LONDON (AP) — You can have your cake and eat it too — just do it slowly.
Experts tend to focus on the kinds of foods you can eat to improve your health. But the speed at which you devour your dinner matters just as much. There are risks with eating too fast — think stuck food and the potential to overeat before your brain tells you to stop. (Inhaling your food also risks annoying your slower-paced dining companions or the person who took the time to cook your meal.)
Here are some tips from scientists on how to slow down and take a more mindful approach to consuming your diet.
If you’re the kind of person who can regularly polish off breakfast, lunch or dinner in less than 20-30 minutes, you are eating too fast.
“It takes about 20 minutes for the stomach to communicate to the brain via a whole host of hormonal signals that it’s full,” said Leslie Heinberg, at the Center for Behavioral Health at the Cleveland Clinic. “So when people eat rapidly, they can miss these signals and it’s very easy to eat beyond the point of fullness.”
People who eat quickly are likely to swallow more air, Heinberg said, which could lead to bloating or indigestion. Not chewing your food properly can also compromise digestion, meaning you won’t get all of the nutrients from your food. Unchewed pieces of food also could get stuck in your esophagus.
Some previous studies have suggested that people who eat quickly have the highest risk of obesity, while the slowest eaters were the least likely to be obese.
For starters, turn off the TV and put down your phone.
“If you’re eating while you watch TV, people tend to eat until there’s a commercial or the show is over,” Heinberg said, adding that people are less inclined to pay attention to the body’s own signals that it’s full. “When we do things while we’re eating, we’re eating less mindfully. And that often causes us to eat more.”
She said that when people focus exclusively on eating, they tend to enjoy the meal more and eat less.
Heinberg also acknowledged the pace at which you eat is often an ingrained habit, but said change is still possible. She suggested things like using your non-dominant hand to eat, trying utensils you might not ordinarily use like chopsticks or taking a deliberate break to drink water when your plate is partially empty.
If you have a busy life, it might be unavoidable to eat lunch at a work meeting or snack while running errands. But Sarah Berry, chief scientist at the British nutritional company ZOE, said when possible, “be mindful of what the food tastes and feels like.”
“If we’re not fully present, it’s very easy to eat more quickly and not notice how much we’ve consumed," Berry said.
One of the simplest things to do is to increase the number of bites you take, said Helen McCarthy, a clinical psychologist with the British Psychological Society.
“If you chew each mouthful a little bit longer, that will slow down your eating,” she said.
The kind of food you eat may also make a difference, pointing out that it’s much easier to eat ultraprocessed or fast foods quicker, because they typically have a softer texture.
“It’s hard to eat vegetables and protein at the same rate as something that’s highly processed and requires less chewing," McCarthy said.
Some of her patients also reported an unintentional side effect once they began eating more slowly, referencing one woman who often ate a tube of potato chips every evening. When McCarthy told her to slow down and eat every single chip individually, her patient told her “it was like having a mouthful of claggy chemicals.”
“She didn’t find (the chips) enjoyable anymore,” McCarthy said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Salmon poached in green salsa and topped with baked chips are displayed for a photo in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Matthew Mead, File)
FREEDOM, Maine (AP) — Heather Donahue is walking through the woods once again. The star of the successful low-budget horror movie “ The Blair Witch Project ” has an on-screen history of getting into scary situations in a forest.
But this time she is merely picking up an old soda can someone carelessly left on a trail. And she wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
“For me, reading fairy tales, I always wanted to live in the forest,” said Donahue, 51, who moved on from acting long ago and now lives in rural Maine. “It is absolutely as magical as it seemed in those storybooks.”
But the last several months of Donahue's time in the Maine woods have been anything but magical, or peaceful.
In a twist of fate harkening back to her movie career, Donahue has been embroiled in a spat with locals in her tiny, 700-resident town of Freedom that hinges on her marking trees with the kind of orange blazes that help people find their way in the dense forests.
Donahue had been a member of the town’s governing body, its Select Board, but lost a recall election recently after a controversy about whether a rural road that cuts through the woods is public or private. The matter remains unresolved, with the town and abutting landowners fighting it out in court.
The road in question is Beaver Ridge Road, a narrow, partially hilly stretch flanked by wild plants and songbirds that goes from paved to gravel to dirt as it stretches deeper into the forest. Several abutters of the road say the unimproved section is private and to use it for activities such as all-terrain vehicle riding constitutes trespassing. Donahue, and the town itself, hold that the entire road is public.
Donahue painted the orange blazes using historical maps to show what she holds is the center of a public easement. Abutting property owners were incensed and the first successful recall petition drive in the town's 212-year history followed. Donahue was removed in April and an election to pick her successor is planned for next month.
Tyler Hadyniak, one of the abutting property owners, said the recall wasn't just about the orange blazes or the woodland trail. He said it addressed a pattern of behavior by Donahue that chafed longer-established residents in the year since she took office.
“I was relieved that the recall was successful. I thought Heather's demeanor and behavior toward others was just unbecoming of a town official,” Hadyniak said.
Donahue, who is originally from Pennsylvania and has spent long stretches of time living in California and traveling abroad, said she is aware of her status as what she called “a lady from away.”
She arrived in Maine after a winding journey in which she struggled with alcoholism, left acting, became a medical marijuana farmer and wrote a memoir.
Donahue said she came to the Pine Tree State eight years ago, overcame her addiction and bought land in Freedom in 2020. Recently, she has worked as a life coach and shared her passions for gardening and medicinal plants with anyone who will listen.
She isn't especially interested in reliving the glory of starring in “The Blair Witch Project,” which was released in 1999 and is one of the most successful independent movies of all time. The film sparked a resurgence of interest in “found footage” style horror movies, wowed critics and polarized audiences with its homespun take on terror. It also led Donahue to years of legal wrangling over compensation and the right to her likeness.
Donahue makes occasional tongue-in-cheek references to the movie in passing, but also said it struck her several years ago that her life was inseparable from the film in ways that weren't entirely comfortable: “I had this really difficult moment of realizing my obituary was written for me when I was 25.”
Ordinarily, the hottest gossip in Freedom concerns the peskiness of the local blackflies or the quality of the fishing on Sandy Pond. But the row over the road has become the talk of the sleepy town some 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of the state capital of Augusta.
Donahue has defenders in town, including Bob Kanzler, who served on a local roads committee and agrees the disputed path is public.
“Heather has done a wonderful job in researching these discontinued roads in town,” Kanzler said. “I know the road is public.”
Despite the ongoing battle over the road, Donahue said she has found peace in Maine. And she's not going anywhere.
“I mean, this is where humans flourish,” she said of the Freedom woods. “I've figured out a way to do a lot with very little. That was all kind of centered around being able to walk in the woods.”
The Freedom Congregational Church is seen Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A blaze painted on a tree with temporary surveyor's paint is seen on a tree during Heather Donahue's walk on a rural road, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Water flows beneath a dam, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Heather Donahue, the star of the 1999 low-budget hit movie The Blair Witch Project, poses next to a "posted" sign in on a rural road, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Heather Donahue, the star of the The Blair Witch Project, pauses on a walk to watch a songbird,Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Heather Donahue walks on a rural road, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Freedom, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
