London, July 26 (IANS): Go slow while eating your food as people who eat slowly feel fuller and think they have eaten more than those who eat quickly, shows research.

Previous studies have found that slow eaters have lower Body Mass Index (BMIs) than those who gobble down their morsels. But the reasons were not well understood.

To investigate whether how quickly we eat influences how hungry we feel afterwards, researchers from the University of Bristol fed volunteers Sainsbury's tomato soup through a tube into their mouths, Daily Mail reported.

This set-up prevented the researchers from judging visually how much soup had been eaten. The participants then had 400 ml of soup put into their mouths at two rates. One was at a fast rate of 11.8 ml for two seconds, followed by a four second pause.

The other, the slow rate, was 5.4 ml of soup for one second followed by a 10-second pause. The volunteers were then asked how full they felt at the end of the meal and two hours after.

Those who took the soup more slowly said they felt fuller than the fast eaters both immediately after the test and two hours later.