Curious about calories per gram...

Options
luvmybaby333
luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
in Food and Nutrition
So I was under the impression that it was a pretty straightforward science:

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

However, I was trying to figure out how badly I screwed my ratios up today (and pretty much every other day) and something isn't adding up. According to MFP, I've consumed 2055 calories today, but if you add together my carb, fat, and protein grams according to the values above, then it would seem that I've actually eaten 2498 calories. What gives? That's a pretty drastic difference.

To satisfy anyone's curiosity, my totals for today were: carbs-196 fats-134 protien-127 fiber-32.

I know... That *is* an insane amount of fat. :blushing: :blushing: :blushing:

Replies

  • AeolianHarp
    AeolianHarp Posts: 463 Member
    Options
    Someone probably didn't put the right amount of calories for the macronutrients available. Some people on here calculate calories for fibre since fibre is around 2-2.5 calories per gram (I think), so that can really screw things up. I've learned to double check everything if I'm using someone else's nutrition facts.
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    These are all calorie and macro values that match the packages. I double check the entries because there are so many errors and so many different entries for the same products.That's what I'm confused about. Take my glass of Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk-- when I add up the carb, fat, and protein calories, it comes pretty close to the total: 120 (listed on the packages) vs. 123 (the total from the carb+fat+protein). So that seems about right. Then the bacon I ate actually comes up as *less* than the listed calorie value when I add up the fat and protein macros... So I'm just confused as to how my total macros could equal more than my calorie intake if the calories per gram of each macro are accurate.
  • AeolianHarp
    AeolianHarp Posts: 463 Member
    Options
    I've actually had popcorn that was not calculated on the label correctly. It was something like 120 calories for half the bag but adding the macros it came out to almost 300. That could be a possibility? There's an error somewhere, whether the label or MFP or something else. Something didn't have the right amount of calories for the amount of macronutrients. I'd go through and look at all the individual foods and see which one caused the error.
  • simplydelish2
    simplydelish2 Posts: 726 Member
    Options
    I've always been told that there are nutrients that don't fall under protein, carbs, or fat but still have caloric values. I'm guessing that's the difference.
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    I've actually had popcorn that was not calculated on the label correctly. It was something like 120 calories for half the bag but adding the macros it came out to almost 300. That could be a possibility? There's an error somewhere, whether the label or MFP or something else. Something didn't have the right amount of calories for the amount of macronutrients. I'd go through and look at all the individual foods and see which one caused the error.

    Yeah... I've seen package errors before. Some generic mac & cheese I'd bought had calories listed "as prepared" (which I assumed to mean that it included the suggested milk and butter needed to actually prepare the food), but when I bought different generic brand, I realized the first brand had been listing their "as packaged" calorie content as the "prepared" calorie content, since the new box actually had both listed, and the prepared value was significantly higher. I'd been eating the crap out of it and had no idea. It didn't seem to effect my weight loss any, but I imagine it could have if I'd ate it more often.

    I'm try to do exactly what you suggested right now, and so far I can see that the almonds I eat *constantly* are about 26 calories more according to the macros. 180 vs. 206. That's a pretty big difference. *le sigh*
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    I've always been told that there are nutrients that don't fall under protein, carbs, or fat but still have caloric values. I'm guessing that's the difference.

    Do those nutrients have negative calories? Is that possible? Because that's the only thing I can think of that would account for the difference. I wonder if fiber content cancels out some of the calories so that the companies can put a lower calorie label on their foods, even thought the fat, protein, and carbs naturally equal a larger amount.
  • NoAdditives
    NoAdditives Posts: 4,251 Member
    Options
    I'm try to do exactly what you suggested right now, and so far I can see that the almonds I eat *constantly* are about 26 calories more according to the macros. 180 vs. 106. That's a pretty big difference. *le sigh*

    That's a 74 calorie difference, not 26.
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    Sorry. I meant 180 vs. 206 calories. The discrepancy was NOT in my favor. :frown:
  • NoAdditives
    NoAdditives Posts: 4,251 Member
    Options
    Sorry. I meant 180 vs. 206 calories. The discrepancy was NOT in my favor. :frown:

    Oh, ok.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Options
    There's plenty of room for error every step of the way in food labeling...Starting with the 4-4-9 (C-P-F) numbers....those are more agreed upon estimates than actual values- turns out the actual values may be more like Carbohydrates- 4.2, Protein- 5.65 and Fat - 9.4 kcal/g. Those values are then multiplied by a percentage based on the likely bioavailability of the energy (ex. 97% availability of carbohydrates * 4.2 kcal/g = 4.07 kcal/g), which is rounded to the 4-4-9 numbers we're all familiar with. I mean, we can't even be bothered to put a k in front of cal, so how can we be expected to use decimal point numbers??) Then these estimated numbers are used to back calculate calories, since manufacturers are no longer required to use a bomb calorimeter to determine the calorie content of food.

    Here's the skinny (hehe): it's estimations of estimations of estimations. You will go bananas if you try to get every number perfectly correct. As far as I can tell, the grams/serving of each of the macronutrients is the most accurate value, so in doubt use that. I won't even get started here on what the manufacturers are allowed to list as "0 cal/g". It's downright criminal- or at least it should be.

    From http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-food-manufacturers :

    "The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) currently dictates what information is presented on food labels. The NLEA requires that the Calorie level placed on a packaged food be calculated from food components. According to the National Data Lab (NDL), most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories.

    The Atwater system uses the average values of 4 Kcal/g for protein, 4 Kcal/g for carbohydrate, and 9 Kcal/g for fat. Alcohol is calculated at 7 Kcal/g. (These numbers were originally determined by burning and then averaging.) Thus the label on an energy bar that contains 10 g of protein, 20 g of carbohydrate and 9 g of fat would read 201 kcals or Calories. A complete discussion of this subject and the calories contained in more than 6,000 foods may be found on the National Data Lab web site at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/. At this site you can also download the food database to a handheld computer. Another online tool that allows the user to total the calorie content of several foods is the Nutrition Analysis Tool at http://www.nat.uiuc.edu."
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    Wow. Thank you! I've "known" for a while that the calorie values were really only rough estimates, and that the manufacturers are going to do all they can to make their product look appealing in that respect... (hence the zero calorie crap that isn't really calorie-free). But calculating it up and seeing such a drastic difference just really blew my mind. That's 400-500 calories that I consumed beyond what was listed on the packages! It sounds like figuring out calorie content is pretty complicated business, and you're absolutely right that when a money-hungry company can cut corners, then they will. How frustrating! On the bright side, I really appreciate the information you shared. Very interesting stuff!
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Options
    Yeah- It's crazy. Unfortunately for people who can read, the food labeling is already too complicated for people to understand. So much so that the government then takes all this information and puts in in to a brightly colored food "pyramid" to make it dumb enough for Joe Average to understand. Then the manufacturers get scared at how people will misinterpret the numbers, so they just make up different ones!


    Hahaha...writing this made me think of the early church reform in Europe- How the catholic church was afraid of what the public would do if people could read the bible so they burned people for translating it in to english. Only priests are smart enough to read it directly! We can't let people know how many calories are in a double stuff oreo! They will never buy one again! Make the trans fat count zero!

    My apologies, I'm up late and surely should not be communicating to people how food manufacturers remind me of the early catholic church.....
  • luvmybaby333
    luvmybaby333 Posts: 241
    Options
    Yeah- It's crazy. Unfortunately for people who can read, the food labeling is already too complicated for people to understand. So much so that the government then takes all this information and puts in in to a brightly colored food "pyramid" to make it dumb enough for Joe Average to understand. Then the manufacturers get scared at how people will misinterpret the numbers, so they just make up different ones!


    Hahaha...writing this made me think of the early church reform in Europe- How the catholic church was afraid of what the public would do if people could read the bible so they burned people for translating it in to english. Only priests are smart enough to read it directly! We can't let people know how many calories are in a double stuff oreo! They will never buy one again! Make the trans fat count zero!

    My apologies, I'm up late and surely should not be communicating to people how food manufacturers remind me of the early catholic church.....

    LMAO! No, no... Continue. This is great. I totally feel ya! :laugh:

Categories