Nibbling, Grazing and Frequent Meals

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By Appleton, Ph.D.

Remember your mother saying, "Stop nibbling, you will spoil your appetite." Well, I hate to tell "mom" but nibbling is the best way to eat. I don't mean fast food snacking. I mean eating small portions of healthy foods throughout the day.

It is best to have small portions of protein, fat and complex carbohydrates each time you eat if possible. All of the evidence shows that frequent meals are the most stabilizing method of ingestion of food and drink. Stabilizing means not upsetting your body chemistry, not taking your body out of homeostasis.

Different researchers have looked at different health parameters, but many have come to the same conclusions: nibbling, grazing or small meals is the best way to eat.

An English researcher, Fabry, has shown the stabilizing effect of eating smaller amounts more frequently. He found that if people ate one sixth of their food six times a day rather than one third of their food three times, there would be, when indicated, weight loss, reduction in serum cholesterol and an improvement in the glucose tolerance pattern.1

In another study, seven men ate 2500 calories a day. For one two-week period, they got their food in three ordinary size meals. For the next two weeks, they received the same amount of calories in 17 daily snacks eaten once an hour.

The nibbling diet lowered their cholesterol by 9% and their levels of hazardous low-density lipoproteins cholesterol, or LDL, by 14%, also observed was a decline in insulin by approximately 28%, and the urinary cortisol levels by 17%. These patients did not receive a low cholesterol diet and yet their lipid profile improved.2

and associates researched the effects of grazing on smokers. Grazing was associated with a reduced risk of developing symptomatic peripheral atherosclerosis.3 This does not mean to continue your smoking. If you have recently discontinued smoking, grazing seems like a good way to help your arteries.

Sometimes the researchers related what the people ate and other times they did not relate what they ate. In Dublin, Ireland, when subjects followed normal self-selected diets, but ate snacks all day rather than three meals, there was a favorable effect on lowering plasma cholesterol and raising the HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio.4

Another Benefit To More Frequent Meals Is Reduction In Appetite

From Johannesburg, South Africa, frequent meals reduced appetite by 27%. One group of healthy, overweight men had a large breakfast and nothing to eat for 5 hours. Another group ate the same amount of same food but divided in 5 hourly meals. At lunch of "an all you can eat" meal the men who had 5 hourly meals ate less that the men who just had one large breakfast and the nibblers had much more favorable insulin and blood glucose profiles.5

Scandinavian researchers reported the competitive boxers who tried to lose weight by reducing their calorie intake. But it was mostly lean body mass loss in those who had their ration in two square meals compared with those who had 6 meals a day.6 It certainly seems wise to eat more small meals if you want to loose weight.

When you eat less carbohydrates at one time, you have more glucose and insulin control. Since diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the U.S. as well as the rest of the world, small meals make more sense for carbohydrate control.7

The latest research comes from England. An analysis of 6,890 men and women aged 45-75 years in Norfolk, England, looked at how frequently they ate and measured concentrations of fasting blood lipids. Frequency of eating included meals and snacks. Even though those who ate only once or twice a day reported eating less total energy, fat, protein, and carbohydrate, they had higher total serum cholesterol levels.

Those who ate more often were thinner, more physically active, smoked less, and drank less alcohol.

Even though the authors propose that eating more often was not a marker of a healthy lifestyle, their data support the view that eating once or twice daily is characteristic of those with an unhealthy lifestyle.8

The nibbling message could be one of the don't messages, one of the "It's more important what you don't put into your mouth than what you do." Don't put a lot of food in at the same time - nibble. Remember that you cannot eat 5 or 6 meals each having the same quantity as 3 meals. Also it is important that the food that you nibble on be healthy food. The quality, the quantity and the number of meals are all important.

Appleton, Ph.D. LINK (www.nancyappleton.com) is a clinical nutritionist, researcher, lecturer, and author of Lick The Sugar Habit, Healthy Bones, Heal Yourself With Natural Foods And The Curse Of Louis Pasteur. Her Latest Book Is Lick The Sugar Habit Sugar Counter.