Why Most Calorie Counts are Wrong (including MFP)
Yawnetu
Posts: 53 Member
It's a complicated relationship. Calories in the Wild are not calories in your body, and how the food is prepared makes a big difference in how your body can render the calories.
What's even weirder is that its state of molecular excitement can determine how many calories your body will actually use. For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
"Even among cooked foods, digestibility varies. Starch becomes more resistant to digestion when it is allowed to cool and sit after being cooked, because it crystallizes into structures that digestive enzymes cannot easily break down. So stale foods like day-old cooked spaghetti, or cold toast, will give you fewer calories than the same foods eaten piping hot, even though technically they contain the same amount of stored energy."
Cold spaghetti? Ugh. I shudder at the thought.
Processed foods mean more digestibility, hence more calories than from the same foods, in the same amounts but unprocessed. This means preparing your own food at home will help you lose weight more than eating out will, and it's not just because of portion control.
So when you use the MFP calorie counts, what should you keep in mind?
"For decades there have been calls by distinguished committees and institutions to reform our calorie-counting system. But the calls for change have failed. The problem is a shortage of information. Researchers find it hard to predict precisely how many extra calories will be gained when our food is more highly processed. By contrast, they find it easy to show that if a food is digested completely, it will yield a specific number of calories.
"Our food labeling therefore faces a choice between two systems, neither of which is satisfactory. The first gives a precise number of calories but takes no account of the known effects of food-processing, and therefore mis-measures what
our bodies are actually harvesting from the food. The second would take account of food-processing, but without any precise numbers.
"Faced by this difficult choice, every country has opted to ignore the effect of processing and the result is that consumers are confused. Labels provide a number that likely overestimates the calories available in unprocessed foods. Food labels ignore the costs of the digestive process – losses to bacteria and energy spent digesting. The costs are lower for processed items, so the amount of overestimation on their labels is less."
For more, read here: blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/01/05/calorie-counts-wrong/#5465
What's even weirder is that its state of molecular excitement can determine how many calories your body will actually use. For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
"Even among cooked foods, digestibility varies. Starch becomes more resistant to digestion when it is allowed to cool and sit after being cooked, because it crystallizes into structures that digestive enzymes cannot easily break down. So stale foods like day-old cooked spaghetti, or cold toast, will give you fewer calories than the same foods eaten piping hot, even though technically they contain the same amount of stored energy."
Cold spaghetti? Ugh. I shudder at the thought.
Processed foods mean more digestibility, hence more calories than from the same foods, in the same amounts but unprocessed. This means preparing your own food at home will help you lose weight more than eating out will, and it's not just because of portion control.
So when you use the MFP calorie counts, what should you keep in mind?
"For decades there have been calls by distinguished committees and institutions to reform our calorie-counting system. But the calls for change have failed. The problem is a shortage of information. Researchers find it hard to predict precisely how many extra calories will be gained when our food is more highly processed. By contrast, they find it easy to show that if a food is digested completely, it will yield a specific number of calories.
"Our food labeling therefore faces a choice between two systems, neither of which is satisfactory. The first gives a precise number of calories but takes no account of the known effects of food-processing, and therefore mis-measures what
our bodies are actually harvesting from the food. The second would take account of food-processing, but without any precise numbers.
"Faced by this difficult choice, every country has opted to ignore the effect of processing and the result is that consumers are confused. Labels provide a number that likely overestimates the calories available in unprocessed foods. Food labels ignore the costs of the digestive process – losses to bacteria and energy spent digesting. The costs are lower for processed items, so the amount of overestimation on their labels is less."
For more, read here: blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/01/05/calorie-counts-wrong/#5465
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Replies
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lolol from a blog... lolol let me get right on that...0
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In before this nonsense gets shredded and the gif posts start.0
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Good job, elphie, but just barely.0
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If widely accepted calorie accounts are overestimated, awesome - just means I'll lose weight faster, right? Not sure it warranted 7 paragraphs, but...0
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Angel_Grove_ wrote: »If widely accepted calorie accounts are overestimated, awesome - just means I'll lose weight faster, right? Not sure it warranted 7 paragraphs, but...
Yup
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For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
If that were true it should be easier for us moms to lose weight, since we know we never get to eat our meals hot, we eat once everyone else is done eating and the food is cold. :-P0 -
For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
If that were true it should be easier for us moms to lose weight, since we know we never get to eat our meals hot, we eat once everyone else is done eating and the food is cold. :-P
Well change the tradition and have the ladies eat first like how it used to be.
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For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
If that were true it should be easier for us moms to lose weight, since we know we never get to eat our meals hot, we eat once everyone else is done eating and the food is cold. :-P
Right? I'm totally eating all the cold pizza in the fridge now. "Cold Pizza Diet" (trademark pending). That should work.
I'm sure there are calorie fluctuations, but the differences are minimal to the point of insignificance.0 -
For example, you'll process more calories from hot toast than from cold toast. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre, too.
If that were true it should be easier for us moms to lose weight, since we know we never get to eat our meals hot, we eat once everyone else is done eating and the food is cold. :-P
Your doing it wrong then0 -
I like how the article cited it's peer-reviewed sources/research.
Oh wait....0 -
The MAGIC CALORIES from superfoods are counted differently from all other calories, dont'cha know.
Eat kale.0 -
Guess I should stop eating my jello warm 0
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Bacteria bandits in ur colon, stealing ur gainz!
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warm jello is good for you. In fact, I usually drink mine steaming hot. Seriously. And as for fetishizing kale...do I even WANT to know? "Kale as Kinky" sounds like it could be a popular new MFP thread.0
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