Is a calorie just a calorie or are there distinctions between types of calories?

[Typicallucas]

...So if I eat 1000 calories of carbs, will I gain more or less weight than eating 1000 calories of protein? How about 1000 calories of fat?

A calorie IS a calorie, period. I challenge you to show me that two people, eating the same number of calories (and with the same expenditure), will gain/lose weight at different rates.

A calorie IS a calorie, no matter how much you may want it to be different...

Dear Mr Hellbound. With respect, there is no accuracy in the statement "a calorie is a calorie."

Calories are not separate from the foods that contain them. Different diets will give different results.

2000 calories of beer =/= 2000 calories of snacks and candy =/= 2000 calories of grains, vegetables, and meat

The same way that 2000 calories rich in protein and fat =/= 2000 calories rich in carbs and protein.

Depending on what kind of carbs (Refined flour vs. sugar vs. rice vs. whole grain.), protein (eggs vs. beans vs. steak vs. almonds), and fat (omega 3 vs. saturated fat vs. trans fat vs. monounsaturated) you're eating make all the difference.

There is no reason to lump all foods together as the same as long as they have similar caloric values.

 

[tesscaline]

I happen to find this debate somewhat ludicrous.

Calories are a unit of measure. Units of measure are indeed separate from the objects they are measuring.

An inch is an inch, whether it's an inch of wood or an inch of metal. A watt is a watt, whether it's a watt of nuclear based electricity or a watt of wind based electricity. A mile is a mile, whether it's a mile of paved road or a mile of untouched wilderness.

You are conflating energy concentration with nutritional value, which is ill advised.

 

[not daSkeptic]

2000 calories of beer =/= 2000 calories of snacks and candy =/= 2000 calories of grains, vegetables, and meat

That would depend greatly on what properties you are comparing. If you're comparing calories, then 100-calories of X is the same as 100-calories of Y. If you're comparing something else (e.g. weight), then they might be very different. For example, 200-calories of Reese's Creamy Peanut Butter is 29.574 ml, whereas 200-calories of Pepsi is 473.333 ml. They're different by volume but the same by calories.

 

[Prometheus]

I happen to find this debate somewhat ludicrous.

Calories are a unit of measure. Units of measure are indeed separate from the objects they are measuring.

An inch is an inch, whether it's an inch of wood or an inch of metal. A watt is a watt, whether it's a watt of nuclear based electricity or a watt of wind based electricity. A mile is a mile, whether it's a mile of paved road or a mile of untouched wilderness.

You are conflating energy concentration with nutritional value, which is ill advised.

No, it's not conflating the two, it's abbreviating, "calorie's worth of x" to "calorie" where x is whichever combination of food(s) is the source of that bit of heat you are measuring. Since you can't actually consume any 'calories' if you are using the strict definition of the term (because calories are not a substance they are a measure of heat), any time you see the words calorie and consume used together in a discussion about diet it is a safe assumption that "calorie" in fact means "calorie's worth of x"

Insisting that everyone must use the strict denotation of calorie when it's obvious that in context the looser, and more common, connotation is intended is just pedantic.

 

[tesscaline]

No, it's not conflating the two, it's abbreviating, "calorie's worth of x" to "calorie" where x is whichever combination of food(s) is the source of that bit of heat you are measuring. Since you can't actually consume any 'calories' if you are using the strict definition of the term (because calories are not a substance they are a measure of heat), any time you see the words calorie and consume used together in a discussion about diet it is a safe assumption that "calorie" in fact means "calorie's worth of x"

What you've just described is the dictionary definition of "conflate". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflate

The fact of the matter is that "calorie" is a quantitative measure, not a qualitative one. Whether beer is better for you than candy is a qualitative assessment, not a quantitative one. Conflating the two only leads to confusion, thus it is ill advised.

Insisting that everyone must use the strict denotation of calorie when it's obvious that in context the looser, and more common, connotation is intended is just pedantic.

In a discussion that touches upon the mistakes people make when thinking about or talking about foods and their various properties, insisting upon clarity and accuracy of statements is not pedantic. Also, when discussing scientific subjects, agreement upon terms is integral. What with "calorie" being a scientific term, I don't think it's pedantic at all to call someone on it when they're diverging from the commonly accepted scientific meaning.

 

[Roboramma]

I happen to find this debate somewhat ludicrous.

Calories are a unit of measure. Units of measure are indeed separate from the objects they are measuring.

An inch is an inch, whether it's an inch of wood or an inch of metal. A watt is a watt, whether it's a watt of nuclear based electricity or a watt of wind based electricity. A mile is a mile, whether it's a mile of paved road or a mile of untouched wilderness.

You are conflating energy concentration with nutritional value, which is ill advised.

Nice post, and I agree. I also think it's ludicrous to suggest that anyone doesn't realise that the same number of calories from different sources will offer different amounts of nutrition, so I don't really see the point of the OP.

If the OP is talking about weight loss/gain/maintenance then yes, 1 calorie of energy from one food source is the same amount of energy as 1 calorie from another food source, and your body will store/make use of the energy as efficiently from one source as the other.

 

[Dilb]

The calories of food are fairly unambiguous in that they describe the latent heat of the food. Essentially burning 100 calories of sugar gives about the same energy as burning 100 calories of starch. You can look up the specific differences, but it's pretty similar. Starch, for example, is about 10% more energy dense than glucose, as the bond is formed by removing a water molecule. 100 grams of starch is equivalent to about 110 grams of glucose. Then energy doesn't chance much, but the weight decreases. Technically, nutritional labels would incorrectly assign 400 Calories to the starch, and 440 Calories to the glucose, although both should actually be ~415 Calories.

There are questions as to how efficiently different sources of Calories get used in the body. These questions were considered when they developed nutritional labelling. The result is that any difference is apparently too small to measure, although 'too small' is pretty big when it comes to humans.

For the question of overall health, such as the difference between everyday having either 500 Calories of beer and 500 Calories of apples, will greatly depend on many things besides nutrition. The relative metabolic effect of disease (cancer has a big effect on weight), general satisfaction with your diet (do happy people burn more calories without intentional effort?), or any number of tangential effects (what if you go apple picking?) would have to be considered.

If the military hasn't bothered to try and figure it out, I'd guess that any difference is small enough to be unimportant as far as diet planning goes.

 

[Prometheus]

What you've just described is the dictionary definition of "conflate". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflate

No, it is not. And I'll just refer you back to your own link, since the definition presented there is in no way similar to what I said. Melding two different ideas together is simply not anything like abreviating a noun phrase which describes a single idea regardless of whether or not the abbreviated version also happens to have another available meaning.

The fact of the matter is that "calorie" is a quantitative measure, not a qualitative one. Whether beer is better for you than candy is a qualitative assessment, not a quantitative one. Conflating the two only leads to confusion, thus it is ill advised.

Since this is not what I, nor anyone else using the abbreviation in question, is doing, your advice is disregarded.

In a discussion that touches upon the mistakes people make when thinking about or talking about foods and their various properties, insisting upon clarity and accuracy of statements is not pedantic.

Good. I'm glad you see the error of your ways and will now start to use the term "calorie" as it is correctly being used in this context, as an abbreviation for a noun phrase which is not the same thing as the strict scientific definition of calorie.

Also, when discussing scientific subjects, agreement upon terms is integral. What with "calorie" being a scientific term, I don't think it's pedantic at all to call someone on it when they're diverging from the commonly accepted scientific meaning.

If everyone here were writing for an audience of scientists in a professional journal, this would be correct. However, in the somewhat less formal venue we have here, it's just pedantic. I don't think it's at all inappropriate to call someone pedantic when they're diverging from the commonly accepted informal connotation of a term and insist on a strict definition that is only appropriate to another context.

 

[Prometheus]

Nice post, and I agree. I also think it's ludicrous to suggest that anyone doesn't realise that the same number of calories from different sources will offer different amounts of nutrition, so I don't really see the point of the OP.

If the OP is talking about weight loss/gain/maintenance then yes, 1 calorie of energy from one food source is the same amount of energy as 1 calorie from another food source, and your body will store/make use of the energy as efficiently from one source as the other.

This last statement is in dispute. At least one of the studies linked in the other thread concludes that this is not the case.

 

[Tatyana]

I think I got this from a physiological text book however this is the difference in the calories thing:

Fat = 100 % of the calories taken in are available for metabolism

Carbs = approximately 90-94% of the calories are available for metabolism, the 'lost' calories are due to the digestion process

Fat = 85-90% of the calories eaten are available for metabolism.

Some people also state that the hormonal milieu will be different if you eat only one type of macronutrient, however people rarely do this.

The composition of your body may end up slightly different if you eat only one macronutrient, however, if you want to lose weight, if you eat fewer calories than you need, regardless of where the calories come from, you will lose weight.

I have lost weight on a holiday diet of Stella Atois with one meal a day. I was too busy the rest of the time to be bothered to eat.

I have also put on weight eating healthy, low fat foods, and on a vegetarian, low protein diet. It was all about the calories.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Calories are a unit of measure. Units of measure are indeed separate from the objects they are measuring.
...
You are conflating energy concentration with nutritional value, which is ill advised.

What you say only makes sense, Skeptichick, if Typicallucas were talking about the definition of calorie. But that is obviously not what the OP is about. And you know that because you have been reading in the thread that spawned this one.

In high school I learned about the calories per gram of sugar, fat and protein. In college I learned about the actual physiology of food and nutrients consumed through eating. Surprise, the high school version was grossly oversimplified.


Food has intricately complex effects within the human body that go well beyond just the energy content per gram.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That would depend greatly on what properties you are comparing. If you're comparing calories, then 100-calories of X is the same as 100-calories of Y. If you're comparing something else (e.g. weight), then they might be very different. For example, 200-calories of Reese's Creamy Peanut Butter is 29.574 ml, whereas 200-calories of Pepsi is 473.333 ml. They're different by volume but the same by calories.

Not if the body processes those food calories differently, which it does.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Nice post, and I agree. I also think it's ludicrous to suggest that anyone doesn't realise that the same number of calories from different sources will offer different amounts of nutrition, so I don't really see the point of the OP.

If the OP is talking about weight loss/gain/maintenance then yes, 1 calorie of energy from one food source is the same amount of energy as 1 calorie from another food source, and your body will store/make use of the energy as efficiently from one source as the other.

What spawned the OP is a 'discussion' in another thread where the impact of foods we consume is being completely discounted while claims are made it doesn't matter what form you consume calories in, the effect is limited only to the actual calorie value of the food.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
There are questions as to how efficiently different sources of Calories get used in the body.

Which contradicts your previous statement that regardless of the source the calorie will be processed the same once eaten.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think I got this from a physiological text book however this is the difference in the calories thing:

Fat = 100 % of the calories taken in are available for metabolism

Carbs = approximately 90-94% of the calories are available for metabolism, the 'lost' calories are due to the digestion process

Fat = 85-90% of the calories eaten are available for metabolism.

Some people also state that the hormonal milieu will be different if you eat only one type of macronutrient, however people rarely do this.

The composition of your body may end up slightly different if you eat only one macronutrient, however, if you want to lose weight, if you eat fewer calories than you need, regardless of where the calories come from, you will lose weight.

I have lost weight on a holiday diet of Stella Atois with one meal a day. I was too busy the rest of the time to be bothered to eat.

I have also put on weight eating healthy, low fat foods, and on a vegetarian, low protein diet. It was all about the calories.

In addition to direct energy consumption, different foods can also alter liver processes, hormone production and release/uptake, appetite, and so on. One needs to consider more than simply the effect of the calories within the food you are consuming.

 

[Roboramma]

What spawned the OP is a 'discussion' in another thread where the impact of foods we consume is being completely discounted while claims are made it doesn't matter what form you consume calories in, the effect is limited only to the actual calorie value of the food.

Well, in that case I think that the people you're arguing with are being silly. If I get my breakfast calories from a cup of coffee with milk, I'm certainly more likely to be active for the rest of the day than if I got the same number of calories from a cup of herbal tea.

But from simple basic principles we can't really say anything about the degree of those sorts of effects, or whether they are or aren't worth considering when planning one's diet with respect to weight gain/loss/maintenance.

So I bow out to those who know more in regards to the specifics of the science, if it's been adequately studied at all at this point.

It's certainly true that if food choices have an effect on appetite and activity levels*, it makes sense to consider those effects when making dietary choices.

*by activity levels here I mean the ease with which one makes the choice to be active or not, or the average activity levels of those who make those particular dietary choices.

 

[Roboramma]

This last statement is in dispute. At least one of the studies linked in the other thread concludes that this is not the case.

Hm, when I think about it, it makes sense that it might not be the case. Thanks.

 

[quarky]

While camping in an orange orchard, I decided to go on an orange 'fast'. I ate nothing but oranges for 2 weeks, sometimes 30/day; a huge amount of calories.
I was not working during this experiment; mostly just hanging out by a river.
I lost a lot of weight, which wasn't even a goal.

The nature of the food was more than mere calories.
The large % of fiber; the ph; the tendency towards flushing the bowels, etc, makes this equation different than simply adding up the potential energy available.
It doesn't always work that way.

I invite anyone to get fat eating apples. All you can eat. Add up the calories.
There's other factors at play.

 

[Roboramma]

Quarky, I did something similar with mangoes when I was living in india one time: they were only a few rupees / kg which is horrendously cheap, so I just started eating nothing but mangoes.

I don't recall gaining any weight on several kilos of mangoes/day either. I did get sick of mangoes, though.

 

[Dilb]

Which contradicts your previous statement that regardless of the source the calorie will be processed the same once eaten.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Calories are the same when burned in a fire. Dietary fibre is the main exception: the fact that cellulose and chitin burn, but clearly aren't digested, means nutritional labels are allowed to not count fibre when estimating Calories from carbohydrates.