Have you been watching your weight? Try cooking with olive oil. Not only has this been known to promote the good cholesterol HDL (high-density lipoprotein), it also makes you feel fuller, ScienceDaily.com reports.

A multi-part study by researchers from the Technische Universität München (TUM) under Prof. Peter Schieberle and the University of Vienna under Prof. Veronika Somoza asked four groups of volunteers to eat 500 grams of low-fat yogurt infused with one of four kinds of edible oil and fat every day: lard, butterfat, rapeseed oil, and olive oil. They found that olive oil gave the biggest feeling of satiety among the four.

Curious about this effect as rapeseed oil and olive oil had the same fatty acids, researchers looked into the aromatic compounds of each substance. This time, two groups of volunteers were asked to eat either regular yogurt or yogurt with olive oil aroma extracts. Interestingly, the olive oil group’s yogurt intake remained consistent, while the regular group’s yogurt intake increased by 176 kilocalories per day.

Apparently, the aroma substances Hexanal and E2-Hexanal, commonly found in Italian olive oil, reduce the body's somatic cells' glucose absorption from the blood. The slower the absorption, the longer it takes for a person to feel hungry.

(Photo by greschoj via sxc.hu)