Stirring the Pot: are all calories equal
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Exactly!!AbsoluteTara wrote:It is stating that just because you ingest 100 calories of some food, it doesn't mean that you digest all 100 calories. The availability of those calories for digestion and consumption by your body's cells vary from food to food.
So maybe the discussion should be:
should the food label (if there is one) show raw calories, or useful calories?
Do different people's bodies absorb different amounts from the same food? If so, there's no way to state how many useful calories are in any food; they'd have to use an average, and in that case why not revert to the data we already have, showing raw calories?
You didn't read the article, did you?hollydubs wrote:Even if this is true (which I'm not sure that it is), the difference between energy burned digesting raw and cooked foods is so minuscule that the calories are negligible
"the rats eating the puffed pellets grew heavier and had 30% more body fat than their counterparts eating regular chow"
30% more body fat is not "negligible". I'd venture to say that it's probably even statistically significant.
The number of calories necessary to pack 30% more body fat on a rat is negligible, presuming they started with the usual well taken care of (i.e. lean) rats. It probably is statistically significant - rat data is very reproducible.
To give you some perspective, the animal facility here made an error with one of our PI's rats when they were newly transferred from his old facility. They fed an additional gram of feed per meal compared to the previous facility. The rats were noticeably fatter and more sluggish in a couple of weeks.
A tiny change in calorie input results in a disproportionately large change in body fat in a caged rat.0 -
I've posted about this before but it's been awhile, and it adds interesting fuel to the fire. There's a relatively new field of study called nutrigenomics. It turns out that, despite the amount of calories in a particular food/nutrient, some of them interact with our genetic expression in different ways, upregulating or downregulating the production of whatever enzyme/protein/job that gene has to do.
I am a veterinarian for an animal nutrition company and we have been able to do this work a little faster than in the human field because we have more compliant subjects. There is already a heavily researched and commercially produced diet in which extremely high levels of EPA (dogs) or DHA (cats) interact with genetic expression in ways that downregulate the production of aggrecanase, which is a factor in osteoarthritis. We can see both the downregulation in DNA heat mapping of cell cultures, and clinical see improvement in the pets' mobility in 30 days.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043801
http://bit.ly/1ICYeKp
More recently, this work was applied to obesity in dogs and cats and a selection of nutrients was found that modulates the activity of many of the genes related to metabolism and weight gain/loss. The calorie intake of this diet is often slightly higher than that of the previous calorie-restricted diet the pets were unsuccessfully on. Can they eat the whole bag and still lose weight? Of course not. But there is evidence that the combination of specific nutrients improves their lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism, appetite hormones and satiety at the mRNA transcription level. Again, visible in both DNA heat mapping and clinically.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682937/
You can't grossly override the calories in/calories out equation with any magic bullet, but there IS a difference in how certain nutrients affect the genes that factor into our weight.0 -
zoodocgirl wrote: »I've posted about this before but it's been awhile, and it adds interesting fuel to the fire. There's a relatively new field of study called nutrigenomics. It turns out that, despite the amount of calories in a particular food/nutrient, some of them interact with our genetic expression in different ways, upregulating or downregulating the production of whatever enzyme/protein/job that gene has to do.
I am a veterinarian for an animal nutrition company and we have been able to do this work a little faster than in the human field because we have more compliant subjects. There is already a heavily researched and commercially produced diet in which extremely high levels of EPA (dogs) or DHA (cats) interact with genetic expression in ways that downregulate the production of aggrecanase, which is a factor in osteoarthritis. We can see both the downregulation in DNA heat mapping of cell cultures, and clinical see improvement in the pets' mobility in 30 days.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043801
http://bit.ly/1ICYeKp
More recently, this work was applied to obesity in dogs and cats and a selection of nutrients was found that modulates the activity of many of the genes related to metabolism and weight gain/loss. The calorie intake of this diet is often slightly higher than that of the previous calorie-restricted diet the pets were unsuccessfully on. Can they eat the whole bag and still lose weight? Of course not. But there is evidence that the combination of specific nutrients improves their lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism, appetite hormones and satiety at the mRNA transcription level. Again, visible in both DNA heat mapping and clinically.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682937/
You can't grossly override the calories in/calories out equation with any magic bullet, but there IS a difference in how certain nutrients affect the genes that factor into our weight.
Very interesting. And I think you clearly identify the major from the minors.
CICO is of major importance if not exact, pretty much all else is minors.0 -
of course a calorie is a calorie. just like a pound is a pound. but a pound of bricks is much more dense than a pound of feathers. the nutrients associated with calories can be good, or bad.
I can eat a snickers bar (250 calories) or I can eat a lovely salad, with chicken and mandarin orange slices and toppings and dressing for the same calories, and have a much more nutritious meal (and skip the sugar crash) and be fuller, longer.0 -
EvgeniZyntx wrote: »zoodocgirl wrote: »I've posted about this before but it's been awhile, and it adds interesting fuel to the fire. There's a relatively new field of study called nutrigenomics. It turns out that, despite the amount of calories in a particular food/nutrient, some of them interact with our genetic expression in different ways, upregulating or downregulating the production of whatever enzyme/protein/job that gene has to do.
I am a veterinarian for an animal nutrition company and we have been able to do this work a little faster than in the human field because we have more compliant subjects. There is already a heavily researched and commercially produced diet in which extremely high levels of EPA (dogs) or DHA (cats) interact with genetic expression in ways that downregulate the production of aggrecanase, which is a factor in osteoarthritis. We can see both the downregulation in DNA heat mapping of cell cultures, and clinical see improvement in the pets' mobility in 30 days.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043801
http://bit.ly/1ICYeKp
More recently, this work was applied to obesity in dogs and cats and a selection of nutrients was found that modulates the activity of many of the genes related to metabolism and weight gain/loss. The calorie intake of this diet is often slightly higher than that of the previous calorie-restricted diet the pets were unsuccessfully on. Can they eat the whole bag and still lose weight? Of course not. But there is evidence that the combination of specific nutrients improves their lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism, appetite hormones and satiety at the mRNA transcription level. Again, visible in both DNA heat mapping and clinically.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682937/
You can't grossly override the calories in/calories out equation with any magic bullet, but there IS a difference in how certain nutrients affect the genes that factor into our weight.
Very interesting. And I think you clearly identify the major from the minors.
CICO is of major importance if not exact, pretty much all else is minors.
Thanks to zoodocgirl, that was interesting. Perhaps not major in healthy individuals, but potentially crucial in people with various diseases. I'm no fan of sticking to one paradigm until hell freezes over. Wish I was born 100 years from now when there is much more knowledge.0 -
Wealthy calories are far superior to the inferior poor calories.
Godly calories are supreme and evil calories - well - they are rotten to the core.
I could go on...0 -
GingerbreadCandy wrote: »I also question if the difference made is really large enough to be significant in humans. Unfortunately, the article doesn't give any clues to that.
the amount of calories left in your waste can be measured and accounted for, it isn't huge. Over time it might be significant as a few calories a day is a lot over 10 years.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/31/7/1149.full.pdf+html
Men were fed a diet that was high in fiber, then low in fiber (12g/day vrs 1g/day). When on the high fiber diet, their feces contained 900 more calories over the course of a week than when they were on the low fiber diet. 900x52 = 46,800 = would be 13 pounds fat difference in a year by making changes in what sort of food people ate (high versus low fiber).
Sounds like high fibre diets waste a lot of food. Not sure how that's a good thing....it's certainly not environmentally friendly....
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Exactly!!AbsoluteTara wrote:It is stating that just because you ingest 100 calories of some food, it doesn't mean that you digest all 100 calories. The availability of those calories for digestion and consumption by your body's cells vary from food to food.
So maybe the discussion should be:
should the food label (if there is one) show raw calories, or useful calories?
It has to be "raw", IMO, because there is way too much context to figure out a number for the "useful" number.
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callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »of course a calorie is a calorie. just like a pound is a pound. but a pound of bricks is much more dense than a pound of feathers. the nutrients associated with calories can be good, or bad.
I can eat a snickers bar (250 calories) or I can eat a lovely salad, with chicken and mandarin orange slices and toppings and dressing for the same calories, and have a much more nutritious meal (and skip the sugar crash) and be fuller, longer.
But 25 miles into a 100 mile bike ride, you're going to be much better off eating the Snickers bar....0 -
Interesting video you might enjoy. If your not into the sciency stuff just watch the last 30. Its all about, is a calorie a calorie?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y 0 -
Lezavargas wrote: »Interesting video you might enjoy. If your not into the sciency stuff just watch the last 30. Its all about, is a calorie a calorie?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y
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Lezavargas wrote: »Interesting video you might enjoy. If your not into the sciency stuff just watch the last 30. Its all about, is a calorie a calorie?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y
Isn't that the all natural moms chick?????0 -
Lezavargas wrote: »Interesting video you might enjoy. If your not into the sciency stuff just watch the last 30. Its all about, is a calorie a calorie?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y
Isn't that the all natural moms chick?????
Why yes, yes it is.
Still pushing her brand of clean eating I see...0 -
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johnnylakis wrote: »
Wait, what?0 -
The article makes sense to me. If you consider the body and engine and the food the fuel, it makes perfect sense. You might have to types of fuel with the same energy contained therein. If you poured both types of fuel on a fire, they would release the same energy. On the other hand, if you ran them through an engine it would depend on which fuel the engine was optimized to burn. One fuel might completely combust and bring the engine it's maximum horsepower. The other might burn less completely and result in an engine that doesn't perform quite as well despite having the same energy contained in a given unit of said fuel as the better performing fuel.
You could also see how different engines (bodies) react to different fuels and that no rule regarding fuel could be taken as a hard and fast rule for said fuel and every engine (body).0 -
"two types of fuel"0
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