Slow down

EXPERTS in the Netherlands and Japan have linked fast eating with weight gain.

Researchers at Wageningen University in Holland concluded that volunteers ate more pasta far quicker when it was soft and not al dente.

Receptors in the stomach which respond to being stretched by food, and hormones which tell the brain that partially­digested food has reached the small intestine, take between 15 to 20 minutes to activate.

Fast eating delays this process, as another study of more than 3,000 men and women in Japan confirmed. Those who ate quickly, continued until they felt full, were three times more likely to be overweight than those who ate slowly, investigators said.