An easy to understand discussion of solid foods, liquids, and weight loss. Simple- but important if you want to lose weight. By Adam Brook, M.D., Ph.D.

Solids and Liquids

Are there any important exceptions to the rule that foods of equal volume make you feel equally full and stop feeling hungry? There are. A liquid food will not make you feel as full as a solid food of the same volume. This is because while solids move slowly through the stomach and intestines, liquids move rapidly through the stomach and intestines. For a meal of a given size, liquids pass through the stomach twice as quickly as solid foods do.31 Actually, the emptying of liquids from the stomach in comparison to solids is even faster. Liquids empty at an exponential rate, while solids empty at a linear rate. In other words, half a liquid meal might be present in the stomach after 60 minutes, but by 90 minutes none of the liquid is left in the stomach. In contrast, three-quarters of a solid meal might be present after 60 minutes, one-half of the solid meal might be present after 120 minutes, one-quarter of the solid meal might be present after 180 minutes, and not until 240 minutes would almost none of the solid meal be present in the stomach.