Is a calorie just a calorie?

Well you thought wrong. I agree that calorie counting can not be precise. I agree that Americans have a wrong conception about calories. (before MFP, I did too) I am not ascribing a motive, simply pointing out the contradictions.

I guess it's possible, but unlikely. You're pointing out contradictions in the article where none exist.

I'm sorry you feel that way. :ohwell:

This thread is a typical example of why science isn't advancing quicker. Some individuals are driven by the need to prove others wrong and they enjoy dissecting the writings of others. They also refuse to take what is good in something, then build on top of that through brainstorming and acceptance of differing personalities. Instead they seek out the bad, harp on it endlessly and quit only once they feel like they "won". With the collective intelligence of this forum, mountains could be moved, but it never will, at least as long as people keep viewing each other as various sorts of rivals. Foldit consists of layman gamers yet they did something big together. Some scientists are too bookish and could use the experience from "the streets", whereas those who read popular science only could benefit from a laid-back dialogue with writers of research articles. Minds are small.

Oh I disagree completely, and not just to be contrary. Dissent and competition are whats drives science and humans forward. The desire to excel, find answers etc...that is what makes us high on the food chain. Only when we question what we know do we surpass our current knowledge. Hell even in non-scientific fields we are taught to question, my very wise priest told me when you question your faith, that is when you have your first religious experience. So, yes, I strongly disagree with your statement. We are all rivals for knowledge, competitors for health...and that is what makes us great! Can we also be kind and supportive, hell to the YES!

Addendum to this: Ad Hominem is never the solution.

Edit: fixed quote tag

Interesting article challenging the "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" argument:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/02/calorie-counting/

I personally agree with this article, that the quality of calories is just as important as the quantity. Discussion?

Ready.....GO!

How can you debate. A claorie is a measure of energy. The amount of energy required to heat 1 gram of water by 1 degree celsius. Food calories are defined as 1000 calories.

Now are we the most accurate at determining how many calories there are in various products? Nope. That's been known for years. Not all foods are identical. There are various compositional differences in the makeup of diffferent foods based on growth conditions, time they were picked and how ripe they were for fruits and veggies, and grains. Differences in processing that doesn't ensure one cheetoh os the exact duplicate of the next, the density and size and shape of breads and other foods produced are goign to vary from slice to slice, etc. Yet we treat them all the same if we look at the nutrition labels.

There is truth I believe in differences in the chemical makeup of foods from when it is raw vs. cooked. Cooking is a chemical reaction for foods. Therefore it alters the foods state.

So, yes, despite there being any science in this article, there are differences in the nutritional composition and caloric content and availability of foods. However, there is no difference between calories. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

I really like this post, and I'd like to focus on a couple parts of it, specifically.

For me...in my personal opinion...counting calories, watching macros, exercising...works...if done properly.

I think that's a pretty solid statement that would be very difficult to disagree with.

Where the difference comes in is not the unit of measure, but the person who is cutting and measuring and using the wood. One person may cut to the right of the measured line, while someone else will cut either to the left of the line or directly on the line. It's these subtle differences that will add up over time. It's the way people count and record calories.

That's definitely one part of the vagueness of calorie counting, the portion size aspect of it. I like your metaphor regarding cutting wood, too. The second part that the article is pointing to in terms of the vagueness of calorie counting is in those biological and digestive effects -- if 10 calories of a food, consumed, actually ends up providing us with 6 calories of usable energy, should we even consider that food to have 10 calories at all? To go along with your metaphor -- if you're cutting 9 foot lengths from 10 foot boards, but some of the boards have 2 feet that are badly warped and unusable -- should we really consider them to be 10 feet? It's an interesting question that then raises the question about TDEE/BMR/etc. -- would looking at that 10 calorie food as, in essence, an 8 calorie food, give us a better understanding of what our TDEE/BMR actually is? Basically, allow us to be more accurate?

Yes, it may or may not be true that the amount of calories listed on a package may be inaccurate because it takes less calories for a person to digest since it's now in a processed form...but the question is, by how much? And is that number accurate from person to person? Also, which is a greater calorie difference, the difference in the amount of calories it takes to digest something than is listed on the package, or the way a person measures their portion/serving size? Which one can be corrected and/or controlled by the individual? If counting calories is wrong...then why does it work for so many people?

These are all excellent questions, and they're some of the ones that popped into my head when I read the article.

"How much?" This is something I'd really be interested in seeing research for.

"Is it accurate from person to person?" Likely not with a high level of precision, but you could likely average it out -- thus reintroducing some of that vagueness, but still taking a step forward with regard to our understanding of how food effects our bodies.

"Is the difference in the amount of calories..." I think both things contribute to vague levels of calories. This "digestion factor" in addition to the "measuring/portion size" -- though when looked at, relative to the calories on the package, the digestion factor would seem to only take them away, not add. Meaning, a 10 calorie piece of food might give us 6 usable calories, but it won't ever give us 12 usable calories. Improper portion control can wildly skew results all over the board.

"If counting calories is wrong...why does it work for so many people?" I don't think the argument that they're making is that counting calories is wrong. The argument they are making is that the way in which we're counting calories might not be very accurate, and there might be more to it than we commonly hold to be true. This then raises the other questions from above. As for why it works for so many people -- as a thought experiment, I can think of one possible output to this article's research:

For instance, I think the maintainability of a diet is a very important piece of whether a diet works for a given person or not. Many, many people fail on calorie restricted diets -- meaning, they can't stay on them, and one complaint is often "hunger". Simply put, they're not eating enough food to not be hungry on their diet, and that's a factor in them coming off of it.

One of the benefits of research like this would be to consider foods that have lower bioavailability (i.e. what we currently consider a 10 calorie food, but only has 6 calories) -- building a diet around those foods, for people who complain about hunger, would be a way to intake the same amount of usable calories as a diet with foods of higher bioavailability, while adding volume/bulk to the diet. They could eat more of the 6 "net" calorie food than the 8 "net" calorie food, which could help them on the hunger sensations.

That's just my back-of-the-napkin thoughts on application of this research.

Thanks for the well thought out post.

Re: the topic, I fail to see the point of the article. Accurately counting calories absorbed is a fool's game at this point. I thought that was generally understood. Nutritional labels are estimates. How well you prepare your food for absorption (chewing, quality of saliva, digestive enzyme efficiency, etc) is individual- and event- dependent. How much is used by the microbiome in your gut is also individual- and event- dependent. How efficiently you absorb available nutrients, the same.

The best that can be done is to run the experiment on yourself - if I eat X diet, my weight changes at Y rate. Second best is to use an estimator, but you're still going to end up running the experiment. It just gives you a place to start.

And as an aside:

A secondary point that the article makes would be about concepts like denaturing proteins - that speaks not necessarily to the calorie impact of the food, but to the usability of the nutrient itself. If a piece of food X has 5g of protein, but when cooked, the proteins are denatured and unusable, one should not count 5g for protein intake, because that food may not be supplying the essential components of protein which are needed for life (which is why we count protein in the first place).

That speaks directly to the nutritional quality of a given calorie and is a pretty interesting point.

I think you are confused. Denaturing a protein does not make it unusable. What do you think happens to protein when it hits the hydrochloric acid and pepsinogen in your stomach? Or the trypsin, chymotrypsin and carboxypeptidases in your intestine? How do you think proteins are absorbed into the body? FYI - other than in neonates, the small intestine does not have the capacity to absorb intact proteins - they need to be broken down into amino acids and di- or tri- peptides, first.

Re: the topic, I fail to see the point of the article. Accurately counting calories absorbed is a fool's game at this point. I thought that was generally understood. Nutritional labels are estimates. How well you prepare your food for absorption (chewing, quality of saliva, digestive enzyme efficiency, etc) is individual- and event- dependent. How much is used by the microbiome in your gut is also individual- and event- dependent. How efficiently you absorb available nutrients, the same.

The best that can be done is to run the experiment on yourself - if I eat X diet, my weight changes at Y rate. Second best is to use an estimator, but you're still going to end up running the experiment. It just gives you a place to start.

I disagree on the "best that can be done" part -- while it is true that these things are highly individualistic, it doesn't necessarily follow that there is no value in approaching the topic as a macroscopic view of a population - an average. While we do vary, individual to individual, we likely vary within certain bounds -- it'd be interesting to know and understand those bounds, as well as the variance that one would expect to see, etc. Given that our labeling methodologies were developed based upon a certain standard, as we approach the problem from a public health perspective, if changing that standard (and therefore, the labeling methodology) results in a more informed populace and better health outcomes, it's something worth considering -- even if we're still not being very precise, we might be "better".

And as an aside:

A secondary point that the article makes would be about concepts like denaturing proteins - that speaks not necessarily to the calorie impact of the food, but to the usability of the nutrient itself. If a piece of food X has 5g of protein, but when cooked, the proteins are denatured and unusable, one should not count 5g for protein intake, because that food may not be supplying the essential components of protein which are needed for life (which is why we count protein in the first place).

That speaks directly to the nutritional quality of a given calorie and is a pretty interesting point.

I think you are confused. Denaturing a protein does not make it unusable. What do you think happens to protein when it hits the hydrochloric acid and pepsinogen in your stomach? Or the trypsin, chymotrypsin and carboxypeptidases in your intestine? How do you think proteins are absorbed into the body? FYI - other than in neonates, the small intestine does not have the capacity to absorb intact proteins - they need to be broken down into amino acids and di- or tri- peptides, first.

I didn't mean to imply causality between denaturing and unusability, though I can see why that is rather messily phrased. I work in a research field, but not specifically one that relates to nutritional science. My comments were meant more to illustrate an idea as to why research of this nature is valuable and fundamentally important, not to give a lecture on specific biological processes. I'll gladly bow to those with more expertise than I in addressing specific mechanisms.

Also as an aside, the "generally understood" part of your first paragraph...I always thought that was the case. Reading a lot of threads here, though, it doesn't seem to be the generally understood thought within these forums.

I did not read the article, but I really don't have to in order to know my opinion

A calorie is a calorie & a pound is a pound.
I choose to obtain most of my calories from real, whole foods, and keep as many of my pounds of the lean muscle mass type.

I mean this completely honestly, and without snark:

If you didn't read the article, and have no interest in discussing what the article even talks about, why would you feel the need to even respond? Without the context of the article, the title of the post is without meaning.

I did not read the article, but I really don't have to in order to know my opinion

A calorie is a calorie & a pound is a pound.
I choose to obtain most of my calories from real, whole foods, and keep as many of my pounds of the lean muscle mass type.

I mean this completely honestly, and without snark:

If you didn't read the article, and have no interest in discussing what the article even talks about, why would you feel the need to even respond? Without the context of the article, the title of the post is without meaning.

Completely valid question. I assumed it was yet another typical calorie vs calorie debate involving good vs bad foods, hence the sarcastic repsponse and I just threw in the lb of muscle vs lb of fat comment just to add more. However after having went and actually read the article, it's quite interesting. FTR I have never bought into that a calorie is a calorie regardless of where it comes from, (based on nutrient values of different foods) this article gives further backing to that belief.
My apologies for the sarcasm.

assuming a normal person that has normal eating habits, then yes a calorie is just a calorie and if you eat less you lose, if you eat more you gain.

I'm not sure if you've read the rest of the thread in between our conversations, but I think there's been a lot said (along with some general agreements on both sides of the fence) that flesh out my thoughts on this.

Also, out here in the real world people are not confined to a lab with tight control restrictions, etc...so the example, with all due respect, is a little absurd.

For the purposes of the thought experiment, the variables needed to be controlled. Otherwise, we could just argue endlessly about a thousand piece of minutiae that didn't really add anything to the point. The discussion of laboratory v.s. practical has been mentioned here (and was mentioned in the article as well).