The Trick Smoothies Play on the Stomach

Imagine you have a glass of water and a plate of chicken, broccoli, and mushrooms.

If you were already imagining that, keep imagining it. Then consider a non-trivial question: Would it be better to eat it as it is, or blend it all together and drink it?

Not many people choose the latter. But among them would be hunger expert Robin Spiller, director of biomedical research at the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre in the U.K. And he has data and a deeply considered health argument on his side. Spiller and his team compared the two options head to head in a study, and they found that when people who drank the blended “soup,” it kept them from feeling hungry for about an hour longer than the whole-food meal.

So should everyone be blending everything?

I asked Spiller over Skype as I searched online for used blenders. You can save a lot of money by buying a used blender—especially if