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Is a calorie equal to a calorie?
UltraVegAthlete
Posts: 667 Member
in Debate Club
I’m just curious if anybody has any links to a scientific article or journal talking about calories in terms of if 100 calories of apples is equal to 100 calories of oreos.
I was debating this in my head while reading some other discussions. Depending on what I eat, how hungry I am, and how active I am, I eat between 1700-3000 calories. On average it’s around 2000. My calories only come from whole fruits and vegetables. I’m just thinking...I don’t think a calorie really equals a calorie because the body uses the food differently. White bread vs Sweet Potato, PB2 vs Almond Butter, Cane sugar vs Dates, Faux Chicken vs spinach, etc etc
I was debating this in my head while reading some other discussions. Depending on what I eat, how hungry I am, and how active I am, I eat between 1700-3000 calories. On average it’s around 2000. My calories only come from whole fruits and vegetables. I’m just thinking...I don’t think a calorie really equals a calorie because the body uses the food differently. White bread vs Sweet Potato, PB2 vs Almond Butter, Cane sugar vs Dates, Faux Chicken vs spinach, etc etc
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Replies
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A calorie is a unit of energy. So yes, a calorie equals a calorie.16
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A calorie is a calorie.
Don't confuse energy with nutrients
The body breaks your food down to simple units to use, it uses these individual units the same way regardless of the source27 -
A calorie is a measure of energy, so technically, a calorie is a calorie. However, the composition of those calories can be different, and our bodies process them differently (carbs, fats, proteins, etc).13
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The nutrients from which the energy is obtained can be different which doesn't negate the fact that a calorie is a measure of energy and all calories are calories regardless of their source. Calories are fungible. For body energy balance, 100 calories obtained from apples are exactly equal to 100 calories from Oreos.becomingbeautifultoday wrote: »A calorie is a measure of energy, so technically, a calorie is a calorie. However, the composition of those calories can be different, and our bodies process them differently (carbs, fats, proteins, etc).10 -
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While the nutritional value and use of macros are utilized differently by the body, it DOESN'T negate that the energy value (CALORIE) is the same for all macronutrients. A calorie is a calorie. Anybody telling you different is trying to sell you a program.UltraVegBabe wrote: »I’m just curious if anybody has any links to a scientific article or journal talking about calories in terms of if 100 calories of apples is equal to 100 calories of oreos.
I was debating this in my head while reading some other discussions. Depending on what I eat, how hungry I am, and how active I am, I eat between 1700-3000 calories. On average it’s around 2000. My calories only come from whole fruits and vegetables. I’m just thinking...I don’t think a calorie really equals a calorie because the body uses the food differently. White bread vs Sweet Potato, PB2 vs Almond Butter, Cane sugar vs Dates, Faux Chicken vs spinach, etc etc
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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UltraVegBabe wrote: »I’m just curious if anybody has any links to a scientific article or journal talking about calories in terms of if 100 calories of apples is equal to 100 calories of oreos.
Of course they're not the same. You have the Oreos with milk and the apples with peanut butter.
A calorie is like a dollar, you can get it and spend it different ways and some are better than others, but it has the same buying power.58 -
A calorie is a calorie. Yes. So essentially, you can eat whatever you want say, if your goal is to lose weight; sure if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. However, if you're eating OREOS or other foods with high fat contents, your calories aren't going as far. Because 1gram of fat is equal to 9 calories. Whereas something made of primarily carbohydrates or protein; 1g of these is only equal to 4 calories.
Hope that helps!
[edited by mods]
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trainerkunks wrote: »A calorie is a calorie. Yes. So essentially, you can eat whatever you want say, if your goal is to lose weight; sure if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. However, if you're eating OREOS or other foods with high fat contents, your calories aren't going as far. Because 1gram of fat is equal to 9 calories. Whereas something made of primarily carbohydrates or protein; 1g of these is only equal to 4 calories.
Hope that helps!
[edited by mods]
An Oreo cookie is 53 calories, ~2g fat, ~8g carbs, <1g protein. That's ~18 calories from fat, ~32 from carbs, a couple from protein. Not sure how something with 60% of its calories coming from carbs and only 33% from fats is made primarily of fat.
As to the OP, here's one discussion of it: https://completehumanperformance.com/2013/07/23/why-calories-count/
And here's an in-depth discussion of it, adding the context of how nutrition and physiological factors influence outcomes: https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/is-a-calorie-a-calorie.html
The bottom line is this: A calorie is a measured unit of energy, just as a mile is a measured unit of distance. You can walk that mile, you can drive that mile, you can bicycle it or crawl in on your knees over broken glass, but it doesn't change the fact that you just traveled a mile.
The mile could be uphill, downhill, straight and level, curved and twisty - still a mile. It could be across a 120F degree desert, or at 9,000 feet in the mountains in -10F degrees covered in snow and ice, or a balmy 75F degrees in a tropical paradise with an umbrella drink in your hand - still a mile. It could be on a paved highway, a dirt path, along the shore of a beach or on a rocky, steep goat trail with 300-foot cliffs on either side - still a mile.
All characteristics of a mile aren't identical - but none of them change the fact that a mile is a mile. Calories are like that.39 -
Sometimes people forget that a calorie is a unit of measurement (as discussed above) and think it's a synonym for food. That seems to be what you are doing in your first post, OP. When people say "a calorie is a calorie," they don't mean foods are the same in terms of nutrients or how full you might feel. They mean that they are the same unit of measurement and, of course, that if you overeat on a "healthy" diet you will gain and if you have a calorie deficit on a less healthy diet you will still lose.
Acknowledging that truth doesn't mean that someone is recommending that you not eat a healthful diet, obviously.17 -
Also, curious what you mean by: "the body uses the food differently. White bread vs Sweet Potato, PB2 vs Almond Butter, Cane sugar vs Dates, Faux Chicken vs spinach, etc etc"
White bread has fewer overall nutrients (and different ones -- it's likely fortified) than sweet potato, and sweet potato takes longer to digest and may be more filling for many, but the calories in both are largely from carbs (starch, plus some sugar in the sweet potato and maybe in the white bread) and those carbs will be used similarly.
PB2 vs. almond butter -- the PB2 (or other peanut or nut powder) has the fat removed, and peanuts and almonds have different nutrients (again, the nutrients are not obviously preferable from almonds vs. peanuts (a legume) or various other nuts, just a bit different, I'd eat a wide selection of nuts and peanuts if you enjoy them). Your body uses the foods a bit differently because of the fat in the almond butter gets processed differently, but neither is likely to be consumed alone, so the overall diet makes more difference (and certainly the foods consumed together).
Cane sugar vs. dates -- the sugar is going to be used the same, the dates have more other things, but no one eats cane sugar alone (well, very few). If you add the sugar in a small quantity to a rhubarb sauce or some oats and blueberries and flaxseed, you might be getting more nutrients with the cane sugar than the date.
Faux chicken -- I'm assuming this is something like seasoned quorn or soybeans? Not enough information to say, but if you compare, say, tofu (to be clear we mean soybeans) to spinach they are very different but both provide your body with things you need. The actual digestion process with be different (and you will get more protein from the tofu in similar quantities and it will have more calories overall in comparable volumes, obviously), but if you overate a diet including either you'd gain. Sure, hard to consume a lot of calories of just spinach, but a diet based on just spinach is not realistic so that's kind of irrelevant. I'd have a hard time overeating tofu too (and I really like it, prepared properly).10 -
Calories
Calories are calories
Macros
Carbs are carbs
Fat is fat
Protein is Protein
Micros
Vitamins/Minerals are Vitamins/Minerals
Calories are not Macros
Calories are not Micros
Micros are not Macros
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Thank you all for sharing!3
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I agree that a calorie is a calorie. When counting calories in the CI portion of CICO, a calorie is a calorie.
What those calories are in (protein vs fat vs carbs vs alcohol; or whole foods vs highly processed foods; or cooked vs raw; or plants with fibre vs refined foods; or soy vs meat; etc.) will determine the CO portion of the CICO equation. Some foods are harder to digest, slow absorption, improve or hurt health, or are more thermogenic. I think food choices can affect CO by a an amount that may become noticeable over time.
If there was a set of twins who had the same health and activity level, as well as the same caloric intake, but one ate a diet higher in protein and dates from meat, with only fibrous carbs, and the other ate a low fat, low protein diet that was high in ultra processed refined carbs, my guess is that as the months went by their weight and health would start to differ.22 -
In scientific terms (using metric units), a calorie is defined as the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 millilitre of pure water by 1 degree centigrade (at a pressure of 1 atmosphere).
That's it.
That's all it is.
(NB what we call calories in daily life are actually kilocalories - kcal, 1000 calories.)
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How many units of measure aren't equal to themselves?12
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UltraVegBabe wrote: »I’m just curious if anybody has any links to a scientific article or journal talking about calories in terms of if 100 calories of apples is equal to 100 calories of oreos.
I was debating this in my head while reading some other discussions. Depending on what I eat, how hungry I am, and how active I am, I eat between 1700-3000 calories. On average it’s around 2000. My calories only come from whole fruits and vegetables. I’m just thinking...I don’t think a calorie really equals a calorie because the body uses the food differently. White bread vs Sweet Potato, PB2 vs Almond Butter, Cane sugar vs Dates, Faux Chicken vs spinach, etc etc
You only eat fruit & vegetables?7 -
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I agree that a calorie is a calorie. When counting calories in the CI portion of CICO, a calorie is a calorie.
What those calories are in (protein vs fat vs carbs vs alcohol; or whole foods vs highly processed foods; or cooked vs raw; or plants with fibre vs refined foods; or soy vs meat; etc.) will determine the CO portion of the CICO equation. Some foods are harder to digest, slow absorption, improve or hurt health, or are more thermogenic. I think food choices can affect CO by a an amount that may become noticeable over time.
If there was a set of twins who had the same health and activity level, as well as the same caloric intake, but one ate a diet higher in protein and dates from meat, with only fibrous carbs, and the other ate a low fat, low protein diet that was high in ultra processed refined carbs, my guess is that as the months went by their weight and health would start to differ.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full
7 calories per 1000 calories ingested per 10% of the calories being protein instead of one of the other macros is the extent to which TEF influences CO. The other things you mentioned are along the same lines.
It's not something most people have to pay attention to. When was the last time you accidentally went from a 90/5/5 ultra vegan diet to a 40% protein bro diet which would give you an extra 24.5 calories per 1000 calories of that diet?7
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