Heating Blueberries

24

Replies

  • MommyL2015
    MommyL2015 Posts: 1,411 Member
    How on earth can simply heating something up add calories? Where do they come from? Do the blueberries absorb microwave energy somehow and turn it into calories? Interesting. Does this apply to all food? Because I use my microwave a lot.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    This is a question I've been curious about. I like my bananas a little green, I find the very mature ones too sweet. Same banana left on the counter for a week and it tastes much sweeter. Fruit gets sweeter as it matures--I assume the calorie count goes up accordingly?
  • Emi1974
    Emi1974 Posts: 522 Member
    Do frozen blueberries have less calories? Just kidding, I am not worried about blueberries. It's the chocolate and cake that makes me fat
    So if someone is worried that heated blueberries have more calories and wants to calculate each and last of these calories... is it the same like me when I feel cheated when I eat corn?
    I mean, I record 100 g of corn but still see a large amount of undigested corn later on at the other end of the digestive process. Should I subtracts those kernels from the overall weight? It's just fair I think :D

    Just to be accurate
  • vkahlenberg
    vkahlenberg Posts: 21 Member
    MommyL2015 wrote: »
    How on earth can simply heating something up add calories? Where do they come from? Do the blueberries absorb microwave energy somehow and turn it into calories? Interesting. Does this apply to all food? Because I use my microwave a lot.

    Above linked article from Discover magazine explains it, FWIW. I don't think I will be worrying too much about it, but it was a very interesting read, I thought.
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    So if I have 10 grams of carbohydrates in the form of raw blueberries (40 calories) and I heat them from 20C to 30C (10 grams x .001 x 10C = 1 calorie), you're saying I now have 11 calories in my food.
    Do I now have 10.25 grams of carbohydrates (the heat magically created another quarter gram of carbs) or are you saying that hot carbs have more calories than cold carbs?

    Also, do I have to eat them while their still hot to get the extra calories? Do the extra calories go away when the food cools back off or do they stay? What if I eat 110F blueberries but my stomach acid cools them back down to 98.6F before they have a chance to digest? What if I eat 70F blueberries but my stomach acid warms them to 98.6F?

    Should I only eat cold soup when cutting because the hot soup has more calories?

    Do we need "hot" and "cold" entries in MFP?

    If heating adds calories, does freezing reduce them? Can I get ice cream cold enough to make it virtually calorie free?

    What if "because Yarwell said so" isn't sufficient evidence for the validity of a silly claim that a microwave can add calories to your food?
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    How do you account for blowing on your food? And do we need to be taking the temperature of each bite before consuming? What about the loss in temperature while the chewing process occurs? Isn't all food body temperature by the time it reaches the digestive tract?

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALCULATE CALORIES NOW?!
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    auddii wrote: »
    How do you account for blowing on your food? And do we need to be taking the temperature of each bite before consuming? What about the loss in temperature while the chewing process occurs? Isn't all food body temperature by the time it reaches the digestive tract?

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALCULATE CALORIES NOW?!

    Need a food scale AND a thermometer.

    Or eat everything at room temperature, including popsicles.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    auddii wrote: »
    How do you account for blowing on your food? And do we need to be taking the temperature of each bite before consuming? What about the loss in temperature while the chewing process occurs? Isn't all food body temperature by the time it reaches the digestive tract?

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALCULATE CALORIES NOW?!

    Need a food scale AND a thermometer.

    Or eat everything at room temperature, including popsicles.

    What if room temperature popsicles were really just Kool-Aid???

    tumblr_m0wb2xz9Yh1r08e3p.jpg
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    OP it's great that you want to be as accurate as possible, but there are MANY factors at play when measuring the CICO equation and when it comes down to it, all of them are really just estimates. The best you can do is try to be accurate in big ways (logging everything you eat, using a food scale, having a realistic understanding that exercise burns may be overinflated and adjust accordingly) and not sweat the minute details like if heating your blueberries in the microwave adds 1 calorie to them. Or, while they are hearing, walk one lap around your kitchen and it's a wash.

    Focus on the big stuff. Don't major in the minors. Consistency is what really matters.

    Good luck.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    edited February 2016
    yarwell wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    0.001 calories per gram per degree C of extra temperature is the number of calories to add for heating, approximately.

    100g of blueberries at 40 C compared to 20C = 2 extra calories.

    What counts as "extra" temperature? Like, what's the baseline on which one would expect the USDA calorie count for blueberries was calculated?

    Above room temperature or whatever base temperature USDA use.

    I don't know the convention in nutrition, but in Thermodynamics generally either 0 or 25 C tend to be common.
    "Atwater and Rosa (63) defined the Calorie at 20°C and noted that it was slightly larger than the 18°C unit employed by Armsby (64)." according to http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full

    Dietary calories are kCals and they don't reflect straight bomb calorimetry numbers anyway. I fail to see why you'd then think it would be appropriate to add the numbers into determining diet, particularly as 100 grams for blueberries is not 100 grams of water, and wouldn't even contain 2 kCal worth of true heat content when heated from 20C to 40C anyway.

    The implication would be that you could cure world starvation if you just gave everyone some parabolic mirrors and access to water...

    Not sure if you're just 'avin' a bubble or you seriously think humans are thermotrophic.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    So if I have 10 grams of carbohydrates in the form of raw blueberries (40 calories) and I heat them from 20C to 30C (10 grams x .001 x 10C = 1 calorie), you're saying I now have 11 calories in my food.

    No, I'm saying you need to work on your calculation. #fail
    What if "because Yarwell said so" isn't sufficient evidence for the validity of a silly claim that a microwave can add calories to your food?

    Silly ? Pfft. Thermodynamics, a calorie is a calorie and all that.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    auddii wrote: »
    How do you account for blowing on your food? And do we need to be taking the temperature of each bite before consuming? What about the loss in temperature while the chewing process occurs? Isn't all food body temperature by the time it reaches the digestive tract?

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALCULATE CALORIES NOW?!

    don't forget the faecal calorimeter etc.

  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    senecarr wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    0.001 calories per gram per degree C of extra temperature is the number of calories to add for heating, approximately.

    100g of blueberries at 40 C compared to 20C = 2 extra calories.

    What counts as "extra" temperature? Like, what's the baseline on which one would expect the USDA calorie count for blueberries was calculated?

    Above room temperature or whatever base temperature USDA use.

    I don't know the convention in nutrition, but in Thermodynamics generally either 0 or 25 C tend to be common.
    "Atwater and Rosa (63) defined the Calorie at 20°C and noted that it was slightly larger than the 18°C unit employed by Armsby (64)." according to http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full

    Dietary calories are kCals and they don't reflect straight bomb calorimetry numbers anyway. I fail to see why you'd then think it would be appropriate to add the numbers into determining diet, particularly as 100 grams for blueberries is not 100 grams of water, and wouldn't even contain 2 kCal worth of true heat content when heated from 20C to 40C anyway.

    The implication would be that you could cure world starvation if you just gave everyone some parabolic mirrors and access to water...

    Not sure if you're just 'avin' a bubble or you seriously think humans are thermotrophic.

    As you can see from the maths I know that a "Calorie" is a kg-calorie and not a calorie (small c)

    The effect is not significant, as I believe I demonstrated, and if you consider the word "approximately" I believe I have taken care of the difference in specific heat from 1.0 due to a) composition (although most of a blueberry is water) and b) it not being at a standard temperature.

    Isn't this what you CICO people believe ? Hotter food = slightly more calories in.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    MommyL2015 wrote: »
    How on earth can simply heating something up add calories? Where do they come from? Do the blueberries absorb microwave energy somehow and turn it into calories? Interesting. Does this apply to all food? Because I use my microwave a lot.

    Heat energy is added by the microwave energy which is a small part of the electrical energy which in turn is a part of the fuel used to generate the electricity which......

    A calorie is a unit of heat energy, its very definition is that heating something up adds calories.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    yarwell wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    0.001 calories per gram per degree C of extra temperature is the number of calories to add for heating, approximately.

    100g of blueberries at 40 C compared to 20C = 2 extra calories.

    What counts as "extra" temperature? Like, what's the baseline on which one would expect the USDA calorie count for blueberries was calculated?

    Above room temperature or whatever base temperature USDA use.

    I don't know the convention in nutrition, but in Thermodynamics generally either 0 or 25 C tend to be common.
    "Atwater and Rosa (63) defined the Calorie at 20°C and noted that it was slightly larger than the 18°C unit employed by Armsby (64)." according to http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full

    Dietary calories are kCals and they don't reflect straight bomb calorimetry numbers anyway. I fail to see why you'd then think it would be appropriate to add the numbers into determining diet, particularly as 100 grams for blueberries is not 100 grams of water, and wouldn't even contain 2 kCal worth of true heat content when heated from 20C to 40C anyway.

    The implication would be that you could cure world starvation if you just gave everyone some parabolic mirrors and access to water...

    Not sure if you're just 'avin' a bubble or you seriously think humans are thermotrophic.

    As you can see from the maths I know that a "Calorie" is a kg-calorie and not a calorie (small c)

    The effect is not significant, as I believe I demonstrated, and if you consider the word "approximately" I believe I have taken care of the difference in specific heat from 1.0 due to a) composition (although most of a blueberry is water) and b) it not being at a standard temperature.

    Isn't this what you CICO people believe ? Hotter food = slightly more calories in.

    And sitting in the cold raises your TDEE. And drinking cold water raises your TDEE.

    <minds blown everywhere>

    And yet... it doesn't matter.

    (ps OP - heating fruit does not release more sugars. This is just part of the TEF. Energy carried and released by food.)

    (ops. The thermal density of food stuff varies tremendously the 0.001 cal per g per degree probably varies by 20%.)
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    edited February 2016
    yarwell wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    0.001 calories per gram per degree C of extra temperature is the number of calories to add for heating, approximately.

    100g of blueberries at 40 C compared to 20C = 2 extra calories.

    What counts as "extra" temperature? Like, what's the baseline on which one would expect the USDA calorie count for blueberries was calculated?

    Above room temperature or whatever base temperature USDA use.

    I don't know the convention in nutrition, but in Thermodynamics generally either 0 or 25 C tend to be common.
    "Atwater and Rosa (63) defined the Calorie at 20°C and noted that it was slightly larger than the 18°C unit employed by Armsby (64)." according to http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full

    Dietary calories are kCals and they don't reflect straight bomb calorimetry numbers anyway. I fail to see why you'd then think it would be appropriate to add the numbers into determining diet, particularly as 100 grams for blueberries is not 100 grams of water, and wouldn't even contain 2 kCal worth of true heat content when heated from 20C to 40C anyway.

    The implication would be that you could cure world starvation if you just gave everyone some parabolic mirrors and access to water...

    Not sure if you're just 'avin' a bubble or you seriously think humans are thermotrophic.

    As you can see from the maths I know that a "Calorie" is a kg-calorie and not a calorie (small c)

    The effect is not significant, as I believe I demonstrated, and if you consider the word "approximately" I believe I have taken care of the difference in specific heat from 1.0 due to a) composition (although most of a blueberry is water) and b) it not being at a standard temperature.

    Isn't this what you CICO people believe ? Hotter food = slightly more calories in.

    If you believe that, why didn't you include the calculation of the sunlight energy hitting someone's skin depending on if they're eating in the dark or not, like some people seem to be.

    I'm also in for the metabolic pathways where thermal energy is digested, as that is what in means. I'm sure it will have to involve insulin in some way...
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Energy gains and losses from surrounding has to be part of the equation, for sure. Small though they are likely to be.

    Would one not expect to eat more to stay in a thermal balance at -40 C compared to +30 C ?
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    But what about the extra calories my body will need to use to bring the blueberries back down to 98.6F?

    Or is that offset by the fewer calories burned to raise the temperature of the yogurt?
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    If fruit is cooked there are juices released, fibers broken down and the sugar becomes more available. But the quantity of sugar is the same. The difference would be that the sugars would enter the bloodstream faster for the cooked fruit than from the raw fruit. But the same number of calories would be consumed in both instances.

    The reason cooked foods like meats are more calories per gram (and this is reflected in the MFP entries raw vs cooked) is that some water is released during cooking.

    Frozen to room temperature surely makes no difference.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    jofjltncb6 wrote: »
    But what about the extra calories my body will need to use to bring the blueberries back down to 98.6F?

    your body will gain that heat from the hot food and not need to produce that heat - it's not like a fridge cooling it down.

    A sensible energy balance would start from the inputs at their input temperature and the outputs at the output/waste temperatures, so as standard the calorific value should reflect turning food at initial temperature into waste at body temperature.
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    yarwell wrote: »
    jofjltncb6 wrote: »
    But what about the extra calories my body will need to use to bring the blueberries back down to 98.6F?

    your body will gain that heat from the hot food and not need to produce that heat - it's not like a fridge cooling it down.

    A sensible energy balance would start from the inputs at their input temperature and the outputs at the output/waste temperatures, so as standard the calorific value should reflect turning food at initial temperature into waste at body temperature.

    So you're saying that we burn fewer calories sitting in a sauna than sitting at room temperature?

    :huh:
  • Lov3lif3
    Lov3lif3 Posts: 68 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    OP it's ...not sweat the minute details like if heating your blueberries in the microwave adds 1 calorie to them. Or, while they are hearing, walk one lap around your kitchen and it's a wash.
    .

    Rest assured.. I won't be breaking into a sweat. Why the need to say such a thing? It was just an informal question and I was not unkind in any way when I asked. I'd rather you left those kind of comments. Good luck!
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    yarwell wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    So if I have 10 grams of carbohydrates in the form of raw blueberries (40 calories) and I heat them from 20C to 30C (10 grams x .001 x 10C = 1 calorie), you're saying I now have 11 calories in my food.

    No, I'm saying you need to work on your calculation. #fail
    What if "because Yarwell said so" isn't sufficient evidence for the validity of a silly claim that a microwave can add calories to your food?

    Silly ? Pfft. Thermodynamics, a calorie is a calorie and all that.

    You're right, I missed a decimal point.

    Either way, you're leading to OP to be concerned about needing to count more calories if her blueberries get hot which is, indeed, a ludicrous thing to be concerned over.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    If fruit is cooked there are juices released, fibers broken down and the sugar becomes more available. But the quantity of sugar is the same. The difference would be that the sugars would enter the bloodstream faster for the cooked fruit than from the raw fruit. But the same number of calories would be consumed in both instances.

    The reason cooked foods like meats are more calories per gram (and this is reflected in the MFP entries raw vs cooked) is that some water is released during cooking.

    Frozen to room temperature surely makes no difference.

    Not for everyone, when I cook with frozen shrimp the weight change is about 30% from frozen to room temp. (one weighs the drained shrimp, not the left over water.)
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    Lov3lif3 wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    OP it's ...not sweat the minute details like if heating your blueberries in the microwave adds 1 calorie to them. Or, while they are hearing, walk one lap around your kitchen and it's a wash.
    .

    Rest assured.. I won't be breaking into a sweat. Why the need to say such a thing? It was just an informal question and I was not unkind in any way when I asked. I'd rather you left those kind of comments. Good luck!

    But sweating actually burns calories.

    (Unless, of course, yarwell says otherwise.)
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Aha. Water removal @EvgeniZyntx . But our beloved, meticulous OP is incorporating her blueberry juices in to her delicious, nutritious, and appropriately calorific breakfast.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    So if I have 10 grams of carbohydrates in the form of raw blueberries (40 calories) and I heat them from 20C to 30C (10 grams x .001 x 10C = 1 calorie), you're saying I now have 11 calories in my food.

    No, I'm saying you need to work on your calculation. #fail
    What if "because Yarwell said so" isn't sufficient evidence for the validity of a silly claim that a microwave can add calories to your food?

    Silly ? Pfft. Thermodynamics, a calorie is a calorie and all that.

    You're right, I missed a decimal point.

    Either way, you're leading to OP to be concerned about needing to count more calories if her blueberries get hot which is, indeed, a ludicrous thing to be concerned over.

    This.

    OP, Yarwell apparently clarified that he tried to use math to prove that worrying about the few calories is ridiculous (I think? I'm so lost in this conversation).

    Don't worry about it; move on and keep logging. You'll be fine.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Aha. Water removal @EvgeniZyntx . But our beloved, meticulous OP is incorporating her blueberry juices in to her delicious, nutritious, and appropriately calorific breakfast.

    But they aren't frozen. Fresh of course, which has a few more micronutrients and less broken down proteins so ... more calories.

    12 week old blueberries obviously have less calories than just picked ones.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    yarwell wrote: »
    jofjltncb6 wrote: »
    But what about the extra calories my body will need to use to bring the blueberries back down to 98.6F?

    your body will gain that heat from the hot food and not need to produce that heat - it's not like a fridge cooling it down.

    A sensible energy balance would start from the inputs at their input temperature and the outputs at the output/waste temperatures, so as standard the calorific value should reflect turning food at initial temperature into waste at body temperature.

    Are you saying that the body does not regulate it's temperature, or are you saying that energy is not used during that regulation process?
  • Lov3lif3
    Lov3lif3 Posts: 68 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Aha. Water removal @EvgeniZyntx . But our beloved, meticulous OP is incorporating her blueberry juices in to her delicious, nutritious, and appropriately calorific breakfast.


    Please find another thread to leave your unkind comments.