Eat Sweet First to Manage Weight

Mom always said, save room for dessert. Sorry, mom—I am eating my dessert first and saving room for dinner.

According to Ayurvedic principles, the sweet taste should come first. In fact it’s important to try to get all six tastes into our diet each day—sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. These tastes are listed in the order in which they digest in our body. So when we eat the sweet taste last, this foodstuff can become toxic as it waits to be digested, which can turn into ama. Bad plan. These empty sugary calories will dampen the digestive fire and slow the whole digestive system down.

Furthermore, recent Western medical research has shown that having a certain small level of glucose at the beginning of the meal will help a dieter lose weight by eating less after the meal. Everyone has been there: you have a great meal, are feeling super full, and then they bring out the tasty dessert and somehow you make room for that despite your fullness.

Somewhere along the way we have conditioned ourselves to seek the sweet taste at the end of the meal—it’s a dangerous path, a slippery sugary slope. If you are a dessert fiend, try this “sweet taste first” principle for a week and notice if your digestion feels stronger. The other bonus is that you may forget to eat your dessert before your meal and just decide to skip it altogether.