18 Feb 2015 Why men wolf their meals down

Many a woman has watched in disbelief as their partner ‘inhales’ their food minutes after sitting down to dinner. Now Korean researchers have discovered why: men and women actually chew differently.

In the January, 2015, issue of Physiology & Behavior, researchers Soojin Park and Weon-Sun Shin report on their study with 24 male and 24 female undergraduates from Semyung University in South Korea.

To examine each individual’s chewing, Park and Shin hooked electrodes up the participant’s jaw and fed them 152 grams of boiled white rice. This allowed the two to document bite size, grams of food ingested per minute, chewing power, chews per mouthful, total chewing time per mouthful, total number of chews, and total meal duration—all of which showed large variation between men and women.

The results showed that men typically take larger bites with more chewing power, which culminates in faster consumption times. Though the women were found to have the same chewing pace as the men, they delegated more chews to each mouthful, which significantly slowed their consumption times.

Originally, Park and Shin were hoping to test the relationship between chewing and weight. Though they uncovered noteworthy information about chewing and gender, they were unsuccessful in finding substantial proof for their original hypothesis.

For a more nuanced look at “Chewing like a Girl” read on here: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/chewing-like-a-girl