A few months ago, I discovered a surprisingly rabid online fan base advocating the technique. One devotee calls the movement “chewdaism.” Members tell you to chew 100 times. They post how-to-chew videos on YouTube. They cite the grandfather of chomping theory, a 19th-century health guru named Horace Fletcher, who counted John Rockefeller and Franz Kafka among his followers, and who penned the immortal poem “Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate.” They say chewing will cure stomachaches, improve energy, clear the mind, cut down on gas, and strengthen the bones.Sure, those claims are overblown, bordering on delusional. But chewing has two real scientific benefits: First, you get more nutrition. A recent study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that when people chewed almonds more than 25 times, they absorbed more unsaturated fat the good kind of fat than those who chewed only 10 times.More importantly, chewing makes you thinner. Your body, God bless it, is dumb and slow. It takes your stomach 20 minutes to send your brain the “I’m full” message. Several studies have shown that the slower you eat, the fewer calories you inhale.
I’ll have to try this. My current eating method definitely tends towards “inhaling”. :Z
via A.J. Jacobs Is Your New Personal Trainer – Mental Floss.