Difference in calorie absorption depending on type of food?

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GingerbreadCandy
GingerbreadCandy Posts: 403 Member
edited January 2015 in Food and Nutrition
Hello,

so this little thing popped up on my new feed today: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-most-food-labels-are-wrong-about-calories

Since i know this forum loves to take these concepts and discuss them to death

To clarify –

1) This is not about "disproving" CICO or showing how it doesn't work. If anything, from my point of view, the article confirms that CICO always works.

2) Yes, this is IFLS which has, unfortunately, considerably ben degrading in quality lately with click-bait titles and unconfirmed articles. This one unfortunately falls in the same trap of having click-baity titles and subtitles, the content however, seems quite level-headed and well researched for once. There are also all the articles linked so if you prefer we may discuss those.

3)Yes, it's a study on rats.

My take on this –

From what I can tell this is actually a rather interesting research which may, if used and interpreted correctly, help people on one hand better lose weight. It also gives a good explanation as to why eating whole, unprocessed foods may help you lose weight – put simply – the human body is unable of processing the full energy potential, so you are essentially consuming less calories than if you were still eating the same food in processed form.

Looked at it that way, eating unprocessed foods is actually really a suboptimal way to obtain energy considering how much is lost amongst the way. Whereas processed foods are a marvel of engineering. :smiley:

Unfortunately, much like the sugar studies I also see this as potentially being used to rationalise fad diets such as clean eating and wholesome eating and all that, without looking at what the article is actually saying.

Opinions?

Replies

  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,957 Member
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    Context and dosage. Highly processed easily digestible and extremely palatable foods are not going away, it's a science. The problem with this of course, it makes peoples brains fall out.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    Please, god, not again.

    See here:
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10052821/stirring-the-pot-are-all-calories-equal/p1
  • GingerbreadCandy
    GingerbreadCandy Posts: 403 Member
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    jacksonpt wrote: »
    Please, god, not again.

    See here:
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10052821/stirring-the-pot-are-all-calories-equal/p1

    Oh, hadn't seen that one! I'll go read that one then. Thanks!

    My take on it wasn't that calories are not equal though, rather that calories are but the quantity we absorb differ depending on what we are eating…

    Which I guess is nothing new, but I still thought it would make for a good discussion. Guess it already happened though. :)

    Should I have this post closed then?
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    When it says "Your body gets two-thirds or less of the total calories available in the food. The rest might be used by bacteria in your colon, or might even be passed out whole." two thoughts arise

    a) if the bacteria use it do they not release heat and other digestible or usable substances (butyrate comes to mind).

    b) The "passing out whole" thing is easily accounted for by analysing faeces and the calorific value found there is quite modest. So yes there'll be some loss but no it isn't massively significant. The amount of dry matter in faeces is quite modest - 25 to 60 grams - so you can see the calorie potential is limited.
  • martyqueen52
    martyqueen52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    edited January 2015
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    ... where the hell do some of you get this crap?
  • GingerbreadCandy
    GingerbreadCandy Posts: 403 Member
    edited January 2015
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    yarwell wrote: »
    When it says "Your body gets two-thirds or less of the total calories available in the food. The rest might be used by bacteria in your colon, or might even be passed out whole." two thoughts arise

    a) if the bacteria use it do they not release heat and other digestible or usable substances (butyrate comes to mind).

    b) The "passing out whole" thing is easily accounted for by analysing faeces and the calorific value found there is quite modest. So yes there'll be some loss but no it isn't massively significant. The amount of dry matter in faeces is quite modest - 25 to 60 grams - so you can see the calorie potential is limited.

    True, actually one of the biggest issues I take with the article is that it does not give any information as to whether the difference in calories intake is significant or not. :/ Which really would be the most interesting aspect to it.

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