Satiety Index
The satiety index is a ranking of how filling different foods are, built by serving people equal amounts of energy from each and asking them how full they feel over the following two hours. It was produced by Susanne Holt and colleagues in 1995. The headline finding is that two plates holding the same energy can leave a person feeling very differently, and that protein, fibre and water content track with fullness while fat tracks against it. The limits are as important as the finding, and this entry is not advice about what to eat.
What it is
Susanne Holt and colleagues published "A satiety index of common foods" in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1995. They tested thirty-eight common foods, matched for energy content, and recorded fullness ratings over two hours. Holt is first author.
The design is what gives the result its interest. Holding energy constant removes the obvious explanation for why one plate satisfies and another does not, which leaves composition as the candidate. The differences between foods were large.
In effect
The usable reading is a description of how appetite works rather than a shopping list. Composition matters to how full a given amount of energy leaves you, and that is a fact about the system rather than a rule for a person.
The limits are built into this entry deliberately. It is a single laboratory, with small numbers of people per food, and it measures ratings rather than intake. Feeling full is not the same as eating less later, and self-rated appetite measures carry the general problems of self-report. The result has not been independently reproduced at anything like the scale that would license a ranking treated as settled.
Two neighbouring ideas keep it in proportion. Gastric stretch is the volume half of fullness against this composition half, and expected satiation is the learned belief about how filling something will be, which is a different measurement from the rated one.
What it does not say
It does not say how much anyone should eat, or what. This publication does not turn the index into a ranking table for readers and does not attach it to dietary advice, with no calorie figures, no targets and no substitutions.
It does not say that fuller means less eaten. Intake was not measured, and the gap between a rating and a behaviour is exactly where this kind of finding usually fails.
It does not establish a ranking that holds generally. One laboratory, small per-food samples, and thirty-eight foods is a starting point rather than a settled ordering.
It does not bear on anyone's own situation, and questions about eating and health belong with a clinician.
Sources
- Holt, S. H. A., Miller, J. C. B., Petocz, P., & Farmakalidis, E. (1995). "A satiety index of common foods." European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 49(9), 675-690. Thirty-eight foods matched for energy, fullness rated over two hours. Abstract and reported design only. Single laboratory, small per-food samples, ratings rather than intake.
- Evidence status: mixed. The design is sound and the evidence base is thin.