A New Chickpea Flour Can Help You Be Fuller Longer

Bread made from a new type of whole cell pulse flour created from chickpeas can lower your blood sugar levels and keep you fuller for longer, according to researchers from King’s College London and the Quadram Institute.

What to Know

  • Eating healthy flours made from milling whole grains or seeds (called pulses), including chickpeas, lentils, and beans, is known to support healthy weight maintenance and decrease the risk of heart disease.

  • Replacing regular wheat flour with “cellular chickpea flour” in bread significantly increased the release of satiety signals from the gut to the brain, meaning people feel fuller after eating the enriched bread.

  • Bread that was 30% cellular chickpea flour reduced blood glucose levels by as much as 40% compared to the regular white wheat flour bread because of the slower breakdown of the starch in the cellular flour during digestion.

  • Processed foods made from highly refined ingredients disrupt food microstructure and increase rates of carbohydrate absorption, which is why new methods in food technology are important for helping create whole cell flours that preserve dietary fiber and have beneficial nutritional qualities for improved health.

  • A simple switch to a cellular chickpea blend in commercial bread recipes or in starchy staple foods can improve feelings of fullness, which in turn could bring these beneficial effects to a range of products designed to help discourage overeating as well as help prevent or treat diet-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

This is a summary of the article, “Enhanced Secretion of Satiety-Promoting Gut Hormones in Healthy Humans After Consumption of White Bread Enriched With Cellular Chickpea Flour: A Randomized Crossover Study,” published in the American Journal on Clinical Nutrition on 2023. The full article can be found on sciencedirect.com.

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