What Are ‘Meat Sweats’? – The New York Times

Since so much of the energy from high-protein meals is quickly used by the body, a person burns three to four times as many calories after eating protein compared with eating carbohydrates or fat, Dr. Layman said. In one small study published in 1999, researchers found that when eight women followed a diet high in protein for one day, they burned an average of 87 more calories than when they followed a diet high in fat.

One theory with only limited evidence is that we may be warmed more by meals we enjoy than those we don’t. In a small study published in 1985, eight women consumed either a palatable meal of cheese fondue, spaghetti with meatballs, a chocolate éclair and a soda, or they consumed the same foods blended and formed into a flavorless, dry biscuit. The next day, the women switched and consumed the other meal. The researchers found that the women’s bodies released about half as much heat after eating the tasteless biscuit compared with the delicious feast. Though this study does not seem to have been repeated since.

Still, meat sweats may be a stretch.

Although protein does warm the body, experts aren’t convinced that eating lots of meat — even if delicious — will cause a person to sweat much, if at all.

“Meat sweats are not a thing,” Dr. Layman said. In the studies that have been done, he added, “no one has ever reported sweating.”

Meat may not induce sweating because, although protein does increase body temperature more than other macronutrients do, the relative temperature increase is quite small. The body temperatures of the women in the 2002 study were only 0.2 to 0.3 degrees higher, on average, after following the protein-heavy diet.

dr St-Onge, who was not even familiar with the term “meat sweats,” said that it’s possible that a person might slightly perspire after eating lots of meat, but “I don’t think that people would start sweating profusely,” she said .

However, if you gorge on meat while you’re already feeling hot, that could tip you over the edge, she added. “If you have a high-meat meal in the middle of summer in Midtown Manhattan, outside, and it’s like 90 degrees, yes, you will sweat,” she said.