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YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD that if you eat more slowly and put down your fork between bites, you'll eat lessbecause the satiety center in your brain will have time to catch up with your mouth. Well, guess what? It doesn't appear to hold up. In a series of experiments conducted at the University of Sussex in Britain, people who were instructed to pause between bites of pasta with tomato sauce actually wound up eating more than those who ate at their natural pace. And in a weight-loss program at the University of Pennsylvania where eating slowly seemed to help at first, the effect didn't last over time. That doesn't mean it's a great idea to wolf down your meals. Eating too quickly doesn't allow you to really taste your food-or otherwise enjoy your dining experience. You'll also swallow more air that way, which will be more likely to give you indigestion. But simply putting down your silverware or chewing more slowly probably won't make you thinner by itself.
There are a lot of unfounded nutrition assumptions like that. Someone makes a point, and then the point takes on a life of its own, true or not. Herewith, 10 such nutrition myths.
Myth #1 Chinese food leaves you hungry an hour after you eat it.
Fact: Maybe, if you eat the way the rural Chinese really do. That is, if you pile on a lot of low-calorie vegetables like bok choy and broccoli and just have plain white rice, the meal won't have many calories-and it probably won't hold you all that long. But if you eat Chinese food American-style, the calories should hold you for quite a while. In other words, if you feel hungry soon after a meal of beef or chicken with a heavy orange sauce or other sugar- or fat-laden topping (plus egg rolls, fried Peking ravioli, and fried rice), that's your mind playing tricks on you-not your stomach talking.
Myth #2 Eating most of your calories at night makes you more likely to gain weight.
FACT: A lot of diet plans advise people not to eat anything after 8 p.m. But it's not really because the food you eat at night will be more likely to end up on your stomach or...