What do you know about being dense?

 ‘ A calorie is a calorie’ – right?  Right – just like a pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of coal.  

However, a pound of coal takes up very little space but a pound of feathers covers a vast area.  Basic physics – you learnt it at school – coal is denser than feathers.  

And did you know – the same applies to food 

1 tablespoon peanut butter – nearly 100 calories

Or you could add a serving (half a tin ) of tuna or a boiled egg to a bowl of salad leaves and come out with roughly the same number of calories 

Or add in some baby sweetcorn – just a 100 calories in this lot    

Or mange tout?  All these for less than 50 calories ! 

 Both are great eaten raw – easy to snack on.  

Or this whopping serving of broccoli for 150 calories        

The salad and any of  these veg will take you longer to eat and leave you feeling fuller – its all about density.

So – a great way to think about your food is to consider the density of what’s on your plate.  

Low density foods are vegetables, bananas, grapes and grains, medium density are lean meat and starchy foods and very dense foods are red meat , desserts and biscuits.  Food stuffs to eat less of are those that pack lots of calories into a small space (and increase your blood sugar rapidly) .  No food group is bad, just watch your density.

Want to eat more than just salads?  No problem – how about Butternut soup?  

Just take a butternut squash, an onion and a sweet potato, boil in some chicken stock and add curry powder to taste.  Blitz it through and you’re done.

Have an apple if you’re feeling peckish – that takes up space in your stomach. 10 white grapes are just 20 calories.  

Just think about foods that fill a gap – not about foods that are dense and crammed full of calories and have barely an impact on your empty stomach!