Do toasted foods have less calories than non-toasted?
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PeachyPlum wrote: »jennifershoo wrote: »BURN THE CALORIES!!!
Wat?? Lol
In fairness, I burned 75%* of the calories out of our bread while making toast for Sunday breakfast over the weekend.
The fire department came because the alarm company dispatched them automatically. It was embarrassing.
*It was really effectively 100% of the calories, because we threw the toast away. So if you toast it real good, you can make bread calorie-free by toasting it.
Lol.
But yeah, this would fit right in the broscience thread.0 -
Oh my God, no.
If you weigh it after toasting, you find the correct entry for toasted bread, which accounts for the weight difference. If you weigh it before toasting, you use the correct entry for the untoasted bread. Yes, if you logged a piece of toasted bread as a piece of untoasted bread, your calorie count would be off. That's not because the calorie content magically changes when you heat it; it's because you would be using the wrong entry.
Well, for the record. I typically weigh the bread before toasting, but I have weighed it after before just to see the difference. I was basically bringing this up as a general wondering as people have posted questions about this before...in regards to weighing food before or after cooking. I don't really use "toasted" or "untoasted" entries, lol. I usually weigh all my food raw. Still makes one wonder though, not with just bread. Just like the other night, I had some frozen chicken strips. They weighed quite a bit more frozen when I measured them out before baking than they did after I cooked them and put them on my salad. Obviously that was due to water evaporating. I just used the after cooking weight personally, but because I weighed them before cooking, after cooking the weight didn't come up to a full serving. The weight difference was pretty significant.
By the way, I've lost 85 pounds, so I must be doing something right, lol. Not sure what the "oh my god no" comment was for. Toasted bread DOES weigh differently than untoasted, which is why there are different entries in the database as you mentioned. I think you're actually missing the point of what I'm saying to be honest.
ETA...looks like your comment may not have been directed at me like I thought it was. If it wasn't my apologies for getting defensive.
So, are you saying that water has calories? I'm not quite following the logic here of how if a food weighs less because of evaporation that means it has fewer calories than it did before the water evaporated...
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autodominio wrote: »
So here's the question if you toast something to the point where it almost burns or is heated a lot, is it releasing the energy (calories) it has in the form of heat?
And I'm asking strictly as a technical question. Not interested in following a diet or encouraging anyone to follow a fad.
I just wonder if engineers or chemists out there had anything to add.
Technically yes, but the practical change is not significant. Toasting does two things, drive out some of the water content in the bread (which will have no net effect on your calories) and modify some of the starches and proteins in the bread yielding new compounds. Since the modified bread is mostly on the heated surface, and the interior of the bread is chemically the same (less some water), the net change in calories would be very slight.
Let's assume a particular bun has 160 calories, and toasting reduces that by 5% (let's be very generous here). That bun still has 152 calories. Pair that with 1/4 lb ground beef patty (4 oz, raw weight) @ 319 calories. With no other condiments, you're looking at a burger that is 471 calories vs 479 calories. That's about a 1.7% total reduction. Once you add the rest of the meal in, you're quickly < 1%.
There's a lot of good reasons to toast your buns: flavor, texture, holds up better juices in the meat. If I'm that worried about calories, grab some big lettuce slices and make it a wrap.
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Oh my God, no.
If you weigh it after toasting, you find the correct entry for toasted bread, which accounts for the weight difference. If you weigh it before toasting, you use the correct entry for the untoasted bread. Yes, if you logged a piece of toasted bread as a piece of untoasted bread, your calorie count would be off. That's not because the calorie content magically changes when you heat it; it's because you would be using the wrong entry.
Well, for the record. I typically weigh the bread before toasting, but I have weighed it after before just to see the difference. I was basically bringing this up as a general wondering as people have posted questions about this before...in regards to weighing food before or after cooking. I don't really use "toasted" or "untoasted" entries, lol. I usually weigh all my food raw. Still makes one wonder though, not with just bread. Just like the other night, I had some frozen chicken strips. They weighed quite a bit more frozen when I measured them out before baking than they did after I cooked them and put them on my salad. Obviously that was due to water evaporating. I just used the after cooking weight personally, but because I weighed them before cooking, after cooking the weight didn't come up to a full serving. The weight difference was pretty significant.
By the way, I've lost 85 pounds, so I must be doing something right, lol. Not sure what the "oh my god no" comment was for. Toasted bread DOES weigh differently than untoasted, which is why there are different entries in the database as you mentioned. I think you're actually missing the point of what I'm saying to be honest.
ETA...looks like your comment may not have been directed at me like I thought it was. If it wasn't my apologies for getting defensive.
So, are you saying that water has calories? I'm not quite following the logic here of how if a food weighs less because of evaporation that means it has fewer calories than it did before the water evaporated...
No that's not what I'm saying, lol...nevermind.
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If you burn your toast, then scrape off the burnt bits, you'll save.... um.... 4 calories.
So burnt toast totally has less calories.
If you spread butter on regular toast, some crumbs will stick to the knife, and you'll lose .0034 calories.
TRUFAX.
I did NOT pull these numbers out of my posterior.0 -
Why are there so many negative responces? It's just a fun science question.
Charred food would result in fewer calories. That stands to reason just based on how calories are determined. The difference in typical cooking would be trivial. If you have burnt the food to the point where it is half ash, then it should have about half the calories, but then it isnt really food at that point. For a standard piece of toast we are talking about a rounding error.
As the op said, this is pointless for some kind of crazy diet. The calorie difference is negligible. Plus, heavily charred foods have potentially negative health consequences.0 -
Thanks @bpetrosky and @z1ng for your input. You guys understood the question.
It is merely a science question. I'm not one on a high horse to look down on someone who has a seemingly bogus argument and blatantly deny it without trying with an open mind to see if the argument holds any merit.
There's of course the psychological side to those believes. They seem to carry a little bit of a placebo effect. My sister-in-law does not have a weight problem. And we all know people who think doing something we consider crazy is having a positive effect on their effort and because they believe it they can carry on and succeed perhaps better than those of us who 'know better'. Unless they are flat out unhealthy, I don't condone those practices.0 -
Less water.0
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The difference would be so minimal that it isn't even worth worrying about.0
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When bread, or anything else for that matter, is toasted water is removed so of course it will weigh less. Whether that has any significant difference in the calorie content is debatable.0
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Technically? Yes. Instead of 110 calories in a slice of bread there might be 109.5 in the toasted bread because a very miniscule microtiny amount got "burned" in the toaster.
The amount that gets "burned off" is well within the margin of error permitted on the packaged nutrition information.0 -
Technically? Yes. Instead of 110 calories in a slice of bread there might be 109.5 in the toasted bread because a very miniscule microtiny amount got "burned" in the toaster.
The amount that gets "burned off" is well within the margin of error permitted on the packaged nutrition information.
That's a crumb of chocolate I can eat extra, score! LOL0 -
I have nothing to add, so I'll just post a picture of this adorable puppy.
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PeachyPlum wrote: »In fairness, I burned 75%* of the calories out of our bread while making toast for Sunday breakfast over the weekend.
The fire department came because the alarm company dispatched them automatically. It was embarrassing.
*It was really effectively 100% of the calories, because we threw the toast away. So if you toast it real good, you can make bread calorie-free by toasting it.
PeachyPlum, I dare say... you appear to have attempted the 'carbon lite' version of what was actioned by George H. Goble, nearly 20 years ago... when he demonstrated for the world just how 'efficient' (massive understatement) a liquid oxygen 'barbecue' could 'cook' something (if what happens can even be called that, what with it essentially going straight past 'cooking', to downright incinerating any food being 'heated' in such a manner (basically, anything that remained would involve carbon solids and 'ash', at that point))...
Yes, his 'clarifying' for the world just what would happen were one to utilize an insanely dangerous form of 'accelerant', for the sake of lighting charcoal (let alone, utilizing a 'technique' that showed just how stunningly *brief* any related 'cooking times' could be), was an achievement for which he was awarded a Nobel... an Ig Nobel, to be more precise...
The wiki page for this fortunately-known-for-many-other-creative-explorations scientist happens to mention, regarding this illustrious prize --
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In 1996, Goble was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for preparing a barbecue for cooking in less than 5 seconds by the use of a smoldering cigarette, charcoal and LOX (liquid oxygen). This act attracted the attention of the West Lafayette, Indiana fire department, which warned him to never let them catch him in the possession of LOX near a barbecue fire ever again.
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Of course, a video of this 'cookout' can be found online (and was, in fact, one of the 'highlights' of posted videos, many years ago).
Additionally, Dave Barry's comical 'take' on Goble's LOX barbecue (titled "Nuclear Picnic" (from The Boston Globe Magazine, back in 1995)), provides some more context, and 'background', regarding the crazy actions in question --
http://www.humournet.com/collage.archives/collage096.txt
Yep...It's just a fun science question.
Charred food would result in fewer calories. That stands to reason just based on how calories are determined. The difference in typical cooking would be trivial.
Yep...If you have burnt the food to the point where it is half ash, then it should have about half the calories, but then it isnt really food at that point.
Yep...For a standard piece of toast we are talking about a rounding error.
Yep...As the op said, this is pointless for some kind of crazy diet. The calorie difference is negligible.
Yep...Plus, heavily charred foods have potentially negative health consequences.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nalini-chilkov/grilling-health_b_1796567.html
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/causes-prevention/risk/diet/cooked-meats-fact-sheet
http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/do-charred-vegetables-contain-same-carcinogens
http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2011/01/25/3093063.htm
http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/can-eating-burnt-toast-cause-cancer
Last, but certainly not least... getting back to the OP's original question...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/2005/
(If you're going to read the Q&A associated with the link, be sure to scroll down and take a look at (and read) the first Comment...)
...a few excerpts --
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Question
Recently a friend of mine was telling me about a pizza that he burned to the point of becoming a charred husk ten times smaller than the original. At that point I realised that this pizza had now become a very low-calorie alternative to its former self. My question is whether all types of cooking result in loss of calories as well?
Answer
John Fry, Food Scientist and Chemist:
[...] Burning the pizza will certainly reduce its energy content because some of the energy that you might otherwise have digested and turned into you goes up in flames and smoke. The black carbon that’s left after you’ve burnt the pizza has got a lot less energy in it than the original.
Other cooking processes also cause loss of fat. [...]
[...]
In short cooking can increase or reduce the energy content of a food depending what you do. If you want to eat pure calories then consuming less food is preferable to incinerating your pizza. Burnt food may have fewer calories but it also contains a lot of very toxic materials created by excessive heat and it doesn’t taste that great.
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Any type of cooking that results in a "burning" or more technically a combustion reaction in the food, should lower the calories present. Boiling or steaming probably won't do much, since they're often not hot enough to burn the food. I have seen microwaves burn food before, so [...]
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Yeah, but what about the risk of acrylamide? http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/11/15/the-fda-calls-out-yet-another-food-chemical-to-avoid-acrylamide/
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Yeah, but what about the risk of acrylamide? http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/11/15/the-fda-calls-out-yet-another-food-chemical-to-avoid-acrylamide/
Acrylamide is mentioned in at least one of the articles referenced in the links from my post (I'll grab an excerpt)...
http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2011/01/25/3093063.htm
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[...]
Acrylamide risk
The most well-known chemical in burnt toast is acrylamide, which is produced when sugars and certain amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – are heated together during the cooking process.
This potentially harmful chemical is mainly found in starchy foods such as potatoes (and other potato products), along with baked goods, including bread and, of course, toast.
The level of acrylamide in these foods increases with higher cooking temperatures and longer cooking times. "You would expect there to be reasonably high levels of acrylamide in burnt toast," says Brent.
While toast contains less acrylamide than potato chips and fries, work by FSANZ in 2004 found that toasted white bread is one of the main food sources of acrylamide in the Australian population. This is because we eat more white bread than brown, but white bread might also have slightly more acrylamide in it than other types of bread.
Acrylamide is also used in many industrial processes (paper and plastic production for instance) and at high levels of exposure, it is known to be toxic to the nervous systems of animals and humans.
But acrylamide in food would be unlikely to reach the kind of high levels that industrial workers have sometimes been exposed to, says Brent.
[...]
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I know. I just thought the OP could say that to these people the next time they are toasting something. One quick sentence tends to work better that way. Let them look it up and see what acrylamide means. 0
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Dbl post.
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