
The Hidden Truths about Calories  - jamesbritt
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/08/27/the-hidden-truths-about-calories/
======
gxs
If this is at all interesting to you, I highly recommend Gary Taubes' Why We
Get Fat and What to Do About it (<http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307272702>)

which is a more accessible version of his more rigorous book Good Calories,
Bad calories.

I've been on a bit of a health binge since the beginning of the year and have
been doing lots of research into these things. In a nutshell, not all calories
are the same the some can wreak havoc on your system (grains, it turns out,
aren't that good for us). The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf, is another great
book - he goes to great lengths to discuss the science and biochemistry behind
the points he is making. Highly recommend.

~~~
heretohelp
Taubes isn't taken seriously by most dieticians and nutrition researchers we
talk to (I work at a nutrition startup).

I'd say that if there is any value to Taubes, it is this:

Different foods, given the same calories, will fill you up or nourish you at
varying degrees.

300 calories of oreo cookies isn't the same as eating a banana and some
chicken.

The main practical benefit people get from low carb, paleo, etc is that
they're eating less sugar and junk, and thus eating healthy food with better
overall satiety. As a result, they lose weight because they're eating fewer
calories.

You can lose weight eating twinkies, it's just hard to do because it's bad for
your health, not nutritious, and leaves you feeling hungry because it's all
carbs.

A more scientific and less paleo-obsessed way to think about carbohydrates is
this:

Carbs are fuel, if you're an athlete, you have a use for them. If you live a
sedentary lifestyle, excess fuel isn't going to do you any favors.

Adjust accordingly.

In the end: calories in, calories out. Humanity hasn't defeated the laws of
thermodynamics. It's just a question of how easy and healthy it is to maintain
a sub-maintenance caloric intake.

Edit:

Okay people, I just got done saying low carb made sense if you weren't an
athlete, what exactly are you arguing against? I agree with you guys, I just
think the reasoning and rationale should be taken in the context of current
nutrition research and not some demagogue's book that is obsessed with a
dietary aesthetic rather than data.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Taubes isn't taken seriously by most dieticians and nutrition researchers we
talk to (I work at a nutrition startup).

That's because most dietitians and nutrition researchers follow conventional
wisdom, which was established back in the 50s and 60s. Taubes himself included
an amazing commentary on how conventional wisdom is incredibly difficult to
dislodge in medicine and related fields. He had no illusions about his book
being enough to do it, especially since he's a science writer rather than a
scientist.

But his work is very valuable, and his dissection of why we believe what we
believe is spot on. He goes a little overboard in blaming carbs, but does an
excellent job vindicating fats.

~~~
gxs
>>That's because most dietitians and nutrition researchers follow conventional
wisdom

Sadly, you hit the nail on the head, 100%. That is exactly the problem, most
dietitians will still try to sell you on the CDCs protein intake
recommendation of 50g and and a diet that consists of 80% carbohydrates -
which just plain contradicts mounting scientific evidence.

Furthermore, most people will just say you need a "balanced" diet, having
taken absolutely no thought to consider why they consider certain diets
balanced to begin with.

If you move past your comfort zone, to the point where you can draw your own
conclusions, without needing to refer to government guidelines to validate
your every belief, you will see that in a few years we will look back on our
current recommended diets and laugh.

Taubes does a more than adequate job of trouncing the old thermodynamics,
calories in, calories out argument. The guy does have a masters in Physics
from Stanford, after all. I leave it to you to look it up.

Edit: Feinman on a calorie is a calorie and why it violates the second law of
thermodynamics

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/>

~~~
mcguire
" _The guy does have a masters in Physics from Stanford_ "

???

I've got a Ph.D. in CS from UTAustin, but I don't think you would want to take
medical advice from me.

~~~
mberning
The point was to show that Taubes has the education and training to critically
review scientific literature. Not that he is an expert on medicine.

------
Dove
I think that's more academically interesting than it is practically useful.
_Some_ of the foods I eat _may_ have calorie counts that are off by 20 or 30
percent? That's noise.

Being on an 1100 diet that you think is 1400 (or vice versa) doesn't matter
that much. What matters is that it isn't 3500--something that can easily
happen by accident if you don't pay attention.

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Aloisius
If this is true, it makes counting calories incredibly hard for anyone who has
a varied diet.

If each ingredient in the food you eat is digested at a different efficiency
depending on the bacteria in your gut and other specifics of your digestive
system and the food itself varies by upwards of 20% because of natural
variation and how much you cook it, then it seems it would be downright
impossible.

I've tried in the past and given up (I would gain weight on a 1200 calorie
diet of processed diet food). I finally just went to an extreme nearly vegan
diet where I get over 90% of my calories from plants and exclude grains, oil,
sugar and salt. It makes it virtually impossible to overeat even if I have to
eat 4x the mass of food other people.

~~~
engtech
I too have used that approach, and the only problem I've found is because I'm
still used to taking in a large mass of low calorie raw foods, if I'm in a
situation where the type of food I'd normally eat isn't available, then I have
the capacity to really pig out.

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mberning
It's crazy to me that 'counting calories' is something people routinely take
for granted. It is a uniquely human trait. No other animal in this world has a
need to do this. Humans up until a hundred years ago (or so) had no need to do
it. What the hell has happened?

My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic
derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products.

~~~
FrojoS
> No other animal in this world has a need to do this.

Have you never seen an obese dog or cat? Feeding to much of the wrong food
will make any animal fat.

~~~
joeblubaugh
Exactly. Most animals exist in a world of scarcity, near starvation for
significant periods - often every year. Mammals that live in conditions of
abundance usually get fat. We've evolved to do that and hedge against
scarcity.

~~~
mberning
I don't buy it. When I go out into nature I don't see many emaciated animals.

They may exist in a world of scarce resources, especially predators, but they
are not constantly living on the edge of starvation.

~~~
joeblubaugh
"Historically, in Michigan the number of species diagnosed at the Laboratory
as dying from malnutrition and starvation are second only to those dying from
traumatic injuries."

[http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-2...](http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26946--,00.html)

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unreal37
Fascinating article. Well worth the read if you have an interest in diets and
nutrition.

Why is it scientists can't get an accurate grasp on the calorie content of
foods, and how our bodies process them?

~~~
heretohelp
It's immensely complicated.

~~~
unreal37
It seems to me that the effect of food on the body has been studied for at
least 50 years.

No matter how complicated it is, shouldn't there be a few basic things
everyone can agree on? It seems that each new diet (based on scientific
principles) contradicts the last. Low fat, low carb, low calorie, vegan, no
dairy, no wheat...

They can't even agree on whether a calorie matters. (i.e. is eating 100
calories of steak vs eating 100 calories of sugar the same?)

~~~
tedunangst
_It seems that each new diet (based on scientific principles) contradicts the
last._

Nobody gets paid for solving solved problems.

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creamyhorror
This is very interesting. "Calories in, calories out" has long been an
established principle and topic of debate & discussion among those who follow
nutrition, and while it largely still applies, this article points out the
factors that bend it somewhat. I wonder about the compositional effects of
diet on the way ingested calories are used, too: studies have shown that
isocaloric high-protein diets result in increased lean/muscle mass and lower
fat mass, compared to high-carb ones. It would be nice to have a survey
article to read on recent studies in this area, if anyone would be so kind.

I liked this factoid in the article: "Back when it was the craze to measure
such variety European scientists discovered that Russian intestines are about
five feet longer than those of, say, Italians." Useful adaptation there (I
wonder if it tends to make Russian guts any bigger?)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Here's the core problem. At a fundamental level the thermodynamic argument
with regard to body weight _has_ to work, of course it does, there's no way to
slip past the laws of physics. If you eat little enough and exercise enough
you will lose weight, period, full stop.

But by the same token, it's a useless fact, utterly.

Look at the same argument as applied to finances. If you make more money than
you spend you will build up savings until eventually you are rich.

The issue is that these are trivial facts. They don't tackle the core
difficulties of the problem they are just bland tautologies. Ultimately long-
term weight loss is a complex matter of psychology, motivation, habits, and
indeed personal temperament and genetic baggage. For some folks it will come
naturally and easily, for others it will always be an uphill climb, and for
others it will be almost impossible. And the same thing is true with regards
to being wealthy. Some folks quickly and intuitively acquire the skills to
step into a business, tweak the knobs until its profitable and then start
building up their personal finances from those profits until they have a
desire to move on to something else where they do the same thing, continuing
to get richer and richer over time. Whereas for others it can be much more of
a struggle, or maybe even effectively impossible because they don't have the
same opportunities.

~~~
aneth4
> Here's the core problem. At a fundamental level the thermodynamic argument
> with regard to body weight has to work, of course it does, there's no way to
> slip past the laws of physics. If you eat little enough and exercise enough
> you will lose weight, period, full stop.

This is just not true. Our bodies follow the laws of thermodynamics, but the
laws of thermodynamics do not dictate how or whether we process calories. We
can poop out fat. If you drink a bottle of olive oil, you will probably not
digest it all. If you eat fiber, you won't process those calories. Our bodies
are not bunsen burners.

~~~
tedunangst
It's almost like you read the first sentence and decided to immediately rebut
it without reading the rest of the comment.

~~~
aneth4
He does end this section with "period, full stop".

However the rest of the comment is tangental does nothing to mitigate my
response. Weight maintencance is not about calorie count, it's about
understanding how our body processes food.

------
emmelaich
For me, I'm mostly convinced of the paleo view. It's by no means the only
valid view or the whole view but I'm convinced by numerous anecdotes from
people I know personally and elsewhere.

Here's one quote from Anna Karenina which suggests that a similar approach was
well known in Tolstoy's time:

    
    
        On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come
        earlier than usual to eat beefsteak in the common messroom
        of the regiment.  He had no need to be strict with himself,
        as he had very quickly been brought down to the required
        light weight; but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and
        so he eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes

------
niels_olson
If you want to experiment with your own dietary in-out behavior, I recommend
you institute a change for 3 months and then plot the diff using this

<http://bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov/>

It mathematically modelled from data of many large, longitudinal studies
(Nurses' Health, Framingham, etc).

As a physician who reduced caloric intake in January, I've found the
bwsimulator to be very predictive and informative on how I can modify things
further in the future. But you really do need a couple of data points on
yourself to plug in first.

------
raghavmohan
Unrelated to the topic, but all the "X is not a X" subtopics remind of this
interesting paper I read not too long ago titled "A File is Not a File:
Understanding the I/O Behavior of Apple Desktop
Applications"([http://research.cs.wisc.edu/wind/Publications/ibench-
sosp11....](http://research.cs.wisc.edu/wind/Publications/ibench-sosp11.pdf))

------
rm999
Good article on why counting calories precisely is pointless and misleading.
Another factor is that food labels are often incorrect - the FDA allows them
to be up to 20% off in the USA. Even if you could figure out how many calories
you consume and absorb, estimating the number of calories you burn is even
more difficult.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Counting calories might be misleading but it's definitely not pointless. You
still want to target a range of calories during the day and not go over it.
Even with the inaccuracies of the system, counting calories is still part of
keeping healthy.

~~~
rm999
How do you know what range of calories to target? Or that the labels are
correct? How many calories are in the burger from that food truck? That the
calories you are eating are healthy? I agree with you that it's good to know
roughly how many calories are in your food, but literally counting calories
during a diet can be counterproductive. Most people won't count calories in
the longterm, so it ends up being a bandaid solution that doesn't encourage
lifestyle changes. Ultimately listening to your body (for me this includes
semi-regularly weighing myself and checking my body fat %) gives a better idea
of how much you should be eating and leads to a stable, longterm solution.

~~~
cuu508
Labels might be 20% off or even 50% off, but still give you ballpark figure,
and is better than nothing. I haven't had patience to precisely track
calories, but I find it enlightening to look at labels and compare. For
example, my intuition tells peanuts are more calory-dense than carrots. But by
how much? Oh, 14x! That's good to know--1kg of raw carrots might barely cover
one meal, but 1kg of peanuts would power me for 3 days--careful!

~~~
rm999
>I haven't had patience to precisely track calories, but I find it
enlightening to look at labels and compare

Yes, absolutely, everyone should do this (I certainly know how many calories
are on the label of most things I eat). But you aren't counting calories.

------
charlieok
What would help me is if it were easy to track this stuff.

When I get the receipt at a restaurant, why isn't there a nutrition label
printed on it, like the ones in grocery stores? Why aren't there QR encodings
of nutrition labels for easy scanning by your choice of tracking app?

I see opportunity for improvement here :)

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simonbrown
The article mentions that the potatoes and beef were organic (I assume as in
organic food):

> Carmody fed adult, male mice organic sweet potatoes

What is the significance of this?

~~~
cracell
I'd assume making them organic helps to control for a pesticide or herbicide
in them that could be changing the result. Not the best control but better
than nothing.

------
itmag
Has anyone here tried Seth Roberts' Shangri-La Diet?

~~~
natrius
Tried it. The main side effect is how silly people will think you are when you
explain it. You do end up eating less, but I think a lot of the responsibility
goes to the flavor-free periods you need in the day.

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dhughes
All any fad diet boils down to is _"how can I eat like a pig, not exercise and
stay thin?"_ and sell books about the diet.

------
grecy
>nine calories per gram

<imperial unit> per <metric unit>.

Must be an American article.

~~~
dredmorbius
ORLY?

calorie: the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram
(sometimes, one gram) of water one degree centigrade.

~~~
vacri
It's not an imperial unit, but it's not an SI unit either. One glaring example
of it's inappropriateness is that the 'calorie' varies depending on what
you're measuring (as you say, sometimes a gram, sometimes a kilogram). The SI
unit is the joule.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'll accept that. The calorie / Calorie / Kilocalorie confusion is pretty
annoying.

Apparently EU food labeling may be in either kcal or kJ (at ~4.2 kJ/kcal).

~~~
whatusername
Australian labelling must be in kJ (but it will often have the kcal amount
listed as well)

------
lwat
Everyone is an expert on diet.

