Try rye for a filling breakfast and weight loss

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Dieters are often told to eat a filling breakfast in order to avoid overeating later in the day. The latest addition to that advice is to eat rye bread. The study, from Swedish researchers, found that rye increases the feeling of being full and leads to reduced food intake later in the day (for as long as eight hours) compared to eating wheat bread. The strongest effect was for rye bread made with rye bran.

Satiety -- feeling full -- is of great interest to nutritionists and weight-loss experts. The idea is to avoid eating high-calorie foods that leave you feeling hungry an hour later and instead eat foods that reduce hunger. Breakfast is a good place to start, the authors say. But they note: ‘In the Western world the majority of the whole grain products eaten are based on wheat, while the consumption of oats and especially rye and barley is much lower.’ Rye is consumed more often in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.

‘That rye possibly has superior satiating properties may be due to its high dietary fiber content and possibly fiber composition,’ they wrote. People eating rye bread also had a lower insulin response.

The bread tasted good too, the authors said. ‘The levels of rye used in the breads were based on realistic amounts to create palatable, voluminous bread,’ they wrote.

The study is published in the current issue of the Nutrition Journal.

-- Shari Roan