The grumble and rumble of your stomach at the most inopportune time can make even the most health conscious of eaters succumb to unhealthy snacking. Choosing healthy foods that will fill you up is essential to maintain a healthy weight or to lose weight. Fiber, protein, and water are the essential components to add to food and meal combination that you can enjoy without breaking your calorie bank.

The key to choosing better foods to keep you feeling fuller, longer is based on the satiety and glycemic index. Australian researchers composed a fullness scale that measures how high or how low foods rank on the fullness (satiety index) in a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The index measures how full you feel after eating 240 calories of food and how long after eating you feel full again. The sugar crash scale (glycemic index) measures how quickly you get a sugar high from the food and then crash. The ideal foods to consume are those that have a high satiety and a low glycemic index, like oranges and fish.

Click "View Gallery" to see which foods will curb your appetite, fill you up and slim you down.

Apples and dried fruit mix
These high satiety foods — from avocados to dark chocolate — will curb your appetite by filling you up and not out. Bircher Muesli, CC BY-SA 2.0