Calorie question

[daryn]

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it's all energy. that doesn't mean that you'll be "ok" if you eat 2k cal/day in sugar rather than steak or whatever. nutrition is not really being mentioned here, just caloric content.

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i suppose you are right about the energy. but in the end, it seems we should be concerned about the effects on our weight/health rather than the caloric intake.

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of course we should. so, are you arguing that 500 calories of steak is "more healthy" than 500 calories of donuts?




it's like this.. say there are two power plants where i can buy energy for my house. the first one costs like $100 for 50 MWhr, or however they measure it. the second one costs the same, and gives me the same energy, but as a bonus they also give me a lawnmower, and maybe a tv. i dunno..

point i am trying to make is yeah from an energy standpoint calories are calories, but of course some calories are "empty" in that they just provide the raw energy, whereas other calories are in food that is actually healthy and contains stuff like vitamins protein etc.. think of those as like, bonuses.. the calories are just carried to your body via some vehicle.. that vehicle might contain important nutrients etc. that your body can benefit from, or it might not.

[econophile]

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Some of the arguments used here are the same thing as saying something like "Well, this watt of energy comes from a hydroelectric plant and it will light this bulb for X hours. However, THIS watt of energy comes from a nuclear power plant, and it will light the same bulb for Y hours."

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there are many good reasons to care where a watt of energy comes from. for instance, energy derived from burning fossil fuels has more negative effects on the environment than engery derived from solar power. i am asking if the same is true of calories. should we care about the source?

[amplify]

People need to start using their common sense with regard to fat/health. Hmmm, are donuts as good for you as a chicken breast? Will I lose weight if I burn more calories than I eat? Everybody knows what to do, they just don't want to do it. I knew that I was getting fat this year, I didn't care. Since I started caring, I'm down 25 pounds. Eat less, walk a few miles every day, don't waste your calories on crap food.

[econophile]

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of course we should. so, are you arguing that 500 calories of steak is "more healthy" than 500 calories of donuts?

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i don't see the point of the OPs question otherwise. unless he was asking if 500 calories = 500 calories in calories, which seems silly.

[heater]

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This comes from one of the fat threads, but seems like it might be worthy of an independent line of discussion.

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A calorie is a calorie, the source does not matter----IT IS A MEASUREMENT OF ENERGY AND NOTHING ELSE. A calorie = a calorie. A watt = a watt. A joule = a joule.

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Calories are measured by the amount of energy required to heat water, right? So a donut produces 500 calories when they burn in a fire (or however these things are measured), but may produce a completely different number of calories when your body processes it.

It doesn't seem too far fetched that some sorts of food items may produce calories at different rates outside and inside the body. That is, it seems possible that what is measured to be "500 calories of donut" might produce 400 calories in one's body while "500 calories of steak" might produce 200 calories in that same body, no?

If this is true, then eating 2000 calories as measured by the external calorie measurement process might actually provide one's body with very different amounts of calories depending on the food one eats, and how efficient one's body is at breaking it down.

Or perhaps 500 measured calories of donut equals 500 measured calories of steak regardless of the process used to release those calories. Someone who knows this stuff tell me what's up.

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He was claiming that whether you ate 2000 calories of healthy food or 2000 calories of crap, it was all the same and would all have the same effect on your body. That's the biggest pile of [censored] nonsense I've ever read in my life.

You need carbs, fat, and protein. You can't just chug lard for a year. You can't eat twinkies for a year. And you can't survive on nothing but skinless chicken breasts for a year. It's not the just the calorie count, but how the body breaks those calories down. Whey protein > egg protein > chicken protein, etc.

Let's take two guys of the same age in approximately the same physical health and my guy will eat 2,000 calories a day of foods that I prescribe. His guy will eat 2,000 calories a day of Twinkies. They will each perform the same amount of exercise each week. Do you really think these two will have the same body composition after a year's time?

[daryn]

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of course we should. so, are you arguing that 500 calories of steak is "more healthy" than 500 calories of donuts?

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i don't see the point of the OPs question otherwise. unless he was asking if 500 calories = 500 calories in calories, which seems silly.

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i don't know! i mean check out this gem from the OP

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It doesn't seem too far fetched that some sorts of food items may produce calories at different rates outside and inside the body. That is, it seems possible that what is measured to be "500 calories of donut" might produce 400 calories in one's body while "500 calories of steak" might produce 200 calories in that same body, no?

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that's just blatantly incorrect.

[daryn]

a lot of people are just totally missing the point here

[amplify]

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of course we should. so, are you arguing that 500 calories of steak is "more healthy" than 500 calories of donuts?

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i don't see the point of the OPs question otherwise. unless he was asking if 500 calories = 500 calories in calories, which seems silly.

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The OP's exact question was, despite the fact that a calorie is a calorie, can calories produce a completely different number of calories when your body processes it.

This is a dumb question.

[onthebutton]

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of course we should. so, are you arguing that 500 calories of steak is "more healthy" than 500 calories of donuts?

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i don't see the point of the OPs question otherwise. unless he was asking if 500 calories = 500 calories in calories, which seems silly.

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This is what I think he's asking. People seem to be having a fantastically hard time wrapping their heads around this.

[heater]

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A calorie is a measurement of energy, and nothing else.

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This is true, but in the other thread you went a lot further. You said:

"Assuming we have the same body composition and burn the same amount of calories per day, if I eat 1500 calories of lard per day and you eat 1550 calories of vegetables, over time I'll lose more weight (or gain less weight) than you will."

This is completely false.