Does blending food affect our metabolism?
Food Form Reprograms Metabolism — Even When Calories and Nutrients Stay the Same
We’ve all been told to “read the label.” Calories, carbs, fat, fibre — they’re supposed to tell you what a food will do to your body.
But what if they don’t?
A growing body of research suggests that nutrition labels only tell part of the story — and that the structure of your food can be just as important as its ingredients.
Take almonds. According to the label, a 28g serving delivers around 170 calories. But when researchers measured how much energy people absorbed from almonds in different forms — whole, chopped, roasted, or ground into almond butter — they found a major discrepancy. Almond butter delivered nearly 100% of the calories listed. Whole almonds? Closer to 75%.
Why the difference? Structure.
A New Look Inside the Gut
Building on this idea, a recent study published in Cell Reports Medicine pushed things further. Researchers wanted to see what happens when you keep everything about a meal the same — calories, macros, fibre, even taste — but alter just one thing: the physical structure of the food.
To do this, they created three different chickpea-based meals. All had the same ingredients, the same nutritional breakdown. But they were processed in subtly different ways:
Broken — Chickpeas were puréed before cooking, rupturing nearly every cell.
Intact-Single (Intact-S) — Cooked first, then gently separated into individual, intact cells.
Intact-Clustered (Intact-C) — Cooked to preserve clusters of whole, unbroken cells, mimicking natural tissue.
Participants — brave volunteers who spent four days in a metabolic ward — ate all three meals in random order. And here’s where things got seriously detailed: researchers inserted flexible catheters through each person’s nose and into their stomach and small intestine, allowing them to monitor digestion in real time.
They collected samples every 15–30 minutes, tracking not just what happened in the gut, but also in the blood. They measured glucose, insulin, and gut hormones like GLP-1 and PYY, which regulate appetite and metabolism.
Same Calories, Very Different Blood Sugar
Each meal contained 30g of starch. On paper, they should have triggered the same glucose response.
In reality, they didn’t even come close.
After the broken meal, blood glucose spiked quickly and sharply — the classic blood sugar rollercoaster.
The intact-single meal caused a more moderate rise.
The intact-clustered version kept glucose levels lowest — and most stable — of all.
In fact, compared to the intact-clustered meal, the broken version produced:
A 190% higher glucose peak
A 148% greater total glucose exposure over several hours (measured by iAUC)
Insulin told a similar story. The broken meal caused a larger, longer insulin response. The intact meals? Quieter, more efficient regulation.
These differences weren’t subtle — and they weren’t just chemical. Participants reported feeling fuller and more satisfied after the intact meals, even though they ate exactly the same number of calories.
Why Structure Changes Everything
What’s going on here?
To find out, the team looked at the digestive samples under a microscope.
After the broken meal, chickpea cells were nowhere to be seen — just digested debris. But in the intact meals, whole cells (and in the clustered version, visible groups of cells) were still present in the gut hours later.
Plant cells are like tiny nutrient containers. Inside each are fats, starches, and proteins. But unless the tough outer cell wall is broken, those nutrients stay locked away. In the broken meal, that wall was destroyed before it even hit the stomach — nutrients were immediately released, digested, and absorbed.
In contrast, the intact meals slowed things down. Digestive enzymes couldn’t easily access the nutrients, so absorption was delayed. That meant:
Up to 80% less starch released into the stomach early on
Over 40% more undigested starch still present in the small intestine three hours later
Slower digestion meant fewer sugar spikes. It also changed how the gut responded — not just physically, but hormonally.
The Hormonal Ripple Effect
Your gut isn’t just a food pipe. It’s an active sensory organ. Specialised cells in the intestine detect what’s passing by and respond by releasing hormones — chemical messengers that help regulate appetite, digestion, and energy balance.
Two of the most important are:
GLP-1, which stimulates insulin, slows gastric emptying, and helps you feel full
PYY, which acts as a brake on appetite
After the broken meal, GLP-1 spiked quickly and then faded. But both intact versions produced a slower, more sustained release, 63% higher levels during the later post-meal window.
PYY followed the same pattern. The broken meal barely moved the needle, while the intact meals triggered a much stronger response, up to 214% higher with the separated-cell version.
These hormonal changes tracked with people’s reported appetite: fullness lasted longer after intact meals, even though energy intake was the same.
What This Means for Real Life
Let’s bring this back to everyday food.
This study is a powerful reminder that how we process food — not just what’s in it — changes how our bodies respond. The more intact the structure, the slower the digestion, the more stable the blood sugar, and the better the hormonal signals for fullness and regulation.
This helps explain why ultra-processed foods can be so problematic. Even when they’re made from “whole food” ingredients, the processing often shatters their natural structure. Fibre is technically still there — but it’s no longer functioning the same way.
In a landmark clinical trial, participants consumed over 500 extra calories per day on an ultra-processed diet compared to a minimally processed one — even when meals were matched for macros and fibre[³]. The difference? Texture and speed. Ultra-processed foods were softer, faster to chew, and quicker to digest.
So, What Can You Do?
Here are three simple principles to take from this:
Choose whole, intact foods more often — beans, whole grains, fresh fruit, and vegetables still in their natural form.
Notice the texture — foods that chew longer tend to digest slower. If it feels like baby food, your gut probably treats it that way.
Be skeptical of health snacks — bars, crisps, and “puffs” made from blended legumes or flours may be “macro-friendly” on the label, but behave differently in the body.
None of this means you have to ditch processed foods altogether. But it does mean being aware that food structure matters — and it’s one thing you won’t find on the label.
References
Novotny JA, Gebauer SK, Baer DJ. Discrepancy between the Atwater factor predicted and empirically measured energy value of almonds in human diets. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012;96(2):296–301. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.112.035782
Edwards CH, Grundy MM-L, et al. Food structure reprograms the postprandial response to a standardised meal in humans. Cell Reports Medicine. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101274
Hall KD, Ayuketah A, et al. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019;30(1):67–77.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008