Food Satiety Index: The Best 38 Foods for Fullness

The food satiety index answers a question almost everyone trying to manage their weight eventually asks: why does one 240-calorie snack leave you hungry an hour later, while another keeps you full for the rest of the afternoon? Two foods can carry the exact same calorie count and still produce wildly different hunger outcomes two hours later — and that gap is precisely what the food satiety index was built to measure. Researchers at the University of Sydney set out to quantify it, and the resulting ranking has become one of the most-cited tools in practical nutrition, referenced in everything from diabetes meal-planning guides to bodybuilding forums.

Below, you’ll find the complete 38-food chart from the original study, a breakdown of exactly what predicts a high score, how the food satiety index compares to the more familiar glycemic index, and how to put it to work alongside your protein intake targets to build meals that keep hunger away for longer. Whether you’re trying to lose fat, build muscle, or simply stop feeling hungry an hour after lunch, this chart is one of the most practical nutrition tools you can add to your routine.

What Is the Food Satiety Index?

In 1995, researcher Susanna Holt and colleagues at the University of Sydney published “A Satiety Index of Common Foods” in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study fed volunteers isoenergetic 240-calorie (1,000 kJ) portions of 38 different foods, then tracked how full each person felt every 15 minutes for two hours. White bread was set as the baseline, given a score of exactly 100%. Every other food was then expressed as a percentage of white bread’s fullness effect.

A food scoring 200% is, roughly speaking, twice as filling as white bread calorie-for-calorie. A food scoring 50% is about half as filling. That single, simple idea is why the food satiety index has stayed relevant for three decades: it isolates fullness from calories, which the glycemic index and basic nutrition labels don’t do on their own. It also explains why two people can eat the same 300-calorie snack and report completely different hunger levels an hour later — the food itself, not just the calorie count, is doing a lot of the work.

Top Foods on the Satiety Index at a Glance

Before the full 38-food breakdown, here’s the short version: the five most filling foods per calorie in the original study were boiled potatoes, ling fish, porridge, oranges, and apples — all foods that are either high in water, high in protein, or both. The five least filling were croissants, cake, doughnuts, a Mars candy bar, and peanuts — foods that are calorie-dense, higher in fat, and easy to overeat quickly. Keep that pattern in mind as you read the full table below.

The Complete Food Satiety Index Chart

Here is the full ranking from the original 38-food study, sorted from most to least filling. Use it as a swap list: if a food you eat often sits near the bottom, look for a higher-scoring option in the same category.

Table adapted from Holt, Miller, Petocz & Farmakalidis, “A Satiety Index of Common Foods,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 1995. Individual scores carry a wide margin of error (roughly ±20–50%), so treat the ranking as directional, not exact.

What Actually Predicts a High Score

The original researchers didn’t just rank the foods — they analyzed why some scored higher than others. Three nutrients correlated positively with satiety, and one correlated negatively:

• Protein — the strongest positive driver. High-protein foods like fish, eggs, and beef all scored well above the 100% baseline.
• Fibre — foods with more indigestible bulk (oats, beans, whole fruit) tend to fill the stomach more per calorie.
• Water content — the strongest correlation of the three. Potatoes, oranges, and apples all carry a lot of water weight for relatively few calories.
• Fat — the one negative predictor. Fat is calorie-dense and digests slowly without triggering the same fullness signals, which is part of why croissants and doughnuts sit at the bottom of the chart.

This lines up with what’s known about the body’s own appetite-regulating hormones. Protein in particular stimulates the release of peptide YY (PYY) and cholecystokinin (CCK), two gut hormones that signal fullness to the brain, while suppressing ghrelin, the hormone that drives hunger. A 2012 review in Advances in Nutrition lays out this mechanism in detail — it’s a large part of why a high-protein breakfast tends to reduce snacking later in the day. Protein also takes longer to digest than carbohydrate or fat, which stretches out the release of these fullness hormones over a longer window after the meal rather than delivering one short spike.

Water and fibre work through a more mechanical route: they add physical bulk and weight to a serving without adding calories, which stretches the stomach and triggers stretch receptors that signal fullness directly to the brain, independent of any hormone response. That’s part of why a large bowl of broth-based soup or a piece of whole fruit can feel more satisfying than a calorie-matched handful of nuts, even though the nuts might taste more indulgent. If you’re trying to hit a specific protein target to take advantage of the hormonal effect, a daily protein calculator is the fastest way to find your number.

What the Satiety Index Doesn’t Tell You

Before you use this chart to redesign your diet, it’s worth being clear about its limits:

• Small sample size. The original study used just 11–13 subjects per food category — solid for a landmark paper, but small by modern standards.
• It doesn’t measure nutrition quality. A high score means “filling,” not “healthy.” Jellybeans scored 118% partly because the sugar rush made some subjects mildly nauseous, not because jellybeans are a good food choice.
• It’s about single foods, not meals. Real meals combine multiple foods, and satiety effects don’t always add up in a simple, linear way.
• It’s not the same as the glycemic index. The glycemic index measures blood-sugar response to carbohydrates specifically; the satiety index measures subjective fullness across every food type. A food can be low-GI and low-satiety, or high-GI and high-satiety — potatoes are actually a good example of the latter.

How to Use the Food Satiety Index to Eat Fewer Calories

The practical value of this chart isn’t memorizing 38 numbers — it’s using the pattern behind them. Three simple strategies do most of the work:

1. Swap low scorers for high scorers in the same category

Craving something starchy? Choose boiled or baked potatoes (323%) over French fries (116%) or a croissant (47%). Want cereal? Porridge (209%) beats cornflakes (118%) by a wide margin.

2. Anchor meals around protein

Since protein is the single strongest predictor of satiety, building meals around a protein source — eggs, fish, lean meat, beans, Greek yogurt — is the most reliable lever you have. If you’re actively trying to lose weight, pairing this with a protein calculator for weight loss helps you set a target that supports fullness without overshooting your calorie goal.

3. Add volume, not just calories

Because water and fibre both correlate with higher scores, starting a meal with a broth-based soup, a salad, or a piece of whole fruit can increase overall fullness for very few added calories.

Food Satiety Index vs. Glycemic Index

These two indexes are often confused because both use white bread as a reference point, but they measure different things entirely:

• The glycemic index measures how quickly a carbohydrate-containing food raises blood sugar.
• The satiety index measures how full a food — any food, not just carbs — makes you feel per calorie.

A food can score well on one and poorly on the other. Boiled potatoes are a well-known example: they have a moderate-to-high glycemic index, yet the highest satiety index score ever recorded — meaning they can raise blood sugar relatively quickly while still being remarkably filling for their calorie count. White bread sits at the opposite extreme in some ways: it’s a common high-glycemic reference food that only earns an average satiety score, which is exactly why it was chosen as the neutral 100% baseline in the first place.

For most people, the two indexes answer different practical questions. If you’re managing blood sugar day-to-day — particularly with diabetes or prediabetes — the glycemic index is usually the more relevant number to track first. If your main goal is eating fewer total calories without feeling deprived, the satiety index is the more useful lens. Ideally, look for foods that score reasonably on both: high fibre, high protein, minimally processed foods tend to do well across the board.

Why This Matters for Weight Management

Choosing higher-satiety foods is one of the few dietary strategies that works with hunger instead of against it. Rather than relying purely on willpower to eat less, filling up on high-satiety, high-protein foods naturally reduces the urge to snack and can lower total daily calorie intake without the meal feeling restrictive. This is also why satiety-focused eating tends to be more sustainable long-term than strict calorie counting alone — it changes what you reach for, not just how much you allow yourself.

This matters most at the two points in the day where diets tend to fall apart: mid-afternoon snacking and late-evening cravings. A lunch built around low-satiety foods — a pastry, a bag of chips, a sugary drink — often leaves you reaching for something else within two hours. The same calorie budget spent on a high-satiety lunch (say, potatoes and fish, or eggs and fruit) tends to carry you through to dinner without the same pull toward the vending machine. Over weeks and months, that difference in snacking frequency adds up to a meaningfully different calorie total, even if neither day looks dramatically different on a food diary.

If your goal is muscle gain rather than fat loss, the same principle still applies: high-satiety, high-protein meals make it easier to hit a higher calorie and protein target without feeling constantly stuffed. A protein calculator for muscle gain can help you find that target before you plan meals around it.

Practical Meal Ideas Using High-Satiety, High-Protein Foods

Here are five simple, satiety-index-informed combinations to build meals around:

1. Breakfast: Porridge (209%) topped with sliced apple (197%) and a scoop of Greek yogurt for extra protein.
2. Lunch: Boiled potatoes (323%) with grilled fish (225%) and a side salad for added volume.
3. Snack: Two boiled eggs (150%) with an orange (202%) instead of crackers or cookies.
4. Dinner: Lean beef (176%) with brown rice (132%) and a large serving of non-starchy vegetables.
5. Pre-workout: Baked beans (168%) on wholemeal toast (157%) for a filling, protein-and-fibre combination.

Notice the pattern: every combination leans on foods from the top third of the chart, and most pair a high-protein item with a high-water or high-fibre one.

The Bottom Line

The food satiety index remains one of the simplest, most practical nutrition tools available: a single number that tells you, roughly, how much a food will fill you up per calorie. Boiled potatoes, fish, oats, and whole fruit sit at the top; croissants, cake, and doughnuts sit at the bottom — and protein, fibre, and water are the common thread running through every high scorer. Use the chart as a swap list, anchor your meals around protein using a calculator suited to your goal, and you’ll find it easier to eat less without feeling hungrier for it.