Our Love-Hate Relationship with Calories
SEASON 1 EPISODE 1
In the first episode of Neighbourhood Nutritionist, we look at the concept of calories, where it came from, how useful it is, and whether or not we should still be using calories.
To kick this off, I asked a few people what they thought of calories:
I do try to look out for when I tried to cook at home. But the challenge that I find with calories always is when looking at it in workouts and trying to figure out how much calories or workout burns. Because that's the that's the disconnect that I find all the time.
So calories don't really mean much to me, except that when I finish a workout, I look at the numbers, which is the calories that I burned. And then I eat just as much afterwards. So yes, just really number matching to me.
I never really look at the numbers of calories that the only numbers I look out on food are to see that I get as many grammes of protein as I do have fat. Yeah, I don't really care about calories on their own.
Calories to me mean a number that is attributed to food that gives some sort of nutritional count or energy value.
When I think about calories, I think about fat. Food that makes me fat. So when I when I look up for it, I hold items to when I look back and I see the colour continent is thinking, Oh no, this is bad. So the bigger the colour us, the higher the colour is the the more tendency I have to drop them really fast. Because I just think well the fact that you're consuming this goes into my belly, goes into my stomach and just makes me really fat.
I would say calories are a value that denotes how much energy is released when a substance is burned.
Calories to me mean energy. calories to my family are the enemy. I genuinely don't know when a calorie is good or bad, but I do know that like you should look out for carbs or sugary foods.
So that's really interesting, right? Seems like quite a few people actually didn't care about calories at all. And some even mentioned paying more attention to other macronutrients. Then why would so many weight loss programmes around the world including the UK government's latest obesity strategy plays so much attention on calories, and does it work?
Where did the term ‘calories’ come from?
Let's first look at how the word came into our everyday language. Now, calories were first used to measure the efficiency of steam engines. One calorie is equivalent to the energy required to heat one kilogramme of water by one degree Celsius. The word actually comes from the Latin word calor, meaning heat.
In the 18th century calories were first used to describe the energy that fuels the body in the same way than wood fields of fire. But it wasn't until the 1860s that calories are used to measure the energy and food and the energy expended by the body. And then in the 1890s, it was established that a gram of carbohydrate or protein provided four calories of energy, while a gram of fat provided nine calories. These have actually remained the standard for measuring the calories in foods. Now just for those who are interested, as a comparison alcohol provides you seven calories of energy per gram.
In the 1860s the term entered the English language coming over from French physics text, and then in the following 20, 30 years it was introduced to the American public. The key driving force behind the calories popularity is actually this other guy called Professor Wilbur Atwater.
Now, remember, we were saying that in the 1890s, it was established that, you know, a gram of carbohydrate or protein gave you four calories of energy, and so on. Around the same time, Atwater and his team started looking into the calorie content of over 500 foods in order to figure out a scientific and healthy way of maintaining weight.
By the early 1900s, he's actually become one of the leading authorities in dietary intake. And he had a very simple principle, cut out excess and ensure a balance between foods, which is pretty much what we go with now. However, it actually took some time before the idea of calorie counting really became popular.
Now another key person in this journey is a lady called Lulu Hunt Peters. In 1918, Lulu started working on a diet book targeted towards American women, with a concept that calorie counting was an effective way of losing weight. For years, Lulu had written a number of newspaper columns, including for the Central Press Association called Diet and Health, which was gaining a lot of popularity with middle-aged American women. So she started putting all her writing into one neat volume. This became her first and only book and calorie counting called Diet and Health, with a key focus on the calories. This is also one of the first modern day dieting bestsellers.
In the 1930s calories had become fundamental to the way people and governments thought about food. For example, after first world war, the US Food Administration actually encouraged Americans to ration foods shipped off to allied countries, reassuring them that they could ration food and still have enough calories every day. To consume more calories and recommended would actually mean undermining the war effort and physiological efficiency. And in New York City, they went one step further. Restaurants who were eager to show off their patriotism even started showing calorie counts on their menus.
Up until the beginning of the 20th century, being plump was great. It was beautiful and it symbolised wealth. On the contrary, thinness was associated with illness or poverty. Now during the Victorian era, people really sought after this hourglass figure with a cinched waist and wide hips, which I guess might be coming back into fashion now.
But by the 1920s, the flapper era meant people really preferred to be flat-chested, narrow hips and long-legged, whereas any kind of bulk in size tended to remind people of attributes like dominance, aggression, you know, a mix of masculinity, but at the same time kind of matronliness (if that's even a word).
Recently in the UK, the government has been raising awareness of health issues related to obesity. And for those who haven't read it or don't know about it, here are a few points on their website about what they're planning to do.
First, they're going to ban TV and online adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt before 9pm. So this is really to target children who might be more susceptible to these adverts and be more attracted to eating these foods. They're also planning to end deals like ‘buy one get one free’ on unhealthy foods that are high in salt, sugar and fat. Now, they're also talking about displaying calories and menus to help people make healthier choices when eating out, while alcoholic drinks could soon have to list hidden liquid calories as well. (Remember, earlier on I told you that alcohol gave you seven calories per gram.) Lastly, they're also going to launch a new campaign to help people lose weight, get active and eat better after the COVID-19 wake up call.
So how does calorie counting actually work?
Now it should be a relatively straightforward way of managing your diet and your weight. Because technically speaking, if you're eating less than what you're expending, you should be losing weight. If we just look at calorie counting as a weight loss method, you can first find out how many calories your body needs while at rest. So this is what your body burns even when you're sleeping. And we call this the basal metallic rate. Sometimes you might see it shortened to BMR.
Now remember, this is completely different to BMI, which is the body mass index, which is essentially a ratio between your height and your weight. And that's a completely different thing. So this is the basal metabolic rate.
Now, you then look at your physical activity level, which means, you know, do you exercise a lot? Do you walk a lot every day? And you can easily Google a formula to figure this out.
And once you find out how many calories your body needs in total, a lot of diets would recommend going in a deficit of about 500 calories, which means eating 500 calories less than what you would normally need. And normally, losing about half a kilo per week is considered a healthy rate.
Just a reminder as well - the calories we refer to when talking about food is actually calorie with a capital C. Or sometimes you would see it as kCal/kilocalorie, which is actually 1000 calories.
Back to calorie counting. What does 100 calories look like? I found a list of quite useful comparisons on the British Heart Foundation website. So 100 calories look like
Just a little over a tablespoon of olive oil
A level tablespoon of mayonnaise
A thick spread of butter on your bread, which is just under a tablespoon (15g)
A matchbox sized piece of cheddar
4 heaped teaspoons of sugar
2 Gingernut biscuits and
About 10% of a tube of crisps.
Now, some of these I found quite interesting, because you would think that olive oil is healthy compared to something like mayonnaise, for example, or the four spoons of sugar. So you can see why calorie counting may not actually be that comprehensive when it when we're looking at eating healthily.
Quality over Quantity
One thing to really pay attention to is that calorie counting does not look into the quality of the calories. As I was mentioning the comparison between olive oil and something like mayonnaise, I want you to imagine having 2000 calories worth of ice cream, versus 2000 calories worth of a balanced meal with some chicken fish or any protein of your choice vegetables, and some slow burning carbs, it's pretty easy to see that the nutrients you would get from the latter would be much preferred over eating 2000 calories of ice cream.
There's also a few interesting points for you to think about. So just a few years ago, for example, and an article on the Spectator life publication, people were still talking about how we're actually consuming fewer calories than before. As a reference point, wartime rationing in the UK was providing adults around 3000 calories per day. I do know many people who hit that number daily. But these are generally pretty active men. Of course, these kinds of data does get affected by under reporting. But what I would like everyone to think about is how much less we're moving now compared to 20-30 years ago.
Yes, working out is super popular now. But not everybody works out and people didn't used to have as many lifts and escalators, or shopping delivered to your door. So I can imagine that the average person was probably more active back then. Now, if you go and Google UK calorie intake, you'll find loads of results pointing out that the reason for this seemingly conflicting information is actually because they're underestimating our calorie intake.
And the food industry has a responsibility as well. Portion sizes have increased over the years. Some examples I read include individual chicken pies, which are now 40%, larger than in 1983 and individual chicken curry meals that are 54% larger.
Now for those who were eating such items back then, I would love to hear from you if you agree that portion sizes have increased over time.
Also, some of these recommended serving sizes are pretty unrealistic. For example, a pizza may have over 1000 calories, but the recommended serving size would be a quarter of it, which makes the calorie count much more reasonable than who eats a quarter of a pizza. If we go to any pizza joint, you'd expect to order a pizza each and maybe get some sides. We can have a whole other episode on what part of the food industry is playing and our healthcare.
Key Takeaways
First, calorie doesn't take into account quality.
Second, calorie counting is not the only way to lose weight effectively.
And lastly, calorie requirements can be very different between people.
So don't blindly follow calorie deficit diets without research and consulting a professional. Given that the term calorie originated from a pretty mechanical context, I think we should be very mindful that this is just one way of measuring food. And if we want to look at our health in a more holistic and sustainable way, we should also be looking into how active we are, and the quality of the food that we're eating.
