A Podcast About "The Calorie"

mtaratoot

I like food. Big surprise, right? I like to eat, and I like to cook. I like to watch cooking shows on public television and listen to them on public radio. Public television is the only thing that I can pick up over the air, but that’s irrelevant. If I had other channels, I’d probably watch food shows there too. When I had Netflix, I watched Bourdain shows. Yeah.

I sometimes listen to podcasts. There’s one I found, probably because someone suggested it, called Gastropod. They self-describe as “A podcast of food with a side of history.” They release a new episode biweekly. In this case I mean every two weeks. Funny how biweekly can mean every two weeks or twice per week. Silly English. At least we have two separate words for the year; biennial (every two years) and biannual (twice a year). We should do that for weeks to; a word for once a fortnight and one for twice a week. As usual, I digress.

The latest release is an “encore” episode that was released some time in the past. It’s called, “The End of the Calorie.” I found it very interesting. They explored several aspects of what we know as a calorie. They look at how we first found out about calories, how labels can be off but usually not by more than 5-10%. They discuss the Atwater system that is where we get most calorie information based on calories assigned to protein, fat, and carbs. They talk about four ways that USDA allows manufacturers to determine calorie content, and then they talk about some more esoteric stuff. They look at some USDA research that shows how not all calories in food are absorbed into our bodies and how they do that research. An example was that if we eat 100 calories of almonds, our bodies likely only assimilate 80 of them. Wow. They further explore how cooking can increase the amount of caloric energy our body can access and that some kinds of food processing increase that even more. The same amount of corn would provide more caloric energy to our body if it was processed into Doritos than if we just ate it cooked, and that would be more than if we ate it raw. Wow. They go on to explore how our gut microbiome can potentially affect how our bodies vary with respect to absorption of calories from our food.

This episode is about 45 minutes long. Beware; one thing I like about this podcast is that they are not afraid of any word in our language. If some words are offensive to you, beware. I’m talking about words like the four-letter one that starts with the same letter and ends with the same last three letters as the word firetruck.

You will probably be able to listen online at https://gastropod.com/ when they release the next episode. For now, you’ll have to go to wherever you normally listen to podcasts to find it. The episode is titled “The End of the Calorie,” and the date is 17 January, 2023.

If you listen in, I'd love to hear what you think about it. I like their style and the production value of their podcasts. I hope you enjoy them too. There's quite a library of old episodes to wander through; I've been doing that. This one was very appropriate for us here on MFP, and it was really serendipitous I was just talking to a friend about calories, logging, and some of the variability of how each person assimilates calories and the rate they expend them. This particular podcast really only focuses on the calories IN side of the equation. It's a food show, not an exercise show.

Enjoy!

PAPYRUS3

I too have listened to many of the podcasts. I remember this one but relistened again. I love this...it really does make sense. Our bodies (our individual bodies) are far more sophisticated. A calorie is not a calorie in how each individual processes each (fats/carbs/protein) in distinct ways and of course this could/would have real implications for weight management.

I hope much more scientific research is done.

pamperedlinny

Gastropod is one of my favorite podcasts. They really go into the science, history and current issues for every food topic they cover.

AnnPT77

I'll look it up and listen, but am curious in advance what you think about one question after you listened: Are the potential discrepancies in calorie absorption from the same food large enough to interfere with a "workable estimates on average" way of thinking?

mtaratoot

I think that the piece was well-done and informed. It was indeed very interesting, and nothing that they explain would preclude developing a workable estimate. In fact, I think it supports the entire idea, but with the caveat that there are some subtle and perhaps less subtle variability among members of the population.

I won't spoil it, so you'll have to listen to the last ten or twelve minutes for a possible exception that is at least plausible. Even that exception would still provide a workable estimate, but it might be a different estimate for some individuals. You'll have to let the hosts and experts they work with spill those beans. Mmmm.... beans. I think I'll go have the last of my garbanzo salad. Black beans are soaking for the next round.

BarbaraHelen2013

By the way, it’s perfectly correct, to use ‘semi-weekly’ to remove the ambiguity in your bi-weekly conundrum. The prefix ‘semi’ means ‘cut into two halves’ so it is often used to replace the ‘twice a week’ usage of bi-weekly. 😊

neanderthin

I listened to it on spotify. A decent zoomed out look at the concept of a calorie and what might effect that concept. cheers.