--- title: Fiber: Thickness Is More Important Than Calories in Drinks description: Drink your milkshake or smoothie thick—with the addition of fiber—and you'll be fuller, regardless of the calorie content canonical: https://time.com/4394931/smoothies-calories-fiber-fullness/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-06T16:30:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:04:49.646Z article:section: Health og:title: Here's Why You Should Make Your Next Drink In a Blender og:description: Drink your milkshake or smoothie thick—with the addition of fiber—and you'll be fuller, regardless of the calorie content og:url: https://time.com/4394931/smoothies-calories-fiber-fullness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09b46153ce71e44c/69878152428a9e7bb9cc75a9/time-50-healthiest-foods-kefir.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1707 og:image:height: 960 og:image:alt: healthiest foods, health food, diet, nutrition, time.com stock, kefir, yogurt, drinkable yogurt, dairy og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Why You Should Make Your Next Drink In a Blender twitter:description: Drink your milkshake or smoothie thick—with the addition of fiber—and you'll be fuller, regardless of the calorie content twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09b46153ce71e44c/69878152428a9e7bb9cc75a9/time-50-healthiest-foods-kefir.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Super-Thick Smoothies May Help You Lose Weight > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Jul 6, 2016 4:30 PM UTC  Danny Kim for TIME  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Jul 6, 2016 4:30 PM UTC Protein isn’t the only thing that [makes you feel full](http://time.com/4246736/protein-satiety-fullness/). Thickness, it turns out, can also do the trick. A small new [study](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/06/01/ajcn.115.129064.abstract) published in the _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ provides the perfect reason to dust off your blender and get whirling. Thickening a drink seems to make people feel fuller, regardless of how many calories it has. While the study did not look at weight loss specifically, it stands to reason thick drinks could play a useful role, since satiety is one of the main ways to prevent overeating. Researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands asked 15 men to drink a series of four [milkshakes](http://time.com/4130878/salt-sodium-fast-food/?iid=sr-link8). The only differences were their calorie contents—either 100 or 500 calories—and their viscosity—thin or thick. After the men drank the shakes, they got MRI scans of their stomachs, which allowed researchers to determine the volume of the liquid there. For an hour and a half after ingestion, participants were asked every 10 minutes how full they felt. Not surprisingly, the 100-calorie shakes were the fastest to leave the stomach. Adding fiber to the smoothie didn’t make it stay there longer, they found. But the shake’s viscosity—not the number of calories it had—was what made the men report feeling full. In fact, people who drank the thick 100-calorie shake felt even fuller than people who drank the thin 500-calorie shake. The study authors dubbed this effect “phantom fullness”: being more satiated because of a food’s thickness, not its energy density. It’s bad news for anyone who hopes the calories in a sugary soda or juice will tide over their hunger pangs; without that satisfying thickness, you’re likely to leave hungry. But the results are useful for those of us who like our drinks thick, whether they’re milkshakes, [smoothies](http://time.com/3737812/smoothies-healthy-breakfast-fruit/?iid=sr-link1) or—we hope—chunky tropical cocktails. More research is needed to determine which types of fiber or thickeners will do the trick. 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