Potato confusion

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  • joannathechef
    joannathechef Posts: 484 Member
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    If you want a very detailed article "The Energetic Significance of Cooking" in the Journal of Human Evolution is a good place to start.

    RossChip gave a good example of how this happen. Starch digestibility increases with cooking because starches break down into simpler sugars that the human body can utilize. A lot of plant matter is made up of lignin, which humans cannot digest, but ruminant animals can due to their digestive enzymes. Cooking breaks down some lignin and other long-chain polysaccharides (starches). Some, however, do not fully break down, which is where fiber comes from. Fiber is generally composed of lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose.

    Biologist here. Confirming the above food scientist.
    :)

    This is why you can eat a crap ton of cals on a raw diet and lose weight. The cals cannot be utilized. The invention of flame is why we evolved our big calorie consuming brains! This girl is smart. Like me.

    :)

    Yeah but there is no other way except for calories to objectively measure the quantity/value of the food we eat it would be great if we could say have table raw corn = 100 cal just cooked corn = 120 cal cooked to death corn 130 cals but I do not know of a way of doing hence our reliance on calories...I know the glycemic index of foods gives you a clue but it is not exactly the same thing either :)

    So I think we are stuck with calories as the way to measure this for now unless you know of another metric?
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,229 Member
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    Perhaps the difference would not be 100 kcal, it might be 10. I don't have that number; I was simply trying to provide a scientific explanation to the person.

    Heat does cause a break down of starch, but that doesn't mean an increase in calories. It would actually be a decrease and it would be a significantly small amount. Heat would release calories, just as when food is burned in a calorimeter, but unless the food is burned directly it would not be a significant release. I'm thinking more along the lines of tiny fractions of a calorie per gram of weight.
  • ToughTulip
    ToughTulip Posts: 1,118 Member
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    Why would that be a joke? I'm in food science, we learn about this. Potatoes technically have fewer calories raw vs. cooked because the human body can't break down those starches.

    I am a food science major. And you are speaking nonsense.
  • FirefitMike
    FirefitMike Posts: 85 Member
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    Why would that be a joke? I'm in food science, we learn about this. Potatoes technically have fewer calories raw vs. cooked because the human body can't break down those starches.

    I am a food science major. And you are speaking nonsense.

    Let me get my popcorn. This is gonna get good.

    I love the internet.
  • bethanyclaire88
    bethanyclaire88 Posts: 15
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    If they were both burned in a bomb calorimeter, yes, the calorie value would be the same. However, with calories in a practical sense (actually being used in the body) you cannot break down the starches to get the same number of calories in a raw vs. cooked potato.
  • xtrout
    xtrout Posts: 193 Member
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    It should be due to the way starch breaks down into material that is useable by the human body. Boiling integrates heat further into the potato and disperses better than microwaves, breaking down more of the starch; therefore, there are more calories for your body to utilize. Microwaving doesn't break down the starches as well. If it helps, think about how soft a boiled vs. microwaved potato is. Hope this helps.


    You are correct. Especially for fruits and vegetables. Cooking them changes how they are processed by the body. So from a nutritional and caloric absorption standpoint, there would be some variances.
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,229 Member
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    If they were both burned in a bomb calorimeter, yes, the calorie value would be the same. However, with calories in a practical sense (actually being used in the body) you cannot break down the starches to get the same number of calories in a raw vs. cooked potato.

    Granted... it's more difficult to break down those starches... therefore, the digestive system would need to use more calories to break it down (I think this is where we are hitting on the glycemic index), but that doesn't mean that the body is incapable of breaking down those starches or that those calories are somehow expelled from the body nor does that mean that the food contains less or more calories.

    Let's remember that mankind did not always "cook" food. Somehow our bodies had to be able to digest such rigid chains of molecules.
  • bethanyclaire88
    bethanyclaire88 Posts: 15
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    The human body does not have the enzymes necessary to break down starches in a raw potato. Think about it similarly to fiber, we can't metabolize the constituents of insoluble fiber, so it passes through our body undigested.
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
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    If I were to start a rock band, I would call it Potato Confusion. And it would be epic.

    *to the tune of 'The Beautiful People' by Marilyn Manson*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion,

    *dun na dun na*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion....
  • Klem4
    Klem4 Posts: 399 Member
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    This is interesting, I was wondering this myself the other day when I noticed the same thing on some other foods I was attempting to enter. lol. I was puzzled. Will have to read more later.
  • TahliaHarveysMummy
    TahliaHarveysMummy Posts: 59
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    It should be due to the way starch breaks down into material that is useable by the human body. Boiling integrates heat further into the potato and disperses better than microwaves, breaking down more of the starch; therefore, there are more calories for your body to utilize. Microwaving doesn't break down the starches as well. If it helps, think about how soft a boiled vs. microwaved potato is. Hope this helps.
    I hope to god you're joking....

    Not a joke!! Fruit is the same way - eaten whole is better than juiced, hence why you can have 8 glasses of fruit juice a day but it will only ever count as 1 of your 5 a day!!! The sugars release differently when's juice than a whole..... so potatoes would work the same way with the starches! Weird but true!
  • xtrout
    xtrout Posts: 193 Member
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    If I were to start a rock band, I would call it Potato Confusion. And it would be epic.

    *to the tune of 'The Beautiful People' by Marilyn Manson*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion,

    *dun na dun na*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion....

    Was thinking the same thing only using "Ball of Confusion" by Love and Rockets.
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
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    If I were to start a rock band, I would call it Potato Confusion. And it would be epic.

    *to the tune of 'The Beautiful People' by Marilyn Manson*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion,

    *dun na dun na*

    Potato confusion,
    potato confusion....

    Was thinking the same thing only using "Ball of Confusion" by Love and Rockets.

    Just looked it up - wow, that is quite epic as well. I love his shirt in the video. Kind of reminds me of The Smiths back in the day, whom I adore ♥
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,229 Member
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    The human body does not have the enzymes necessary to break down starches in a raw potato. Think about it similarly to fiber, we can't metabolize the constituents of insoluble fiber, so it passes through our body undigested.

    So what you are suggesting is that a cooked potato has more calories than a raw potato because the body cannot process all of the starches, and therefore, passes those calories away. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

    What I am saying is that the assigned caloric values for a potato are:

    a.) estimated in the first place
    b.) do not take the digestability of those calories into consideration

    IF... one were to accept your proposed theory on the variations of the caloric difference between a cooked and raw potato (coincidentally the OP didn't even ask about a raw potato, but rather the difference in cooking methods), THEN would have to assume that other calories consumed during the course of the day are expelled rather than consumed.

    Personally, that seems like a dangerous assumption to propose on a fitness site. One could easily distort that so that they have an excuse to eat more food. In other words, perpetuating misinformation.
  • bethanyclaire88
    bethanyclaire88 Posts: 15
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    I think this has been blown way out of proportion and I have explained this to the best of my ability. I am not at all suggesting that calories are magically going away. I am not trying to perpetuate misinformation; I am not an RD, and I don't pretend I'm the authority on nutrition. I don't think anyone needs an excuse to eat more food, nor would I give one. I was simply offering a food chemistry perspective on why it may have been different.

    If you're still interested, here's some further reading:

    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2009/aug/05/1f5focusm195324-pros-and-cons-munching-raw-potatoe/

    Effect of starch granule structure, associated components and processing on nutritive value of cereal starch: A review. Journal of Animal Feed Science & Technology
  • BaconMD
    BaconMD Posts: 1,165 Member
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    The REAL answer is quite simple: this is one of the methods used by Black & Decker, Danby, and all other appliance manufacturers to conspire and try to trick you all into buying their evil microwave ovens. DON'T FALL FOR IT
  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    are you kidding?
  • jetscreaminagain
    jetscreaminagain Posts: 1,130 Member
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    Why would that be a joke? I'm in food science, we learn about this. Potatoes technically have fewer calories raw vs. cooked because the human body can't break down those starches.

    This scares me.

    Does "food science " not follow the laws of thermodynamics? Conservation of matter and energy isn't just for dirty hollies anymore.

    Boiling a potato does not imbue it with new matter unless you're boiling it in cheese sauce or something.

    ETA I saw the explanation from you and others about cooking breaking down parts of the potato so that the calories that were always there could be absorbed. You are right. My apologies. The first reply was not well written and aided my confusion but I absolutely jumped the gun.
  • VeganBunny
    VeganBunny Posts: 9 Member
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    It's getting exhausting following this thread now and you've all stopped being useful because of the contradictions. But thanks anyway! I'll speak to my dietician on Wednesday and see what she thinks...
  • VeganBunny
    VeganBunny Posts: 9 Member
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    If I were to start a rock band, I would call it Potato Confusion. And it would be epic.


    I'm a rock chick. Can I be in the band? Considering you stole the name from me...

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