Slow Food is an international organization dedicated to locally grown foods and traditional cooking that was founded in 1986 in Italy and now has 100,000 members in 160 countries.

While we applaud the push to offer alternatives to obesity-inducing fast foods and processed foods, we'd like to advocate another kind of slow food — slow from plate to mouth.

According to several studies, if you bolt down your food you're at a big risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Japanese researchers followed more than 1,000 men and women, average age 51, for five years and found that 12% of fast eaters developed metabolic syndrome. In contrast, only 2.3% of slow eaters did.

A study in the journal Appetite found that guys who were fast eaters gained twice as much weight over eight years as average or slow eaters did.

Another study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics demonstrated that normal-weight, slow eaters consumed significantly fewer calories, while still feeling well-fed. 

If you're a fast eater, use these techniques to give your body's "I'm full" hormone, leptin, time to signal you to stop eating:

• Drink a sip of water between bites.

• Count how many times you chew each bite — aiming for 20 to 35 chews.

• Put down your utensil between bites.

• Think about the flavors, smells, and textures of what you are eating, allowing yourself to savor them.

That'll help slow down your risk of overeating, weight gain, and serious health problems.