dry goods | how to easily handle calories in your daily diet?

Sometimes when chatting with some friends, I often mention kilocalories:

"Plan 300 kilocalories for your breakfast, don't overeat."

"To lose 2 pounds a week, keep your daily calorie intake to 1450 kilocalories and exercise twice a week."

Kilocalories... Calories... Joules...

What are these things? How do I know how many calories are in these foods??

Today, let's talk about how to easily manage the calories in our daily diet?~~

Generally speaking, energy comes in various forms. For example, sunlight is light energy, burning coal is chemical energy, and boiling water is thermal energy.

Our bodies cannot directly use all forms of energy. We mostly convert the energy from plants and animals into substances our bodies can store and use. For instance, we can't directly use the thermal energy from hot water, but if we drink hot chicken soup, the fats and amino acids in the soup are absorbed by our intestines and converted into other energy substances, stored as fat tissue for future use.

How do we measure the calories in food?

In international units, we use joules (J) to measure energy. However, for food energy, we often use calories (cal), which is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1g of water by 1 degree Celsius at 1 atmosphere pressure. Practically, we place food in a sealed calorimeter, burn it completely to produce carbon dioxide and water, and measure the total energy released to estimate the energy conversion in the body.

For example, burning 1g of carbohydrates releases 16.72KJ of energy, raising the temperature of 1000g of water by 4 degrees Celsius, which means1g of carbohydrates = 16.72 kilojoules = 4 kilocalories.

From this, we know: 1 kilocalorie = 4.18 kilojoules.

Similarly, we can deduce that 1g of protein = 16.72 kilojoules = 4 kilocalories; 1g of fat = 37.62 kilojoules = 9 kilocalories.

Thus, if we know the nutritional content of food, we can quickly determine its calorie content.

Two methods:

① 100ml of milk has 271KJ = 271 ÷ 4.18 = 64.8 kilocalories.

② 100ml of milk's calories = protein × 4 + carbohydrates × 4 + fat × 9 = 3.1 × 4 + 5 × 4 + 3.6 × 9 = 64.8 kilocalories.

A 250ml box of milk has 64.8 × 2.5 = 162 kilocalories.

Some friends sometimes mistake KJ for kilocalories, thinking 100ml has 271 kilocalories, which scares them! Actually, they haven't understood the conversion between kilojoules and kilocalories.

How to roughly judge the calorie content of food?

Okay~ From the above calculations, it's clear that if we know the protein, carbohydrate, and fat content of food, we can determine its calorie content with simple multiplication and addition.

But in real life, we can't carry food labels or scales everywhere. Is there anygeneral ruleto help us judge the calorie content of food?

Of course there is~~ Here's a tip from Teacher He:

1. Check the food label on packaged foods

When choosing products in the supermarket, look at the food label. Divide the total calories in the first line by 4 to get the approximate kilocalories.

For example, the following two foods:

500ml of iced tea has (5 × 173 ÷ 4.18) 206 kilocalories, while sugar-free oolong tea has no calories.

Checking the food label can help make rational food choices and reduce unnecessary calorie intake (especially sugary drinks).

2. Foods with more water tend to have lower calories.

Because water has no calories~ Generally, the higher the water content, the lower the calories. For example, in fruits:

Fresh fruits like durian and longan have low water content but high calories, with 100g containing 147 kilocalories and 317 kilocalories respectively.

High-water fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe have only 31 kilocalories and 34 kilocalories per 100g.

Not to mention dried fruits soaked in sugar, which have even lower water content and can easily exceed 300 kilocalories per 100g.

3. Fried or deep-fried staple foods generally have high calories

1g of fat provides 9 kilocalories, so fried staple foods should be minimized during weight loss, opting instead for whole grains and steamed or boiled staples.

For example, the traditional Chinese breakfast—fried dough sticks are made by deep-frying dough.

100g of fried dough sticks contains about 20g of fat, with around 400 kilocalories. Pairing fried dough sticks with soy milk and buns can easily exceed 600 kilocalories for breakfast, which might be too much.

The 400 kilocalories from 100g of fried dough sticks can be replaced with:

A box of milk (163 kilocalories) + an egg (80 kilocalories) + a small corn (80 kilocalories) + a steamed bun (80 kilocalories).

Common fried staple foods include egg pancakes, baked flatbread, fried brown sugar glutinous rice cakes, and pan-fried dumplings.

It's not about completely avoiding these foods, but reducing high-calorie foods can help maintain weight loss results.

4. Think more about the nutritional content of food

Quickly estimating food calories is a skill. Nutritionists need extensive training and experience to master it. Sometimes, thinking about the nutritional content of food can break some misconceptions and avoid unknowingly consuming too many calories.

For example, many people think eating pig skin and chicken feet supplements collagen, assuming they are high in protein and low in fat like lean pork or chicken.

But that's not true. For example, three normal-sized chicken feet have about 100g of edible parts, containing 254 kilocalories and over 30g of fat.

If the chicken feet are fried and then steamed with black bean sauce, the calories are even higher~~

So, when choosing meat, opt for lean meat, fish, and shrimp, which are high in protein and low in fat, to help maintain weight.

Finally, a gift for everyone:

Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime!

Get a free copy of the "Dietary Energy Self-Control Atlas"!

This book calculates and photographs the calories of common foods and dishes, providing visual references to help estimate food calories.

For example:

How to get it:

Follow the WeChat public account [Codoon Health] and reply "calories" to get the link to this book!

As always, apart from health, everything else is fleeting. Let's make a health commitment!"Click to participate"