Do you always eat? This is what you can do about it
Everybody nibbles on a delicious piece of chocolate, a few chips or a delicious cream cake. There is nothing wrong with that. But don’t you know how to stop, and do you usually immediately get a whole box or bar inside? Maybe you should put more bitters on the menu.
Overeating ensures that your digestion is less smooth. And if you start day after day with unhealthy snacks that contain a lot of refined carbohydrates, such as cereal bars or cookies, even if they are supposedly ‘healthy’ cookies, your blood sugar will become unstable.
If you suffer from overeating, binge eating, yawning, hunger or a fluctuating or too high blood sugar, a bitter taste is often the missing link. Recent scientific research has shown that bitters stimulate enteroendocrine cells via the bitter taste receptors.
These are cells that are located in the wall of your gastrointestinal system and secrete hormones. If you stimulate those cells (and therefore use bitters before or during your meal), certain hormones that influence your hunger and satiety will be regulated.
At the end of the ride, you will have received fewer calories. After all, you are saturated faster and eat less. A study from Naples that divided people into two groups – one group took bitters, the other did not – and for a ‘so much you can’ buffet,
As if that was not enough, your body will also be able to process carbohydrates more easily through the same process. If you taste bitter, it prevents your blood sugar from peaking after a meal. Professor Cedrick Dotson conducted extensive research into the bitter taste receptors at the University of Florida and found that people who regularly taste bitterly have more stable blood sugar. That’s because bitters help to remove sugars from the blood and store them in your liver and muscles.
Your insulin sensitivity increases due to the bitter taste, and that is a good thing. Stimulating the bitter receptors could even be a possible solution for metabolic syndrome, according to Professor Dotson, a metabolic disorder characterized by a disturbed cholesterol and blood sugar level and excess weight.
And that is not a bad thing, since that syndrome affects an average of forty percent of our Western population and increases the risk of having a heart attack or stroke by as much as a factor of sixteen. Currently, Dotson is investigating whether bitters could be a cure for type 2 diabetes.
The lack of bitterness is probably also a major cause that so many people overeat and suffer from the processing of carbohydrates. Do you no longer want to end up in the vicious circle and do you want to avoid the fatigue associated with such a post-to-much-carbohydrate coma? Then a teaspoon of bitters before (and possibly after) every meal can help you.
Gradually, bitter vegetables such as endive, green chicory, radicchio and chicory, but also rocket, broccoli, kale, sprouts, artichoke and asparagus and herbs such as chamomile, lavender, dandelion, sage, rosemary and verbena in your dishes processing are the solution. Orange juice also contains bitters.
