When you read the word "calorie" on a package, you imagine a number.
But behind this number is something much more powerful - a unit of measurement of the fire hidden in food.
❓ What is a calorie really?
Food is burned in laboratory conditions - in an oxygen chamber under water - and the amount of increase in the temperature of the water is measured 🌡️
1 calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water by 1 ° C.
That is, the food is literally turned into ash - and the heat is used to calculate how much energy it "gives".
🤔 Can you trust these numbers?
A fair question. Digestion is not the same as burning in oxygen, right? 🔥 ≠ 🧠
And indeed, packages and calorie tables do not indicate absolute values. There are calculated figures according to the Atwater system - a scientist who decided to figure out what is actually absorbed from the food eaten.
Wilbur Atwater, an American scientist of the late 19th century, conducted an unusual and, to put it mildly, bold experiment. He fed students strictly according to a prescribed diet, and then... collected their excrement and burned it - in the same oxygen chambers.
So he found out what part of the food goes to waste, and what actually becomes fuel for the body ⚙️
Based on this data, he derived the coefficients that the whole world knows today:
• 🥩 Proteins - 4 kcal/g
• 🧈 Fats - 9 kcal/g
• 🍞 Carbohydrates - 4 kcal/g
• 🌾 Fiber - 2 kcal/g
• 🍷 Alcohol - 7 kcal/g
These are the numbers you see in the BJU tables and they are the basis of modern nutritionology.
🧪 Example:
If you burn 100 g of nuts in a laboratory, you get one number. But if you eat these nuts, the body will absorb only part of this energy. The rest will go with the remains, for digestion or simply get lost 🌀
However, these figures remain very approximate. They do not take into account individual digestive characteristics, as well as the difference in the composition of similar products grown or produced in different places and at different times.
⚠️ And most importantly, they do not take into account how different people's bodies use energy.
For example, if the body has a lot of chronic inflammation caused by unhealthy diet and lifestyle, if the body is overloaded with toxins, inflammation and stress - most of the energy goes where you don't expect.
In a healthy, clean body, energy is spent more efficiently.
📉 So is it worth counting calories?
Counting calories can be useful at first, when you are losing weight and if you find it difficult to control the amount of food you eat. Having learned to better understand the real needs of your body, counting calories will become unnecessary.
After all, the real value of food is determined not only by numbers, but also by its quality, how it is absorbed and what it is spent on.
Burning does not mean nourishing.
Number ≠ essence.
Look deeper. 🔍
Authors: Mikhail Khusid and Urban Fruitarian
But behind this number is something much more powerful - a unit of measurement of the fire hidden in food.
❓ What is a calorie really?
Food is burned in laboratory conditions - in an oxygen chamber under water - and the amount of increase in the temperature of the water is measured 🌡️
1 calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water by 1 ° C.
That is, the food is literally turned into ash - and the heat is used to calculate how much energy it "gives".
🤔 Can you trust these numbers?
A fair question. Digestion is not the same as burning in oxygen, right? 🔥 ≠ 🧠
And indeed, packages and calorie tables do not indicate absolute values. There are calculated figures according to the Atwater system - a scientist who decided to figure out what is actually absorbed from the food eaten.
Wilbur Atwater, an American scientist of the late 19th century, conducted an unusual and, to put it mildly, bold experiment. He fed students strictly according to a prescribed diet, and then... collected their excrement and burned it - in the same oxygen chambers.
So he found out what part of the food goes to waste, and what actually becomes fuel for the body ⚙️
Based on this data, he derived the coefficients that the whole world knows today:
• 🥩 Proteins - 4 kcal/g
• 🧈 Fats - 9 kcal/g
• 🍞 Carbohydrates - 4 kcal/g
• 🌾 Fiber - 2 kcal/g
• 🍷 Alcohol - 7 kcal/g
These are the numbers you see in the BJU tables and they are the basis of modern nutritionology.
🧪 Example:
If you burn 100 g of nuts in a laboratory, you get one number. But if you eat these nuts, the body will absorb only part of this energy. The rest will go with the remains, for digestion or simply get lost 🌀
However, these figures remain very approximate. They do not take into account individual digestive characteristics, as well as the difference in the composition of similar products grown or produced in different places and at different times.
⚠️ And most importantly, they do not take into account how different people's bodies use energy.
For example, if the body has a lot of chronic inflammation caused by unhealthy diet and lifestyle, if the body is overloaded with toxins, inflammation and stress - most of the energy goes where you don't expect.
In a healthy, clean body, energy is spent more efficiently.
📉 So is it worth counting calories?
Counting calories can be useful at first, when you are losing weight and if you find it difficult to control the amount of food you eat. Having learned to better understand the real needs of your body, counting calories will become unnecessary.
After all, the real value of food is determined not only by numbers, but also by its quality, how it is absorbed and what it is spent on.
Burning does not mean nourishing.
Number ≠ essence.
Look deeper. 🔍
Authors: Mikhail Khusid and Urban Fruitarian