Along with its liquid content, if you go for a veggie soup then you’ll get a good dose of filling, slow-to-digest fibre. If you’re trying to lose a few sneaky kilos, soup can make a great weight loss food, with broth-based veggie soups being low in kilojoules while also helping control your appetite.
If you tend too eat too quickly (a recipe for overeating), a cup of steaming soup also encourages you to slow down. The GMB team have been sipping (and slurping!) on Hart & Soul’s Green Curry Soup; an all-natural soup kit, this comes with rice noodles, green curry paste, coconut cream and real herbs. Make a meal of it and top it with some organic firm tofu for some protein.
2. Salad
If I see a dinner plate with protein and some rice/bread/noodles, I always think something’s missing. Don’t forget to add the salad, peeps! A tip that may be worth sharing with the meat-and-potatoes men in our lives.
Apart from being loaded with filling fibre, water and other nutrients, the varied textures of salad veggies encourage us to chew, so we slow down and give the brain time to register that we’re full. The more colour in your salad the better, and the tastier it will be, too! A much healthier way to add bulk to your meal than French fries.
3. Thick-Strained Yoghurt
Love your muesli and yoghurt every morning but find yourself reaching for a snack an hour later? It might be worth switching your yoghurt; most yoghurts only contain around 3-5g of protein per 100g, which isn’t enough to keep you full all morning.
Thick-strained yoghurt is a better option to start your day with, with 100g (1/2 a single serve container) providing around 10g of protein – a much more substantial breakfast base to keep you going for several hours.
4. Animal Protein
Whether a piece of steak, salmon or grilled chicken is your thing, there’s nothing quite as satiating as animal protein, something I’ve noticed since reintroducing meat into my diet. A colourful salad topped with tender grilled chicken breast for example will probably keep you going for much longer than a salad topped with a sprinkle of cheese. I find I’m less likely to need an afternoon snack if I have meat or chicken at lunchtime…see if the same goes for you.
5. Uncooked Oats
My favourite breakfast food, traditional uncooked oats help keep you full, largely thanks to their ‘resistant starch’ content. Resistant starch resists digestion in the stomach and small intestine, and so is still intact (in its whole form) by the time it gets to the end of your digestive tract at the colon. This means that after you eat raw oats, you’re unlikely to have a blood sugar spike, as the sugars in resistant starch don’t enter the bloodstream (and so won’t impact your blood sugar).
Unfortunately the same doesn’t go for porridge, as when you cook oats, the resistant starch content reduces. Haven’t eaten uncooked oats before? Here’s how you can enjoy them:
- Blend a couple dessertspoons of uncooked oats into your smoothie; this will make it nice and thick and almost doughy in texture…great in a banana smoothie.
- Add a couple dessertspoons to a breakfast bowl with a splash of milk alongside some thick-strained yoghurt, your favourite sliced fruit (I like strawberries or banana) and a dessertspoon of almond butter…my go-to breakkie for busy mornings!