Comparison of Pulse Chips and Commercial Snacks on Food Intake, Appetite and Blood Glucose in Healthy Young Adults

Comparison of Roasted Pulse Snacks, Pulse Chips and Commercial Snacks on Post-prandial Food Intake, Appetite and Glycemic Response in Healthy Young Adults

Consumers are often forced to eat fast, convenient foods and snacks ("eat on the go") in order to match the pace of their lifestyles. However, these snack options more often than not offer little health benefit to the consumer. In fact, 55% of calories consumed by Canadians are ultra processed foods, which are limited in their nutrient profile and only offer empty calories. Subsequently, these foods lead the consumer to eat more and provides little to no feelings of satiety or satiation. the proposed objectives of the current project are to examine the physiological benefit(s) of consuming readily available pulse snacks and compare them to other commonly consumed snack varieties. This work aims to incentivize consumers to seek out pulses as valuable snacking options and highlight the benefit of including these as alternatives to other energy-dense snacks that lack the nutritional composition of pulses.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Obesity; Diabetes
• Intervention / Treatment: Dietary supplement: Corn Chips + Onion Dip; Dietary supplement: Pinto bean chip + hummus; Dietary supplement: Yellow pea chip + hummus; Dietary supplement: Pinto bean chip + onion dip; Dietary supplement: Yellow pea chip + onion dip; Dietary supplement: Corn chips + hummus

Detailed Description

Hypothesis of the study: Inclusion of pulses as part of a snack will lower appetite and post-prandial glycemia (PPG) in comparison to commercial, commonly consumed non-pulse snacks.

Overall Objective of the study: To investigate and compare the effects of pulse and non-pulse snacks served as chips and dip on appetite and PPG in healthy adults.

Specific objectives of the study: To test the acute effects of different pulse snacks on: 1) PPG and appetite for three hours, and 2) food intake 1 hour following consumption of snacks.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 26
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3E2
      • University of Toronto

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 45 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age: ≥18 and ≤45 years
• BMI: ≥ 18.5 and ≤ 29.9 kg/m2
• Fasting serum glucose: ≤ 5.6 mmol/L
• Willing to maintain habitual diet, physical activity pattern, and body weight throughout the trial.
• Willing to maintain current dietary supplement use throughout the trial. On test days, subject agrees not to take any dietary supplements until dismissal from the Department of Nutritional Sciences. Failure to comply will result in a rescheduled test visit.
• Willing to abstain from alcohol consumption for 24 h prior to all test visits.
• Willing to avoid vigorous physical activity for 24 h prior to all test visits.
• Understanding the study procedures and willing to provide informed consent to participate in the study and authorization to release relevant protected health information to the study investigator.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Fasting blood glucose > 5.6 mmol/L
• Smoking
• Thyroid problems
• Previous history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver or kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, short bowel syndrome, any malabsorptive syndrome, pancreatitis, gallbladder or biliary disease.
• Presence of gastrointestinal disorder or surgeries within the past year.
• Consuming prescription or non-prescription drug, herbal or nutritional supplements known to affect blood glucose or that could affect the outcome of the study as per investigator's judgement.
• Patients who have undergone bariatric surgery at any point.
• Known to be pregnant or lactating.
• Unwillingness or inability to comply with the experimental procedures
• Known intolerance, sensitivity or allergy to pulses or dairy.
• Extreme dietary habits (ie. Atkins diet, very high protein diets, etc.).
• Uncontrolled hypertension (systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mm Hg) as defined by the average blood pressure measured at screening.
• Weight gain or loss of at least 10 lbs in previous three months.
• Excessive alcohol intake (more than 2 drinks per day or more than 9 drinks per week)
• Restrained Eaters

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

6

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Commercial corn chips + Onion dip; Corn chips + onion dip	Dietary supplement: Corn Chips + Onion Dip; Non-pulse chip + non-pulse dip
Experimental: Commercial pulse chip + pulse spread; Pinto bean chip + hummus	Dietary supplement: Pinto bean chip + hummus; Commercial pulse chip + pulse spread
Experimental: Novel pulse chip + pulse spread; Yellow pea chip + hummus	Dietary supplement: Yellow pea chip + hummus; Novel pulse chip + pulse spread
Experimental: Commercial pulse chip + non-pulse spread; Pinto bean chip + onion dip	Dietary supplement: Pinto bean chip + onion dip; Commercial pulse chip + non-pulse spread
Experimental: Novel pulse chip + non-pulse spread; Yellow pea chip + onion dip	Dietary supplement: Yellow pea chip + onion dip; Novel pulse chip + non-pulse spread
Experimental: Non-pulse chip + pulse spread; Corn chips + hummus	Dietary supplement: Corn chips + hummus; Non-pulse chip + pulse spread

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in blood glucose levels	Each participant will attend 6 sessions in total (randomized 6-arm cross-over design)	Starting at the beginning of each session (0 minutes, before consumption of treatment) and every 15 - 30 minutes up to 190 minutes (time of completion of each session)
Subjective appetite	Measured using Visual Analog Scales (VAS)	Measured every 15-30 minutes up to 190 minutes
Food intake	Food intake is measured by the amount of pizza (in grams) consumed during the 20 minute period (pizza is served ad libitum)	65 minutes after completion of treatment, 20 minutes is allocated to allow for pizza consumption

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Toronto
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Harvey G Anderson, PhD, University of Toronto

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 19, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 31, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): May 31, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 25, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 25, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): September 29, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 28, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 24, 2025
• Last Verified: March 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Satiety; Young adults; Appetite; Food intake; Snack; Post-prandial glycemia; Pulse
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Antineoplastic Agents; Iproplatin
• Other Study ID Numbers: SPG_Snack Study

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No