Application of food texture to moderate oral processing behaviors and energy intake

Background: Many studies have shown that changes in food textures are able to reduce food intake via longer oral processing and slower eating rate, without a resultant decrease in food liking or post-meal fullness. Scope and approach: The current paper consolidates findings from to date and summarizes current knowledge on (i) how specific food textures influence oral processing, and (ii) how oral processing influence eating rate and food intake. An overview is presented of potential food texture based applications for future opportunities to moderate energy intake. Key findings and conclusions: Oral processing characteristics that particularly influence both eating rate and food intake are bite sizes and chewing behaviour. Increasing the hardness and elasticity of solid foods has been shown to increase chews per bite and decrease bite sizes to reduce eating rate and food intake. By contrast, increasing lubrication can stimulate faster eating rates by reducing the chews per bite required to agglomerate a swallowable bolus. The shape and size of foods can be designed to either directly influence the bite sizes or to manipulate surface area and moisture uptake to influence bolus formation and through this, eating rate and food intake. For semi-solid foods, manipulations in viscosity and particle sizes have been shown to affect eating rate and intake. The current evidence supports a new and largely underutilised opportunity to apply texture manipulations together with decreasing energy densities to moderate the flow of calories through our diets and to support better long-term energy intake control.