According to a study done by Penn State University, eating an apple before meals may cut calorie consumption.

Researchers found that participants who had an apple 15 minutes before an all-you-can-eat pasta lunch ate 15 percent fewer calories than those who had a 125-calorie snack of applesauce, apple juice with fiber, apple juice without fiber, or nothing. (All snacks but the fiberless apple juice had 4.8 grams of fiber.)

The reason? Apples tend to stay in the stomach longer than the sauce of juice, prolonging feelings of fullness, says study co-author Julie Flood, a graduate student at Penn State’s Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior. To stifle the splurge urge, munch a Wiffle ball-size apple before meals and make it an organic apple while you’re at it.

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