All calories are not necessarily equal

This is a fascinating article. The difference between 129 calories and 170 calories is huge over time. That difference in calories every day for a year is a difference in 4 pounds. Over 5 years, that's 20 pounds. This really motivates me to eat more unprocessed foods.

Except it's really not significant. The human body has the ability to compensate one way or another to account for small differences in calorie intakes. 30 calories a day is not going to translate into 20 pounds over the course of a few years.

I'd love to hear more about that Jonnythan. How does it compensate? Why does it compensate?

I'm not too familiar with the concept and I don't have any links handy. I do know however that the body has a host of things it does in order to make small changes to metabolism over the course of hours, days, weeks. Little things like small amounts of movement (leg shaking, moving around in your chair, etc), a little extra heat generated here or there, etc. can definitely add up to make up for these types of inaccuracies. Calories out isn't some static number.

the article doesn't sound like it was written by a graduate student. The variables that factor into our digestion and metabolism are already factored into experimental data from results, so I don't see how that isn't accounted for? At some point even the old BMR and RMR equations were derived from experimental data that is inclusive of all these different variables as an average. From there you can setup a bench mark and tailor your own specific metabolic rate with a little trial and error. no need to stress out whether our metabolism has evolved genes that cause a lack of specific enzymes that can digest certain foods or not.

Also, calories in labels, are the amount of calories in the food as packaged. if you drain the meat with a fat drain grill, yes the calorie count will be different, but that is also common knowledge, you just need to make minor adjustments to the standard labeling. it's kind of like trying to argue that the % values on nutrition labels are "wrong" because we're not all on 2,000 calorie diets and their is no such thing as an average 2,000 calorie diet. The label is not there to predict the diet you're on.

The article makes way too many references and comes up with the argument that thing's aren't that simple. Although true, for what we are wanting to do, that's all that is necessary. Absolute values in an energy balance are not important because we're trying to figure out the change, so as long as you can get a base line number to start with, you'll have a way to measure progress. Normally, consuming foods wouldn't be an issue with the human diet since our body has already evolved do digest whole foods. The BMR and RMR might need to be updated with all of today's current processed foods, but doing it at home from a trial and error standpoint would be much more accurate after getting a base number from the current BMR and RMR equations. That will give you the bench mark and starting point, which is the best thing we can do since the equations will always be an average, at best.

When it comes to food intake, chewing too much will reduce the amount of total calories your body can utilize for metabolism, and cooking will make chewing and digestion much easier to eat more of those carbs. which could cause a greater insulin spike and urge to want to eat more later...there's a bunch of correlations that can be made for the lab mice experiments. These are all just energy conversions that eventually lead to natural homeostasis. The less you cook the food, the more you retain the nutritional value that will naturally help metabolize and digest the food in the first place through "homeostasis" in the form of pressure and concentration gradients. Example, you have more potassium from raw foods, and potassium gives you the ability to completely contract your muscles which as a result consumes more calories through a fuller range of motion.

All calories are equal by definition, that is the first law of thermodynamics. A carbohydrate is a molecule different from, fats, and proteins, although I see the reference that's being made in one of the comments. Carbon is "the organic element" absolutely necessary for life. It originates from the death of a sun, or a star but it is found in fats, proteins, carbohydrates, DNA, RNA, enzymes, just about all biological/organic molecules with probably very few exceptions as far as I know. In chemistry, organic chemistry means carbon chemistry. When it comes to molecules, water is what makes up most of our weight, then the other macro molecules. Oxygen, Carbon and hydrogen elements are the most abundant of all elements in our body,

www.linkedin.com/pub/leonardo-lopez-jr/38/2a7/532/

Yes, they are exactly equal. Just like all volts are equal, all gallons are equal, all inches are equal. All are units of measure. This really isn't hard.

They not NOT equal in terms of how the body processes them. This really isn't hard.

The issue of energy is separate from the issue of nutrients and processing.

In terms of energy, which calorie is a unit of, calories are calories. The nutrients from which you get your calories affect many things, but weight - which is determined by energy balance - is not one of them.

I appreciate your effort Niko, but most people around here insist on plugging their ears and repeating "a calorie is a calorie" while rocking back and forth in the corner. Anything that threatens that sneering simplicity is evil and foolish and should be put down.

Thermic effect? pointless!
Nutrient Timing? witchcraft...
Metabolic Processes? stop splitting hairs MORON :P

Thermic effect and nutrient timing have been pretty well established as totally insignificant. "Metabolic processes" sounds incredibly vague so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

Thermic effect and nutrient timing have been pretty well established as totally insignificant.

Thermic effect - Not in aggregates of thousands of calories, and especially not for certain diets. Is it a major factor, no, but is one of many minor contributory factors that add up to make a real difference.

Nutrient Timing - The idea that this is insignificant is absolutely untrue, though greatly dependent on the target population. The more athletic and strenuous a lifestyle a person leads, the more important this is. Should the average overweight person looking to lose some weight through conscious eating and light exercise worry about nutrient timing? No, it's a waste of time for them. How about the competitive athlete? Definitely.

"Metabolic processes" sounds incredibly vague so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

This is meant to be vague, I am at work and have already spent too much time on this at this point.

Can't read the link but again, another misleading title. Calories are a unit of energy, nothing more but the calories from different foods (macro's) are metabolized differently and effect body composition differently.........And of course TEF and digestibility generally messes with peoples heads.

Can't read the link but I'm going call the title misleading anyways! lol

It is misleading.
It also doesn't matter. Consider one food is 1x calories and this one is 2x calories. They're just estimates until I start consuming them and adjusting until I start losing/gaining. Everyone knows some corn goes through you. Just like condoms full of drugs or those that swallowed them would all die.

First off, this was really interesting! Thanks for that. Secondly, I really don't see how it argues that a calorie is not a calorie. As has been stated, both in this thread and in others, a calorie is a unit of energy. From what I gathered from the article, the author is arguing in favor of better nutrition labeling because how the body works is infinitely more complex than a number on the label due to processing, evolution of both what we eat and of ourselves, and digestion. This results in not necessarily being able to use all of the calories listed, but it doesn't say anything about a calorie not being a calorie; it does show that many plants have evolved effective methods for avoiding the digestion process, which I think is neat. I think people get hung up on the idea that if I eat exactly 2000 calories and burn exactly 500 calories every single day that the results should be the same every single day. Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but it's unlikely that all calories the body uses will exit as weight loss or gain because of things like heat dissipation, which could potentially result in minor scale discrepancies.

I'm all for doing things in the name of science but as for actually changing food labels, I think it would result in more confusion than is necessary because, by and large, calorie counting works for managing weight.

Can't read the link but again, another misleading title. Calories are a unit of energy, nothing more but the calories from different foods (macro's) are metabolized differently and effect body composition differently.........And of course TEF and digestibility generally messes with peoples heads.

Can't read the link but I'm going call the title misleading anyways! lol

It is misleading.
It also doesn't matter. Consider one food is 1x calories and this one is 2x calories. They're just estimates until I start consuming them and adjusting until I start losing/gaining. Everyone knows some corn goes through you. Just like condoms full of drugs or those that swallowed them would all die.

Consider 500 calories from 2 different sources as we currently calculate them. One source of 500 cals is from a highly processed, cooked food source. The other 500 cals is from a meal consisting of largely unprocessed, uncooked, whole foods. The article makes the point that the 500 cals will differ in their effect on the body due to the differences in energies required to breakdown the processed, cooked vs unprocessed, uncooked foods. That matters to me because I don't eat the same thing every day.

Of course they do, and a lot of paragraph's dissecting the minutia, but try and find a different macro ratio where you have a metabolic advantage while keeping protein constant....... it's basically irrelevant to weight loss. The basic miscalculation of calories from people tracking their intake is enough to make these difference look like tiny wee fleas.

Yes, they are exactly equal. Just like all volts are equal, all gallons are equal, all inches are equal. All are units of measure. This really isn't hard.

They not NOT equal in terms of how the body processes them. This really isn't hard.

Then the title of your thread should read " The body doesnt necessarily process calories equally" First grade level, maybe even K5. But hey, it sparked a discussion and most of the time that is good.