A Satiety Index of Common Foods

Satiety, (defined as) the satisfied feeling of being full after eating.

I grabbed the above 15 foods (primarily carbohydrate with a few protein sources) from a study where researchers fed isoenergetic quantities (240 kcal) servings of 38 different common foods and then a satiety index score was calculated from each food. It is important to point out that White Bread (Satiety Index rating of 100) was used as the control. It's important to point out this was limited to 38 foods tested so this representation is not particularly exhaustive.

I speak frequently about Intelligent food selection and how you can represent an amount of calories in various volumes, nutrient densities, and satiety.

Satiety, and hunger/fullness cues are often too tightly coupled solely with caloric representation. While total caloric availability is a driver of satiety it is not the only driver.

Intelligent food selection can make a break a dieting period. From the image above you can see that during period of deficit when carbohydrate is likely to become sparse, boiled potatoes are arguably the best choice for a starchy carbohydrate. Conversely, during times of caloric surplus when available calories are in abundance, boiled potatoes may *not* be as great a choice simply because of how full you will get.

So when it comes to dieting, being strategic by selecting more foods with higher satiety index scores allows you to more easily adhere to your deficit while achieving higher satiation.

If you want more high-quality, nutrient-dense food selection sources for improving your own nutrition you want to download yourself a copy of my free nutrition e-book, Objective Eating.