Want to eat less without feeling hungry?
Try adding a little spice to your next meal. A new study from Penn State University suggests that adding chili peppers to food might help people slow down while eating—and end up eating fewer calories.
The research, published in Food Quality and Preference, looked at how spiciness affects eating habits.
Led by Dr. Paige Cunningham, a nutrition scientist at Penn State, the team found that meals with a bit more “oral burn”—that’s the hot, tingling feeling you get from chili—made people eat more slowly and consume less food overall.
“We already know that when people slow down during meals, they usually eat less,” said Cunningham.
“We wanted to see if adding a little spice—just enough to feel the heat but still enjoy the meal—would naturally help people eat slower.”
To find out, the researchers ran three experiments involving 130 adults. Participants were served lunch—either beef chili or chicken tikka masala—in both mild and spicy versions. To keep the flavor the same and only change the heat level, the team adjusted the mix of hot and sweet paprika in the recipes.
While participants ate, they were recorded on video so researchers could measure how quickly they ate, how many bites they took, how big those bites were, how much water they drank, and how much they liked the food.
The results showed that the spicy meals didn’t reduce how much people enjoyed the food, but they did slow down their eating. And slower eating often means the food stays in the mouth longer, which helps the brain recognize fullness sooner. As a result, participants ate less without feeling less satisfied.
Importantly, the study found that drinking more water during the spicy meal wasn’t the reason for eating less—water intake stayed about the same for both spicy and mild versions. People also reported feeling just as full after eating the spicier meals.
“These kinds of results are exactly why it’s important to test ideas in real studies,” said Professor John Hayes, a food scientist and co-author on the paper. “What seems obvious isn’t always true. It turns out that spicy food may actually help people eat less without even trying.”
The team now plans to study whether adding spice might also help reduce snacking. In the meantime, if you’re looking to cut back on calories, throwing in a bit of chili might just be a tasty and easy way to do it.
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