In healthy adults, meals matched for calories and nutrients, but otherwise prepared differently, led to unexpectedly different metabolic responses and activity in the brain’s reward system.
Neuroscientist Alex DiFeliceantonio (left) and researcher Zach Hutelin at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC unexpectedly found that two meals with the same carbohydrates, fats, proteins, water, calories, salt, and weight — but that differed in their level of processing — produced different brain and metabolic responses. Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis for Virginia Tech.
Most nutrition science suggests that meals with the same basic nutritional profile will have the same impact on a person’s blood sugar.
