An American study revealed that adding a touch of spicy seasonings to meals is an effective way to reduce the amount of food a person consumes, thereby limiting calorie intake.

According to the study conducted by a research team from the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found that chili peppers and similar spices affect the quantity of food an individual eats at each meal.

The study, published in the scientific journal “Food Quality and Preference,” specializing in food sciences, confirmed that seasoned meals cause people to reduce the amount of food and calories they consume.

Researcher Peg Cunningham, head of the study team, said: “We know that when a person eats slowly, they consume less food,” adding in statements to the scientific research website “SciTech Daily”: “We believe that spicy meals make people eat more slowly and we conducted a scientific experiment to verify this hypothesis.”

The experiment involved serving meals seasoned with varying levels of chili pepper to a group of volunteers and measuring the amount of food each volunteer consumed while maintaining the overall taste of the meal. The experiment showed that increasing the amount of spicy seasoning affected the speed of eating and reduced the amount of food and calories consumed by each volunteer.

Cunningham explained that participants ate spicy food at a slower pace, meaning they kept the food in their mouths longer, which helps create a feeling of fullness and satiety, leading them to eat smaller amounts of food.

Researcher John Hayes, a nutrition science professor and participant in the study, confirmed that these results “indicate the possibility of using chili peppers as a strategy to reduce the problem of overeating.”