KABOCHA SQUASH: A CALORIC MYSTERY

Kabocha Squash

A
Grade

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 3/4 cup (85 g)

Per Serving % Daily Value*

Calories 30

Carbohydrates 7g 2%

Dietary Fiber 1g 4%

Sugars 3g

Protein 1g


Vitamin A 70% · Vitamin C 15%

Calcium 2% · Iron 2%



*Based on a 2000 calorie diet


GOOD POINTS
•High in dietary fiber
•Very high in vitamin A
•Very high in vitamin C

BAD POINTS
•Very high in sugar

This is such an old thread, but like the original poster, I too started searching.
I ate dinner tonight. I had kabocha. I went to log it. 30 calories??? For something so dense, and sweet...it's denser than the sweet potatoes I steamed with it. And starchier than a potato. I found 30 calories very hard to believe.

I'm going with RachelVClark. I bought the kabocha at a Japanese market. She wrote: "In Japan the pumpkins are ALL Kobocha and they:re labelled with 60 calories or energy per 100grams."

That sounds much more plausible. I mean, in my wishful thinking, I'd much prefer to believe only 30 calories, but I'm going to go with 60.

Food databases are always very rough estimates by nature, more or less. The real calories from any food will vary according to the exact type, the growing conditions (including where grown), etc. Your own body's ability to extract that energy also varies.

Do you really believe that a honeycrisp apple has the same amount of sugar as a red delicious? Or that the apple in front of you fits the database's measured values for large, medium, or small, or even by the gram? The data are averages for whatever apples they happened to use in the lab and can be way off for that particular apple you are eating.

Even nutritional info in a mass-produced processed meal can be off by 20% in either direction without attracting the attention of the legal authorities. All these numbers are just estimates and can be way off for the particular item you are eating. But overall, they still provide a decent guideline for us to follow, which is all that counts.

We don't really know how much energy we are expending over any given day either. We are just using estimates that may not be correct for us, hence the need to adjust calorie budgets if you are gaining weight rather than losing as expected. This is also true for energy expenditures for extra exercise. Just because there is a number attached to a machine does not make it correct for you in particular.

Basically when in doubt, it is safest to underestimate calories expended by any extra exercise and overestimate the calories provided by the food you eat...

So it's not that the databases are wrong about your favorite squash. They just aren't representative of the particular squash that you are eating, even if they list the entry as the same name.

Anyway - if you know you gain weight during the season of indulging in this squash and are weighing it accurately and tracking, obviously the general database entry for that particular type of squash is not correct for you. Just record it as much higher in calories to compensate. Make a custom entry if needed. This will encourage you to eat more reasonable portions, especially since you might be getting a beta carotene overdose if you're looking a bit orange... Then see what happens over the next year as the seasons change.